Golders Green. Police have charged Essa Suleiman, a 45-year-old of Somali heritage, with attempted murder and declared the assault a terrorist incident. The stabbings were the latest in a series of violent acts since March. Synagogues and other Jewish institutions have been targeted with incendiary devices. Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, told a hastily convened summit in Downing Street on May 5th that the latest attack was “part of a pattern of rising antisemitism that has left our Jewish communities feeling frightened, angry and asking whether this country, their home, is safe for them”. Mr Suleiman was also accused of attempting to murder an acquaintance, Ishmail Hussein, in south London earlier on the same day as the stabbings in Golders Green. He seems to have had mental-health issues. More than a decade ago he had been jailed for attacking a police officer and dog. In 2020 he was referred to Prevent, the government’s counter-extremism programme (the case was closed). Many British Jews believe that frequent anti-war and anti-Israel protests in Britain have made antisemites bolder. Antisemitic incidents rose by 4% last year, according to the Community Security Trust, a charity which monitors them (see chart). The monthly average of 308 was double the average in the year before the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th 2023. (Incidents
driven by Islamist extremism account for only a small share of the total.) In a YouGov survey last September commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, 26% of Britons agreed with the trope that “Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media”, up from 18% a year earlier. What might be done? A first step is increased policing. Sir Keir has pledged a “visible” police presence around Jewish communities and an extra £25m ($34m) for security. Swifter prosecutions of hate crimes are also promised. A bevy of police officers now stand guard at the entrance to Golders Green Tube station. Millions of pounds in security funding, mostly private, has already made some of London’s Jewish sites resemble fortresses. Another area for action is countering state-sponsored terrorism. A new group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia has claimed responsibility for attacks against Jewish institutions in Britain and on the continent. Although it has not been formally linked to Iran, experts say its social-media presence has the marks of the militias its regime sponsors elsewhere. A complication, in Britain and beyond, is that at least some attacks are suspected of being the work of gig-economy criminals hired by hostile states like Iran and Russia. The thorniest question is what might be done to limit the racist hatred that flows through social media and has been heard at protest marches. Broader efforts to protect the public from harm, such as the Online Safety Act of 2023, have had mixed results. Britain should protect freedom of speech, Sir Keir said in a BBC interview on May 2nd, but people chanting “Globalise the intifada” should be prosecuted. In some cases, he said, protests should be banned (polling suggests that most Britons agree with him). That alarms those who think they should be free to express concerns about Gaza. And bans can backfire. Last July the government proscribed Palestine Action (PA), a protest group that had spray-painted military planes, as a terrorist organisation; thousands of people have been arrested for holding pro-PA placards at demonstrations. It has not stopped the spread of antisemitic attacks. Nor is the boundary between Jew-hatred and criticism of Israel clear: someone holding a “Free Gaza” sign is not automatically an antisemite.
After an attack on a Manchester synagogue in October that killed two people the government commissioned a review of public-order legislation, possibly with an eye to increasing its power to stop protests while maintaining protections for freedom of expression. It is already months late. History provides few easy solutions. Britain passed public-order legislation in 1936 in a bid to crack down on the British Union of Fascists. After the second world war it considered and eventually rejected on liberal grounds proposals to legislate against hate speech. Finally in the 1960s Parliament introduced the offence of “incitement to racial hatred” that remains part of the law today. Debates over a definition of anti-Muslim hostility unveiled in March are merely the latest proof that defining “hate speech”—let alone prohibiting it—is fiendishly tricky. But past steps did little to prevent vile ideas from spreading in Britain—nor were they the main reason such ideas have almost always failed to catch on. The waxing and waning of antisemitism in Britain has been detached from legal measures. Instead the peace British Jews and other minorities have enjoyed has largely come from living in a stable and tolerant society. Many Muslims and Jews prefer to oppose racism together. After the Golders Green stabbings, women from both communities staged a joint protest
