WM police at fault for banning Israelis in Birmingham

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cze83gw4w2xo

This quite frankly stinks. It seems to me the police have succumbed to local anti Semitic politicians and a vocal Muslim majority in the local area of the stadium to ban Israeli fans with what looked like fabricated reasons.

Police ‘lied and lied again’ over Maccabi fan ban

West Midlands Police “lied and lied again” to justify a ban on Israeli fans attending a Europa League football match at Aston Villa, an MP has said.

Nick Timothy said key intelligence was missing from the official reports of meetings where the decision was made.

It adds to the pressure on Craig Guildford, the force’s chief constable, to resign over the recommendation that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans should be banned from the match at Villa Park, in Birmingham, last November.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has claimed that the force capitulated to “Islamists” in the local community demanding a ban and then “collaborated with them to cover it up”.

Both Mrs Badenoch and Mr Timothy say Mr Guildford’s position is now untenable and he should be sacked.

West Midlands Police cited alleged violent behaviour by Maccabi fans during a Europa League fixture against Ajax in Amsterdam in 2024 as justification for the ban. However, the accuracy of the claims were disputed by Dutch police.

The Birmingham city council board that made the ultimate decision to ban the fans included two councillors who had called for the boycott of Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Documents released this week show that police had received “high confidence intelligence” on Sep 5 last year of “elements of the community in the West Midlands wanting to ‘arm’ themselves”.

Yet there is no mention of this in the minutes of a public safety committee, attended by the police and councillors.

In fact, police expressed a preference for a ban on away fans “in absence of intelligence” despite being in possession of the facts for a month by then.

The police had originally planned for a limited number of visiting fans to attend the Europa League game, and say they only decided to recommend a total ban after speaking to Dutch police about the Israeli fans’ behaviour at a previous match in Amsterdam. But the Dutch police have now disputed West Midlands Police’s claims, saying they are exaggerated.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/07/police-lied-maccabi-fan-ban-aston-villa-israel-muslim-armed/

From the same source:

Mr Timothy, the Tory MP for West Suffolk and a lifelong Aston Villa fan, told The Telegraph: “It is now beyond doubt that the police have lied and lied again.

Pressured by local politicians and facing the possibility of violence and disorder by Islamists, the police chose to ban Israeli supporters and to cover up the reasons why – preferring instead to blame the would-be victims.”

He said the version of events presented by the police had been “completely blown out of the water” by documents published this week, adding: “The police claim they had to ban Israeli fans because they were uniquely violent and military-trained thugs who would have presented a serious danger to the public.

“This was based on supposed intelligence from the Dutch, which their police deny is real. In fact the true intelligence the police did hold showed that local Islamists were arming themselves to attack visiting Israelis.”

The decision to ban the Maccabi fans was taken by the safety advisory group (SAG) of Birmingham city council, which included representatives of West Midlands Police, Aston Villa, council officials and two elected councillors.

Both the councillors – Labour’s Waseem Zaffar and the Lib Dems’ Mumtaz Hussain – are Muslim, and both had publicly called for a boycott of the Israeli team. It has also emerged that West Midlands Police consulted local mosques that have hosted anti-Semitic preachers in the past.

Minutes of the SAG show that on Oct 7, a month before the match, the two councillors claimed that the “community want it stopped”. Cllr Zaffar, who has in the past described Israel as a terrorist state, told the meeting that “no fans would reduce tension”.#

In a portion of the minutes that were redacted before publication, but which The Telegraph has seen, West Midlands Police said its preference was to have “no away fans” but that this was “in absence of intelligence”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01/07/police-lied-maccabi-fan-ban-aston-villa-israel-muslim-armed/

This has now become evidently clear :

https://news.sky.com/story/police-chief-apologises-for-erroneous-maccabi-tel-aviv-fan-ban-evidence-blaming-ai-13494040

I actual understand his rationale that it wouldn't be safe for the Macabi fans in Birmingham but it's the lying and subsequent cover up that makes his position untenable. Why doesn't he just come clean on his reasons- his career is pretty much finished anyway.

Police chief admits misleading MPs after AI used in justification for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans

Senior conservatives are calling for him to be sacked and the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will deliver a statement to the Commons later.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c394zlr8e12t

There seems to be an absence of comments from those posters who were fully backing the decision at the time.

Everyone knew that the real reason that the Maccabi fans were banned was that WMP couldn't guarantee their safety coming to Birmingham due to local threats and I get his logic This has now been shown at no surprise to us.

The home secretary says she has lost confidence in the West Midlands Police Chief Constable, Craig Guildford, after reviewing an independent report into the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from an Aston Villa match last year.

Here's a recap of her statement in the Commons:

• The report - by His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke - is "damning", Mahmood said
• She said WMP "conducted little engagement with the Jewish community and none with the Jewish community in Birmingham"
• The home secretary accused the police of "confirmation bias", saying "rather than follow the evidence the force sought only the evidence to support their desired position: to ban the fans"
• She said a summary of conversations with the Dutch police, after Maccabi played in the Netherlands, was "inaccurate", and that claims were "all either exaggerated or simply untrue"
• In general, Mahmood said, police "overstated the threat posed by the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans while under-stating the risk that was posed to the Israeli fans if they travelled to the area"
• "Sir Andy’s report does not argue that the entire force is failing," Mahmood said, "but... we have witnessed a failure of leadership"
• "I must declare today that the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police no longer has my confidence," she said

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c394zlr8e12t

Mahmood says she does not have the power to dismiss Guildford - saying it's a matter for the local police and crime commissioner - but the government will reintroduce those powers for the home secretary.

