Conservative Candidate for Mayor of London, Zac Goldsmith MP, this week vowed to “use every tool” at his disposal to prevent Jewish Londoners from questioning their future in London.
During an appearance at the Redbridge Jewish Community Centre on Tuesday, Mr Goldsmith referred to the record number of Jews leaving France for Israel due to anti-Semitism. The Conservative Mayoral candidate said: “If I’m elected Mayor I will do everything I possibly can using every single tool at my disposal to ensure that we don’t go the way of France, that no-one ever in this great City, ever even has to question whether they have a future in this city. There’s an enormous amount the Mayor can do”.
Underlining that the eradication of hate crime should be a priority for the Metropolitan Police, Goldsmith added: “When you have people hurling chairs through university windows because people are debating an issue relating to Israel, the authorities jump on it and they find the people responsibility and they prosecute them and if they’re part of a university they ensure that those people are expelled from that university”.
On the so-called Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), Mr Goldsmith said: “The BDS movement in my view is often a cover for a much older campaign that has been raging over the centuries and it’s called anti-Semitism….As a London MP I’m confronted with activists from the BDS movement…and I have no doubt at its heart there’s often something quite sinister there”.
On the same day, Mr Goldsmith met with Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis at his home, where he said that he “enjoyed an enlightening discussion with Rabbi Mirvis about London, faith, and how I can help stand up for the Jewish community if elected Mayor of London”.
