Ben Habib: Pro-Palestinian Marches ‘Opportunity to Grind an Axe’ Against the UK

Ben Habib, deputy leader of Reform UK, speaks to NTD's 'British Thought Leaders' programme. NTD

Pro-Palestinian protests are being used by some people as “an opportunity to grind an axe against the United Kingdom,” says Ben Habib, joint deputy leader of the Reform Party.

Speaking to NTD’s “British Thought Leaders” programme, the former MEP said multiculturalism as it is has “completely failed” in the UK because of a lack of integration.

Commenting on pro-Palestinian protests which sprung up across the UK after the Israel-Hamas war broke out, Mr. Habib said the protests have to be taken “very seriously.”

“I don’t want to diminish the importance of the protests and some very good people who want to preserve Palestinian life. Of course, who wouldn’t want to preserve innocent Palestinian life? I’m wholly in favour of that. But what we’re seeing is people using this as an opportunity to grind an axe against the United Kingdom,” he said.

“So you’ve seen people with their faces hidden; carrying ISIS flags; calling for an Intifada uprising from London to Gaza; calling for a jihad; asking, requiring, threateningly requiring the British people whom they’re addressing to choose which side they’re on.”

Mr. Habib said it’s “a tragedy that there are minorities in our own society that would wish to use Israel’s legitimate aims [to eliminate Hamas] as an axe to grind for their own cultural contempt of the United Kingdom.”

During pro-Palestinian protests in recent weeks, most demonstrators have been non-violent, but controversial slogans such as “from the river to the sea” were chanted widely, and some protesters have called for “jihad,” “intifada,” and were arrested for carrying anti-Semitic or Hamas-glorifying signs.

The Metropolitan police previously said social media users had mistakenly identified “shahada” flags carried by demonstrators as the flag of the ISIS terrorist group. The flag carries a declaration of faith in Islam. However, a number of jihadist groups have adopted variations of it. The Met also said “jihad,” which was chanted during a rally held by the revolutionary Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, “has a number of meanings“ even though ”the public will most commonly associate it with terrorism.”

Mr. Habib made the remarks shortly ahead of the Armistice Day, when some 300, 000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched across London.

Then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman has since been asked to resign after she published an unauthorised article in The Times of London on the day before Armistice Day, saying there was “a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters.”

Last week, demonstrators have also gathered at the offices of Labour MPs who towed the party line and backed calls for humanitarian pauses in Gaza instead of an immediate ceasefire.

Shadow Wales Secretary Jo Stevens’s office in Cardiff was sprayed on Thursday night with red paint and posters were put up showing a red palm-print on her face and the words “blood on your hands.”

The vandalised constituency office of Labour MP Jo Stevens in Albany Road, Cardiff, on Nov. 17, 2023. Ben Birchall/PA

Protesters also gathered outside the offices of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, shadow investment minister Rushanara Ali, and shadow work and pensions minister Vicky Foxcroft.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 men, women, and children, most of whom were civilians, and took more than 200 hostages. Some of the bodies were found to have been burnt, raped, and decapitated. Hamas has also continued to bomb Israel since but no future civilian casualties have been reported in Israel.

Since Oct. 8, Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, ordered a complete siege on Hamas-controlled Gaza stripe, cutting off supplies of food, water, and fuel to the enclave, urged Gazan civilians to evacuate, bombed what they say are military targets embedded in civilian structures by Hamas, and launched a ground invasion.

Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Secretary said last week that more than 11,320 people had died in the region during the war, including 4,650 children.

Multiculturalism Has Failed

Mr. Habib, who is half Pakistani, believes multiculturalism has “completely failed” in the UK.

“What is multiculturalism? And how can multiculturalism work if the premise of it is that you all continue to practice your cultures in isolation of each other?” he said.

“The whole point of mixing with other people, going abroad, meeting other people, conversing with other people of diverse views, is so that you can hone your own views, you can develop yourself.”

Mr. Habib said immigration can be “a good thing but it’s got to be at a pace which the country can absorb, and where we all go forward stronger as a result of it.”

“Fundamentally, if immigration is to work, we have to assimilate immigrants. They have to join our culture, and we have to take from them the best of their culture, and they take from us the best of our culture so we emerge as a stronger homogeneous society. That’s not multiculturalism the way it’s been practised,” he said.

Police officers and protesters clash in Trafalgar Square during a March for Palestine in London on Oct. 14, 2023. James Manning/PA

Mr. Habib said the UK “urgently” needs to “dramatically reduce immigration” and devise “a real programme of breaking down barriers between cultures,” teaching British history and values to “bring all these people that we have in our country into our to our, bosom, if you like.

“We need to integrate. We don’t want to be operating in individual silos. I don’t care what colour someone is, I don’t care where they came from. I don’t care what their religion is, but I really care about what their values are, I really care about whether or not they hold the country in contempt, whether they’re proud to be British, or they’re anti-British,” he said.

“And I think what we’ve got in amongst us now, are significant minorities, who are fundamentally anti-British, who hold the country, which has given them succour, which has given them a roof over their head, which has fed them, given them opportunities, hold our country in contempt. And that has to stop.”

The Conservative government under Boris Johnson established a “point-based” immigration system after Brexit to “take back control” of Britain’s borders, but critics have accused the government of reinterpreting the Brexit vote as a vote for controlled, but not necessarily reduced, immigration.

After international borders reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK’s net migration hit record highs, reaching an estimated 606,000 in the year 2022, almost doubling the estimate for the year ending March 2020, although the figures may not be directly comparable because of different estimation methods. Ad-hoc humanitarian programmes for the Ukrainians, Hongkongers, and some Afghans contributed to the increase.

In her resignation letter, Ms. Braverman accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of dragging his feet on a number of promises, including reducing overall legal migration.

Unconfirmed media reports on Monday that ministers are getting ready to raise the salary threshold for skilled migrant workers. It comes as the Office for National Statistics is about the drop the latest migration figures on Thursday.