Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, said Saturday that police and authorities may need to take tougher action against some pro-Palestinian protests in the U.K., warning that certain chants could justify bans. Starmer said he would continue to defend the right to protest but suggested that repeated demonstrations protesting the war in Gaza can have a “cumulative effect” linked to the rise in antisemitic incidents in the country. He made the remarks after authorities said British Jews faced heightened risk following a stabbing attack in London.
Starmer pointed to chants at some protests, telling the BBC that “globalize the intifada” was one he would “pick out” as a phrase that warranted tougher action. The prime minister said the Arabic word “intifada” is generally translated as “uprising.”
The comments came after police said two Jewish men were stabbed and wounded on Wednesday in Golders Green, a London neighborhood described as an epicenter of Britain’s Jewish community. Police said a 45-year-old man was charged Friday with attempted murder in connection with the attack, which police called an act of terrorism.
Britain’s terror threat level was raised from “substantial” to “severe” after the Wednesday stabbing, which the government said is the second-highest level on a five-point scale and means intelligence agencies consider an attack highly likely in the next six months. The government said the level change was not due only to Golders Green but also reflected increased danger from “Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the U.K.”
Police officials also warned of the breadth of threats aimed at Jewish people in Britain. Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, said British Jews are now the target of every extremist group spreading hate, describing a “ghastly Venn diagram” that places Jews at the intersection of threats from groups he said span from the extreme right to the extreme left and from Islamist extremists to “right-wing terrorist” groups, along with threats he linked to hostile states.
The episode has also unfolded alongside a wider pattern of attacks and vandalism reported by officials and Jewish community monitors, including arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in London. The Community Security Trust charity said the number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has risen since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, recording 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.