A football ban for Jewish fans is a disgrace that shames Britain

Keir Starmer has to tread a fine line between telling West Midlands Police how to do their job and expressing his – justified – outrage at their error, says John Rentoul

He may be the most unpopular prime minister in opinion-polling history, but Keir Starmer is right to condemn the decision by West Midlands police and Birmingham city council to ban supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv from next month’s Aston Villa game.

It cannot be right to allow the threat of antisemitic violence against Israeli football fans to prevent them from attending a football match.

Naturally, Starmer’s statement saying “this is the wrong decision” has attracted the obvious replies on social media from people rushing to point out that he is prime minister and ought to do something about it. While these replies are all the way around the world, those of us warning against the apparatus of a police state are still struggling to put our boots on.

West Midlands Police has classified the Aston Villa v Maccabi Tel Aviv fixture as high risk, and banned away fans from attending (AP)

We do not want to live in a country where the prime minister tells the police how to do their job. The principles of parliamentary democracy are sometimes forgotten in the heat of the moment, but elected representatives pass laws and the police have to decide how to apply them.

That is why Starmer could point out how tasteless it was for pro-Palestinian demonstrators to go ahead with their protest in the days after the death of two Jews in the attack on the Manchester synagogue, but he could not stop them. Quite rightly, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, could have banned the protest only if the police asked her to do so, and only if they thought there was a risk of serious disorder – which is not what happened.

The same principle applies to the 6 November Aston Villa game: the police and the council’s safety advisory group say there is a risk to public safety and so they have banned away fans from travelling to the game. They have made the wrong decision. The principle of resisting racist intimidation ought to outweigh the risk of disorder.

But it would also be wrong for the prime minister to overturn that decision by diktat from No 10.

The right way forward is for the home secretary to bring the police, city council and football club together and work out a compromise. That is what appears to be happening. Ian Murray, a minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said there would be discussions today to “find a way through” that would allow Maccabi fans to attend the game.

Starmer may appear to be weak, briefly, for expressing a view and not being able to act on it immediately, but that is an essential protection against an overmighty state, and if a compromise is negotiated, that awkward moment will be forgotten.

A compromise is what should have been sought in the first place. British police forces have long experience of managing football hooliganism, which often involves imposing travel restrictions and other conditions. Not all Maccabi fans are blameless. The police say that the ban at the Aston Villa game was partly based on the clashes in Amsterdam a year ago between Ajax and Maccabi fans. The reporting of those clashes was contested, but it seems beyond doubt that there were both antisemitic attacks on Maccabi fans and unprovoked violence by a thuggish element among them.

So it might be reasonable for the police to vet those Maccabi fans who are allowed to attend, but a total ban goes too far.

What matters above all is that the police have a duty to protect those football fans who are not intent on violence to attend matches. Whatever restrictions are imposed, the principle of refusing to give in to intimidation is one on which no compromise should be considered.