A cross-party trio of politicians from Muslim and Palestinian backgrounds have jointly urged Britons to use this month’s Holocaust Memorial Day as a moment for community cohesion and not to allow differences over the war in Gaza to inflame tensions.
In a letter to the Guardian, Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative peer and former party chair, the Labour MP Naz Shah and Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat who is the only British MP of Palestinian heritage, said Holocaust Memorial Day was “a moment to remember the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jewish people for no reason other than who they were”.
The trio wrote: “It’s undoubtedly true that the horrific violence we are seeing is heightening tensions, but the reality is this conflict is amplifying unaddressed issues of hate in our society.
“It is not concern for Jewish safety in Israel that compels someone to dump a pig’s head at a proposed mosque site, or a desire to express solidarity with the Palestinian people that makes someone scrawl swastikas on bridges. Both are motivated by hatred we can grow here at home.”
The letter, arranged in association with Brendan Cox, the widower of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox and a campaigner for community togetherness, warned that the war in Gaza, following the 7 October massacre by Hamas, “is dividing lots of communities”.
Moran has been vocal in her support for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and has spoken repeatedly about the plight of relatives trapped there. Warsi has condemned Islamophobia within her party, while Shah made a heartfelt apology in 2016 for social media comments she made about Israel that were seen as antisemitic.
They wrote: “As politicians from three different parties we come together to remind our country that the rising tide of hatred we have seen in recent months makes it more important than ever that we take this moment on 27 January to remember the inevitable outcome of indulging hatred and staying silent when others are persecuted for who they are.”
Cox told the Guardian that the letter sought to address the risk that Holocaust Memorial Day could be “misused by people who want to drive division rather than connection”.
He added: “To do this across political lines of difference is a really clear and strong statement about using this to come together rather than to divide.”
Holocaust Memorial Day is on Saturday 27 January in the UK.
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