The Shadow Home Secretary has demanded laws on inciting racial hatred should be tightened in Britain following the Bondi Beach massacre.
Chris Philp, joining Camilla Tominey on GB News, condemned the atrocity on the channel, adding that British Jews have “grave concerns for their safety”.
Twelve people are confirmed dead and many others injured after two gunmen opened fire at the Sydney beach on Sunday night, the first night of Hanukkah.
New South Wales Police premier Chris Minns has since declared the horrific event to be a terrorist attack, where members of the Jewish community were targeted.
Discussing the horror on the People’s Channel, Mr Philp told Camilla: “I think members of the Jewish community up and down the UK do have very grave concerns about their safety.
“I understand why: we saw just a few weeks ago at the synagogue in Manchester in Heaton Park, an Islamist extremist targeting attacking and murdering members of Britain’s Jewish community simply because they’re Jewish, and he was perpetrating an Islamist terrorist atrocity.”
He acknowledged members of the Jewish community in Britain “will feel unsafe” in the aftermath of the Sydney shooting.
“I think it’s our responsibility, or the Government’s responsibility, to redouble efforts to protect the Jewish community and to fight antisemitism,” he told Camilla.
Chris Philp joined Camilla on GB News on Sunday
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“Because it starts with antisemitism, and then it escalates into acts of terrorist violence, like we saw in Manchester a few weeks ago,” Mr Philp continued.
“And potentially, I do say potentially, like we may be seeing in Australia now.”
Last month, Syrian-born UK citizen Jihad al-Shamie drove his car into groups of worshippers who had gathered to celbrate the holy day of Yom Kippur.
He proceeded to attack others with a knife and attempted to barge inside Heaton Park Hebrew Synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester.
A heavy police presence remains in Bondi in the wake of the horrific attack
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Armed policed shot the attacker dead after he rampaged towards officers “aggressively” while carrying a knife.
Mr Philp continued to rage against violence thrown at the Jewish community, condemning chants like “globalise the intifada” and using similar slogans.
He said: “They meed to stop using that kind of language, when we see antisemitism being rampant and we see terrorist attacks against the Jewish community, including, as I say here in the UK just a few weeks ago.”
He added: “I think language that incites racial hatred, that’s illegal already, and those laws should be policed a lot more robustly, first of all.
“Secondly, any language which incites violence should be expressly prohibited. And things like calling for jihad or calling for Intifada, those are, in my view, directly calling for acts of violence.”
He claimed that if the law needs to be tightened to make such a clarification, the Government should do so.
“Anything which calls for violence is, in my view, frankly, not acceptable. And both jihad and intifada are essentially violent acts, and nobody should be calling for violence in public in a country like the UK,” the Croydon MP added.
He further said foreign citizens on visas should have their papers revoked if they deploy language which supports terrorism, extremism or incites hatred “in any way”.
“They should be kicked out of the country, kicked out of the UK, because there is no place in the UK for extremism, for antisemitism or for expressing support for terrorism or hatred,” he finished.