UK shadow home secretary to deport anti-Israel migrants after Manchester synagogue terror attack

British Conservative Party lawmaker Chris Philip, who serves as the opposition’s Shadow Home Secretary, vowed on Sunday that the party will deport anti-Israel migrants if it returns to power after the next election.

“If a foreign citizen expresses racial hatred, including antisemitism, or supports extremism or terrorism, I’ll tell you this as shadow home secretary, I’ll deport them," Philip said during the Tory Party Conference 2025 in Manchester.

His statement came just days after Jihad al-Shamie, an Islamist of Syrian descent, murdered two Jews at a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur. Philip and party leader Kemi Badenoch vowed to protect the UK's Jewish minority, which numbers around 300,000 people. By comparison, approximately four million Muslims are living in the United Kingdom.

Philip told the audience that the Conservative Party has a "renewed resolve to fight the ancient evil of antisemitism wherever it is found." If re-elected, he said, his party has plans to report some 150,000 illegal immigrants and foreign criminals per year.

“We will also deport all foreign criminals, not some, all. There are currently about 20,000 serious foreign criminals roaming our streets who should have been deported already,” Philip said. “They have gone on to commit, between them, a further 10,000 offences, including murder and rape."

Party leader and Member of Parliament Kemi Badenoch, a vocal supporter of Israel, visited the synagogue on Saturday following the terror attack. She was impressed by the resilience of the Jewish community in Manchester, which she described as “humbling.”

"Targeting the centre of community life on the holiest day of the year was not just an attack on British Jews, it was an attack on all of us," Badenoch stated.

The opposition leader, who has been critical of the British government’s Middle East policies, condemned the widespread anti-Israel rallies in British cities, calling them “carnivals of hatred directed at the Jewish homeland.”

"You hear it in ‘from the river to the sea’, as if the homes and the lives of millions of Jewish people should be erased," Badenoch said, referring to the anti-Israel slogan that calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

"You hear it in ‘globalise the intifada,’ which means nothing at all if it doesn’t mean targeting Jewish people for violence," she added.

Looking ahead, Badenoch vowed to restore order in British society following two years of riots and violence by anti-Israel activists.

"We must now draw a line and say that in Britain you can think what you like, and within the bounds of the law you can say what you like, but you have no right to turn our streets into the theatres of intimidation, and we will not let you do so anymore."

She emphasized that British Jews are an integral part of British society, telling them, “You are part of the fabric of Britain, and you always will be.”

There has been a dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in the UK since the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre in 2023.

According to a report by the UK’s Community Security Trust, nearly 2,000 confirmed antisemitic incidents were recorded in the UK during the first half of 2024.