West Midlands Police Chief Craig Guildford’s position has become untenable, West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker says.

The Labour mayor tells the Local Democracy Reporting Service that confidence in West Midlands Police has been "badly tested", and trust wouldn’t be rebuilt if things remained as they are.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c394zlr8e12t

Duplicate post.

I'm not quite sure why so many people are getting in a tizz about this.
The job of the police is to keep the peace the best they can. Keep the peace they did.
Recent history showed that a good proportion of the MTA fans are thugs, spoiling for a fight.
In Aston, they could be matched by a bunch of antisemitic thugs also spoiling for a fight. The result could have been far worse than Amsterdam. All that happened was that on the night there were a lot of shouty individuals making their voices heard but with little or no violence or destruction of property.
Police did their job.
As for spicing up or even allowing AI to invent the evidence, well yeah, not a good look at all. But something for which a Chief Constable should go ?
What is this, the BBC ?

There was a very crude "dodgy dossier"... but it did the job.
I'm surprised that by now, and with all the practice that they've had, the police still can't get it right when fabricating evidence, especially when they are making it for themselves.. Must do better.

I agree that the job of the police is to keep the peace the best they can. In this case they faced a difficult choice. The WMP had intelligence that a significant number of Islamist extremists in the local area were seeking to attack the Israeli fans.

To admit this would have been an admission that WMP are unable to guarantee the safety of Israelis visiting Birmingham due to the ethnic make up the local area. They would also probably be accused of being racist or Islamophobic.

They knew that if Israeli fans were allowed to attend the match then there would be serious violence which they would be unable to prevent.

So instead they sought (and also fabricated) evidence to promote the alternative of banning the Maccabi fans. I understand why they did it, but it's the lying and subsequent attempts to cover it up that was the downfall of WMP.

I agree with you that for all the murkiness in its fabrication, the outcome was the best one, resulting in a situation nowhere near as disastrous as it could have been.
However, I would dispute your @1dayatatime description that

"The WMP had intelligence that a significant number of Islamist extremists in the local area were seeking to attack the Israeli fans."

They would not necessarily have been "Islamist extremists" they would have been mindless, antisemitic thugs looking for a fight. I don't think they were turning up in the name of Jihad.

@mouthpipette

"The force's leadership faced further scrutiny from MPs on Tuesday about why they had only just revealed details of concerns about the local community in Birmingham apparently wanting to "arm" themselves against Maccabi fans."
https://news.sky.com/story/watchdog-to-examine-west-midlands-police-role-in-maccabi-tel-aviv-fans-ban-13492092

The anti semetic thugs you refer to, would be from a specific local religious group (and let's say it's definitely not the Sikhs!)

@mouthpipette

The other issue this has created is that the WMP effectively said that they cannot guarantee the safety of Israelis and in Birmingham. And after the Manchester attacks its probably not the safest place for Jews either.

The question then is if it's not safe for Jews today then when does it become unsafe for other religious groups such as Hindus, Sikhs and Christians?

This aged well.

And I unreservedly retract it.

"Police Chief Constable making shit up and not doing any fact checking when deciding on mattered of safety" is not my expectation. I assumed basic competence and due diligence from the police based on what they'd said.

Clearly I was naïve to expect West Midlands Police to actually do their job.

Thank you @HeadyLamarr its not just about police incompetence though. This is why so many Jewish people feel unsafe - its the ideological capture alongside, or leading to, incompetence.

I think we can all agree that banning the fans was the right decision, but that the mendacity and naivety employed to reach it, was shameful.

I am a friend and supporter to the Jewish community - at the risk of being a cliché, the Best Woman at my wedding is Jewish, I spent my childhood in a Jewish neighborhood and I now live within an Eruv. I occasionally cater at my neighbour Reform synagogue and volunteered as tech support for an interfaith charity set up by a local rabbi in my techie days.

However, I felt this to be a hooliganism rather than an antisemitism issue. I was wrong.

(Edited to remove a really weird autocorrect)

Really? Jesus wept.

No, we are certainly not agreed!

No @mouthpipetteyou were wrong in November when you congratulated WM Police for not ‘bowing to political pressure’ and you’re wrong now. The phrase ‘read the room’ springs to mind.

Right decision.
I live in Birmingham and I didn't want MTA thugs and antisemitic thugs causing mayhem. Police kept the peace, just like they did when Gideon Falter, his cameraman and his heavy tried to get in amongst the marchers to foment trouble.

For all those who questioned the decision, did you really want to see two groups, who were spoiling for a fight, try to kick the crap out of one another ?

You live in Birmingham? Those footy thugs are the least of your problems 😆 🤣 😂

Did you mind when the Young Boys visited town soon after?