The barbarians are inside the gates

On the Manchester synagogue attack

UK Prime Minister Kier Starmer at the Holocaust Educational Trust event in June 2024, Simon Dawson - No 10 Downing Street

Yesterday, during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a 35-year-old Syrian terrorist named Jihad al-Shamie — yes, his first name was Jihad — drove his car into pedestrians outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester, England, and began stabbing people before police shot and killed him.

Al-Shamie hit one person with his car, another is now in the hospital with stab wounds, and two worshippers are dead — 53-year-old Adrian Daulby and 66-year-old Melvin Cravitz. Authorities have revealed one of the two men might have been accidentally killed by police gunfire during their efforts to stop al-Shamie. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded forcefully, condemning the violence and promising more security for Jewish communities:

To every Jewish person in this country […] I know how much fear you will be holding inside of you. I really do. And so on behalf of our country, I express my solidarity, but also my sadness that you still have to live with these fears. Nobody should have to do that. Nobody. And so I promise you that I will do everything in my power to guarantee you the security you deserve, starting with a more visible police presence, protecting your community.

But his words ring hollow when everyone knows it was Starmer and his government’s liberal immigration policies that have allowed individuals with extremist ideologies to enter the country unchecked in the first place, thereby leading to this attack. Good on him that he has finally come round to the realization that this is going to spell the ruin of England, but even in this dark hour, he can barely even speak the words to address the problem. In May, he noted the fact that without stronger immigration controls, the UK risks becoming an “island of strangers.” But immediately, MPs including Sarah Owen and Zarah Sultana accused him of stoking division. Sultana called his words “sickening.” Within his own party, Diane Abbott called the speech “fundamentally racist.” And Starmer ultimately walked it back and apologized.

This is a profound betrayal of Manchester’s rich and storied Jewish community. Jews first settled in the city in the late 18th century, drawn by its booming textile trade, and established their first synagogue in 1799. Manchester became a hub of Jewish life, producing institutions, schools, and cultural societies. It also played a pivotal role in Zionist politics through figures like Chaim Weizmann, who worked at the University of Manchester and helped secure the 1917 Balfour Declaration. After World War II Holocaust survivors and their families settled in the city, while many Jewish families moved to suburbs such as Prestwich and Whitefield, establishing one of Europe’s strongest networks of synagogues and schools. Today, with around 35,000 members, Manchester’s Jewish community is the UK’s second-largest after London.

In May 2025, the Starmer government issued the white paper Restoring Control over the Immigration System, promising to reduce net migration and create a more “controlled, selective, and fair” system. It was too little too late, in my opinion, but even this weak measure garnered criticism that his language could inflame xenophobia. Never mind that last year, the UK granted 875,000 non-visitor visas, among other arrivals. Never mind that if this rate continues for just five years, without even including reproduction rates, that pencils out to over 6% of the entire population of the UK. And never mind that if any member of the general public decides to speak up about the problem, they are likely to receive a visit from the police.

According to the Free Speech Union, nearly 300 people have been charged under new communications offenses since the act came into force. The UK also already has laws like the Malicious Communications Act 1988, which prohibits communications intended to cause distress, and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, which criminalizes “threatening words or behavior.” In other words, they’ve baby-proofed their internet, and now you have more than 250,000 “non-crime hate incidents” logged in just a few years.

Because the attack came amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests around the UK, police and government officials urged protest organizers to postpone or cancel planned demonstrations to reduce tensions. The Metropolitan Police explicitly asked the group Defend Our Juries to delay their protest, citing fears the timing would exacerbate divisions. At a synagogue vigil in Manchester, grief turned into anger as raw emotions boiled into accusations of government complacency and failure to protect Jewish communities. Rightfully so.

But also, in the wake of this new attack, rioting erupted outside No. 10 Downing Street, with pro-Palestinian supporters getting into violent clashes with police. This is bleak, for I am old enough to remember when the murder of two Jews outside a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur would have resulted in candlelight vigils and, if any riots broke out, they would’ve been in opposition to such horrific violence.

But we live in an age when progressives repeatedly prove the depravity of their moral calculus in their celebratory reactions to every new horror: October 7, Houthi raids in the Red Sea, Luigi Mangione, the Boulder firebomb attack, Iryna Karutska, Charlie Kirk, and now this. The examples are starting to pile up faster than one can keep track, and each time, the response by progressives is not merely unsavory or cruel, but sociopathic. This is a phenomenon I have written about before, and I fear it only seems to be worsening.

Book Review: Political Ponerology

In late July 1947, anti-Jewish riots broke out across Britain after the Zionist paramilitary Irgun hanged two British sergeants in Palestine, sparking riots in cities like Liverpool, Manchester, and London’s East End. For days on end, mobs attacked Jewish shops, homes, and synagogues, smashing windows, looting, and vandalizing property with antisemitic slogans. People were killed, many injured, and hundreds of Jewish-owned properties wrecked because British citizens could not stand the idea of a foreign force executing their own people. Except now, when it happens on their own soil, they shove their hands into their pockets and look down at their feet.

Let’s be clear here. Starmer has failed his people. He not only failed to implement anything resembling a reasonable immigration policy, thereby exposing Britain’s neck to the barbarian’s blade, but also rants endlessly about “far-right” ideologies and the threat they pose, including earlier this very week. Yet when a man literally named Jihad slaughters two Jews outside a synagogue on Yom Kippur, he makes no mention of any ideology. And if anyone else were to do so, you can bet the thoughtcrime police will promptly pay them a visit for “stirring up religious hatred.”

I’ve seen this before. Living in China and reporting on the country for years, I got used to seeing stories of police and state officials who showed up a people’s homes, took them away in the night, or slapped them with heavy fines all in the name of “maintaining social harmony.”

The solution is not to overreact. That is always the danger with such violence. But British leaders at least need to find the spine to speak frankly about the problem. The barbarians are not at the gates. The barbarians are already inside the gates.

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