Shadow home secretary: Amsterdam antisemitic thugs should be deported if here illegally

The newly-appointed shadow home secretary Chris Philp MP has described the attacks on Israeli football fans in Amsterdam as “evil, sickening” and “overtly antisemitic violence”.

Philp, who was appointed by opposition leader Kemi Badenoch to his role on Tuesday, told the JC: “Every decent person has a duty to fight the scourge of antisemitism using every means available. I hope that the full resources of Holland’s police are used to urgently arrest and prosecute those responsible.”

The Croydon South MP, who served as policing minister in Rishi Sunak’s government, added: “If any perpetrators have no right to be in Europe then I hope that they are deported.”

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he was “horrified by last night’s antisemitic attacks on Israeli citizens in Amsterdam”, in a post on X/Twitter.

He added: “I utterly condemn these abhorrent acts of violence and stand with Israeli and Jewish people across the world.”

The violent scenes in Amsterdam last night, which followed a Europa League football match clash between Israeli football team Maccabi Tel Aviv and Dutch side Ajax, saw masked groups, some waving Palestinian flags, reportedly targeting Israelis at several locations around Amsterdam after the match, including outside metro stations and hotels.

Videos circulating on social media saw groups of men filming themselves assaulting people in the Dutch capital.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof described last night’s events as “outrageous and abhorrent antisemitic attacks”.

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands told Israeli President Isaac Herzog: “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again."

Communal voices in the UK were quick to condemn the “pogrom”.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said the attacks “should be a watershed moment for Europe and for the world, when it realises how severe the scourge of anti-Jewish hatred has become”, and the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Chief Executive Karen Pollock agreed: "To see this on the eve of Kristallnacht where Jewish people were attacked, their homes, businesses and synagogues destroyed; and in the city of Anne Frank, must be a wake-up call for the authorities in European countries".

Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg said he would be speaking to the government to make sure similar targeted violence against Jews doesn’t take place in the UK.

The government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, Lord Walney, condemned the “sickening antisemitic violence” and said that the UK should be put on “high alert for the safety of Jewish people here”.

He suggested that the government treat calls to “globalise the intifada” – a chant by some pro-Palestine activists, seen by many as a call for violence – and direct-action group Palestine Action in a similar manner to the way it acted against far-right rioters in the aftermath of the killing of three young girls in Southport in July.

“Response to the August riots showed importance of restoring deterrence”, he said in a post on X/Twitter which showed graphic footage of a man being attacked by a mob on the streets of the Dutch capital.