Israel lobby brings down West Mids chief Craig Guildford

West Midlands chief constable Craig Guildford has taken early retirement after a relentless campaign by the Israel lobby to oust him for daring to ban racist thugs from attending a football match between Aston Villa and Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Craig Guildford taken out by the Israel lobby

Craig Guildford’s force made minor process errors in reaching the decision to bar Maccabi ‘fans’ from Birmingham and UK media and politicians misrepresented the fans’ racist rampage through Amsterdam in 2025 as an ‘antisemitic pogrom’ against the fans. But the decision to ban was absolutely sound – and has been utterly borne out by later events.

Maccabi fans were banned from a recent European football fixture for their violence and racism; Israeli authorities cancelled their game with a rival Israeli team for their violence and racism; they attacked Arabs in Israel just this weekl the club was fined by UEFA for its fans racism and violence. To name but a few.

But the Israel lobby wants what the Israel lobby wants – and UK politicians and media have to provide it at any cost.

But Jews who oppose the mass slaughter of Palestinians and the theft of their land know better.

Obvious

Jewish Voice for Liberation (JVL), a group that stands against Israel’s apartheid and genocide, spoke out in support of Craig Guildford today. In a letter to West Midlands police and crime commissioner Simon Foster, JVL said that Guildford’s decision to impose the ban had been “entirely appropriate” and that complaints about minor errors were irrelevant to the real issue:

We believe that Chief Constable Guildford had to make a very difficult decision in the midst of confusing
and contradictory reports about the behaviour of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans at previous matches, in particular
in Amsterdam. It seems obvious to us that there would have been a substantial risk of serious disorder
if the Maccabi fans had been allowed to attend the game, and we are astonished that no mention of
this risk is being made in the present complaints against Chief Constable Guildford. In November 2024
there was serious disorder in Amsterdam due to the presence of Maccabi fans. Whether they were the
instigators of the trouble, or merely its victims, should not be the only concern. There was violence, and
it would have been avoided had the Maccabi fans not attended. It seems that the reporting of the violent
incidents was sensationalised by journalists and others on both sides. Initial reports, endorsed by the
Mayor of Amsterdam, described it as an antisemitic pogrom, but this was later called into question when
film footage emerged of Maccabi fans rampaging through the streets and chanting deeply unpleasant
racist slogans. The Mayor of Amsterdam herself apologised for her earlier description of the event as
antisemitic.

But the precise details of how many taxis were vandalised, how many people were thrown into the river,
and by whom, and how many Palestinian flags were pulled down, should not be the primary concern.
There was plenty of evidence that the Maccabi fans could be violent. And indeed, only weeks after the
decision to ban their attendance at Aston Villa, a Maccabi Tel Aviv match against another Tel Aviv team
had to be called off after violent rioting before kick-off. And just today, footage has emerged of more
violence from Maccabi fans against Palestinians.

Given the evidence of danger, and given the fog of misinformation, it seems to us entirely appropriate to
have prevented the attendance of the Maccabi fans. The Chief Constable has been criticised, in particular
by Sir Andy Cooke, on purely procedural grounds which pay no attention at all to whether his decision
was correct, though this is surely the more important consideration. While procedural failings should be
attended to, the fact that the Chief Constable arrived at the correct decision surely should carry more
weight.

All this is to leave aside the anxieties that members of Birmingham’s large Muslim community will have felt
at the presence in their streets and neighbourhoods of a substantial contingent of Maccabi fans. After all,
the Israeli Defence Force was and is still perpetrating an internationally acknowledged genocide1, against
Palestinians in Gaza, and the Maccabi fans include many soldiers from the IDF. Their chant (in Hebrew)
“there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left”, audible on footage of the Amsterdam

Another victim

The attack, to protect Israel’s interests, on a chief constable who did the right thing is entirely typical for the Starmer regime. Starmer has waged, and continues to wage, a shameless war on British rights and freedoms to protect Israel. He continues to attempt to criminalise those who speak out or resist – even journalists doing their job – and is holding peaceful activists in prison without trial, some for more than a year and a half with another year and a half at least to go before they are released.

Craig Guildford is just the latest victim in that war.

Featured image via the Canary