against attacks directed at them. Greater awareness has prompted some pro- Palestinian activists to scrutinise their own ranks for antisemitism masquerading as solidarity. If matters worsen, more British Jews may consider leaving the country. In the 2010s some 38,000 French Jews moved to Israel amid rising antisemitism, peaking in 2015 after a deadly shooting at a kosher supermarket, according to the Jewish Agency, a charity. Others moved to Britain, believing it to be a safer place. In the nearly 370 years since they returned from medieval expulsion, British Jews have withstood serious bouts of antisemitism and violence, reckoning that much longer stretches of quiet outweighed them. For some, this time may prove different.■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//britain/2026/05/03/what-to-do-about-britains-rising- antisemitism
Britain’s teenagers deserve better help getting equipped to vote Time to invest in citizenship education May 7th 2026 “At 16, we can sleep with our MP,” ventured James Evans, in a 2009 UK Youth Parliament debate in the House of Commons, but “we are not mature enough to vote for them.” That is going to change, as legislation to lower the voting age to 16 makes its way through Parliament. Though Scotland and Wales already allow 16-year-olds to vote in devolved elections, Britain will become only the third European country, after Austria and Malta, to let them vote in national ones. Already, 16-year-olds pay tax, can leave home and join the armed forces (though they cannot be deployed). But “lowering the voting age is only half
the battle,” notes Christopher Pich of the University of Nottingham. The other half is increasing the quality of voters. Turnout among British youth is woeful. Just 37% of all 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the last general election in 2024, according to Ipsos, a pollster. That compares with 82% of 18- to 29-year-olds who voted in Sweden’s 2022 election. In a recent study, led by Alistair Ross of London Metropolitan University, of British 14- and 15-year-olds across 120 schools, a quarter of students had “no real idea” what Britain’s political parties stand for. Others were unclear about the mechanics of voting: how the first-past-the-post system works, what a constituency is or the need for photo-ID. Yet young people are twice as likely to plan to vote if they feel more informed about political issues, according to a survey in 2024 by Young Citizens, a charity. Citizenship education, which includes study of politics and democracy, was introduced to England’s curriculum only in 2002, following a review four years earlier. It was the last country in the civilised world to do so, according to the late Sir Bernard Crick, who led the review. It has rarely been a priority in crowded timetables since. And with 83% of secondary schools now academies or free schools that do not have to follow the national curriculum, provision is patchy. A House of Commons review of the 2024 general election recommended a “complete overhaul of political education”. Academies will soon have to follow the national curriculum and citizenship education will become compulsory for primary schools too. Ideally it is to be delivered as a weekly stand-alone subject at secondary level. Though understanding the basics of democratic systems is important, education types agree that the treatment of the subject in schools should be broader—Crick lambasted “amazingly boring” foreign curriculums that mandated learning the constitution by heart. Instead, a favoured approach is one that builds not just young people’s knowledge but their skills to discuss complex issues and to cut through misinformation. Hands-on experience helps. One example are the youth elections held in Norway and Finland, recently replicated in Britain by the Association for Citizenship Teaching. (“It’s like the fieldwork bit of
geography,” says Liz Moorse, the organisation’s chief). Students joined manifesto teams, campaign teams, even “comms” teams, and held an “election” on the same day as Britain’s general election in July 2024. Some 30,000 votes from 400 schools were registered; Labour triumphed over Reform UK. Big hurdles remain, however. Only 1% of teachers feel fully equipped to teach political literacy, according to a study of more than 3,000 teachers, led by James Weinberg of the University of Sheffield in 2021. The reforms to the curriculum that will make citizenship education more widespread will not be rolled out until September 2028, too late for students who will be eligible to vote in the next general election (which has to be held before August 2029). And some teachers worry that the subject can turn toxic. Impartiality when teaching about political parties is a minefield. It is “the first, second and last thing people talk to us about”, says Harriet Andrews, director of the Politics Project, which supports education in democracy for young people. Many controversial topics are avoided in schools as teachers are anxious about straying into politics. But according to a recent survey by The Economist Educational Foundation, an independent charity backed by The Economist, 61% of 15- to 17-year-olds say they would feel readier to vote if they knew more about different political views. And 44% say they do not feel ready to vote in the next election. ■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//britain/2026/05/07/britains-teenagers-deserve-better- help-getting-equipped-to-vote