No reasonable person would say that attacking someone physically by way of an unprovoked attack on the grounds of the victims religion, is acceptable. In fact most people would say that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable. An adherent of a recognised religion should have the right to be able to live in safety. In my view that applies to everyone of faith no matter what the faith.

However that right to live in peace seems to be less than comprehensive and less evenly respected in Sadiq Khan’s London. Violence and the fear and risk of violence in general has increased under Khan’s watch. There have been thirty street murders, mostly of young Black men, in 2021 and it looks like the number of murders might be equally high this year. Already there have been at least three knife killings on the streets of London already this year.

But as well as the on going slaughter of young people in London there is the rise in inter group violence. By inter-group violence I mean those occasions where one minority group physically attack members of another minority group and where it can be proven to a reasonable degree using evidence and not mere perception, that the violence had a racial or religious motivation. For years there’s been tension and violence between different groups in London such as that between Sikh and Muslim. London does have tension between different groups and this is leading to religious and racial violence and I really don’t see it getting better any time soon.

Some of London’s Jewish communities such as that of Stamford Hill seem to have attracted a diversity of anti-Jewish nutters who seem to come from a variety of racial backgrounds. There’s been at least two Asians to my knowledge who have been linked to violence against Jews in the area in recent years and it is certainly clear that the sort of nutters who are heading to or live near Stamford Hill mostly do not seem to fit the stereotype of the far right skinhead that we are told are the primary Jew haters.

The latest case of anti Jewish violence to occur in Stamford Hill which I saw on the Imam of Peace’s social media feed, also appears to have been committed not by who we have been told are ‘the usual suspects’, the far right white skinhead, but a member of another minority. The video, which was apparently shot last Wednesday, which is embedded below shows what is quite plainly something that appears very much to be an unprovoked attack.

This attack has resulted in an arrest. The Shomrim, a sort of Jewish neighbourhood watch scheme, managed to secure the CCTV, publicise it and get the police to act did good work here. I wonder how long it would have taken the Met to act on this without the input of the Shomrim? This is because the Met do sometimes need a kick up the arse to act.

The man who was arrested for his alleged part in this attack has been charged and therefore named. According to press reports he is ‘Malaki Thorpe, 18, of Fairview Road in Tottenham’. The report added that Thorpe ‘has been charged with two counts of racially aggravated actual bodily harm and one count of possession of an offensive weapon’.

Whilst I cannot due to sub judice reasons comment too much on his actual case as it is now live, I will however make an observation. What this case and other cases of violence against Jews in Stamford Hill show is that the Jewish community there is not to a great extent at present at risk from violence coming from neo-Nazis or other similar undesirables, that risk is still there but it’s less than the other risks. What risk this community does face is violence from other minorities. These minority attackers may have been brought up with anti-Jewish conspiracy theories since birth whether they be they religion based ones that circulate more widely in the Islamic communities than elsewhere or more secular ones such as ‘the Jews controlled the slave trade’ conspiracy theory which has been circulated by some elements on the British far Left. What the Stamford Hill incidents show is that arseholes come in all forms and colours and that the issue of inter communal hatreds between minorities needs to be debated more as it is looking as if it will be an increasing problem. Inter group violence doesn’t only come one way or go one way it can go in any direction, any group against any other group.

Khan’s London is disintegrating into a place where rather than everybody try to get along instead everywhere and everybody is getting siloised and tribalised and where groups that have existing or historical animosities get those divisions fed by policies both the policies of the Mayor and multiculturalist policies in general, that treat Londoner’s as members of groups rather than as individuals. I used to live near Stamford Hill in the early part of this century and I do not recall it as being as violent for Jews as it is now. There were always arseholes on the street, it’s London after all, it’s full of arseholes, some of them pissed or mentally ill, but I don’t think I ever felt physically unsafe in Stamford Hill. I could walk from St Anns Road near where I lived to my synagogue or go shopping or to a pub without too much I the way of fear. I’m really not sure I could do that there now.

Khan’s London is increasingly being dominated by hate filled thugs. The objects of their violent hatred may differ from group of thugs to group of thugs, but the reality of Khan’s London is that it is now not so much a melting pot but rather a patchwork of antagonistic groups. I’d rather live as a Jew where I live, despite all the inconveniences and compromises that being a semi-rural Jew involves, than live in London. At least where I am nobody’s had a serious go at us since 1290 and that looks like better safety odds than living in London at the moment.