British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday announced 54 million pounds in new funding to protect Jewish communities against antisemitism over the next four years, Reuters reported.
The announcement comes after Jewish advisory body the Community Security Trust (CST) said earlier this month that Britain recorded thousands of antisemitic incidents after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in October, making 2023 the worst year for UK antisemitism since its records began in 1984.
"It is shocking, and wrong, the prejudice, the racism we have seen in recent months," Sunak said in a speech to the CST's annual dinner, according to extracts released by his office and quoted by Reuters.
"It is hatred, pure and simple. An assault on the Jewish people. We will fight this antisemitism with everything we’ve got."
The government had already given the CST, which advises Britain's Jewish community on security matters, 18 million pounds for 2024-25, taking the total funding up to 2028 to 70 million pounds.
One of the antisemitic incidents in Britain occurred in London at the end of January, when a man entered a kosher store in Golders Green waving a knife and threatening the customers, while making antisemitic statements.
Days earlier, three Israelis were attacked in London by dozens of youngsters who beat them and threw bottles at them. Local police ignored their call, claiming that they were too "busy."
In October, two days after the Hamas massacre against Israel on October 7, pro-Palestinian Arab activists vandalized a kosher restaurant in London.
In another incident, pro-Palestinian Arab activists targeted Jewish families as they were leaving synagogue on Shabbat in northern London.