An anti-Semitic protest attended by just 12 far-right supporters in north London has been branded “pathetic” and “sad” by leading Jewish groups.
A handful of people turned up for Saturday’s protest at the war memorial in Golders Green, an area with a large Jewish population, and held up a banner with the slogan “This is London not Tel Aviv”.
Another banner labelled the Shomrim, a north London Jewish neighbourhood watch group, “police impersonators”.
To occasional boos and jeers speaker Jeremy Bedford-Turner made a long, rambling speech telling people “the future is white”.
Footage was later uploaded to YouTube, with the description claiming it had been held “deep inside The Jewish Republic of North London”. The video culminated in Mr Bedford-Turner waving a pork pie in the air before taking a bite.
Their protest came less than a year after a previous anti-Shomrim march planned for the area was moved to central London after a coalition of campaigners called for it be relocated.
Mark Gardner from the Community Safety Trust, who helped get that event moved, said: “The demonstration was quite pathetic.
“But it’s still disturbing that they wanted to come to Golders Green and quite sickening to think of these people defiling a war memorial by their presence.”
Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, branded the demonstrators “a handful of sad people”.
He said: “I saw on the organisers’ video one of them ranting away for 25 minutes while one of his mates was trying to get him to shut up.
“The ranting man ate a pork pie which he seemed to think would cause Jews offence. Well, I’ve got news for him. We have no problem at all with anyone eating pork, it’s just that we don’t.”
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