UNITED KINGDOM 2004

 

The number of antisemitic incidents in the UK rose dramatically in 2004, in part as a consequence of the overspill of Middle East tensions and in particular, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the war on Iraq. There was a growing awareness that antisemitic discourse in the public arena also contributed to this growth, and pressure by government and law enforcement authorities and by the Jewish community led to some diminution in the use of antisemitic chants and banners at public rallies and meetings. It became ever more apparent that Islamists and the left were behind antisemitic incitement in Britain, while far rightists sought more concrete targets to attack.

 

THE JEWISH Community

The Jewish community of the United Kingdom numbers about 350,000, out of a total population of 58 million. Two-thirds of the community is concentrated in Greater London. Other major Jewish centers are Manchester (30,000), Leeds (10,000) and Glasgow (6,500). Although the Jewish population has experienced a decline in recent years, mainly due to a low birth rate, intermarriage and emigration, the question on religion in the 2001 census showed there to be more Jews than was previously thought.

The central organization of British Jewry is the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD). Security and defense activity is organized through the Community Security Trust (CST). Welfare and education are given high communal priority through organizations such as the United Jewish Israel Appeal and Jewish Care. A network of Jewish day schools operates in London and in other major cities. There are also a number of tertiary centers for Jewish studies, including the London School of Jewish Studies (formerly Jews College) for training orthodox Rabbis and Leo Baeck College for training reform and liberal Rabbis, as well as the Jewish Studies departments at University College London, Southampton University and the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton, all leading institutions in Europe in this field. The main community papers are the 160-year-old Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish Telegraph published simultaneously in northern cities, and The Jewish News. Two Jewish websites are based in the UK: www.totallyjewish.com and www.somethingjewish.co.uk, carrying national and international news.

The Jewish Community Leadership Council formed in 2003 brings together leaders of major national Jewish organizations with the aim of enhancing the long-term effectiveness of communal representation and ensuring greater consultation.

 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY GROUPS

Political Parties

In June the British National Party (BNP), the largest extreme right organization, fielded a record 313 candidates in the local elections, 75 candidates in the European elections, 11 candidates in the Greater London Assembly (GLA) election, and one candidate in the London mayoral election. In the local elections, it made a net gain of four seats, giving it 21 councilors. This increased to 24 following the defection of Conservative Councilor Roger Roberts to the BNP and bi-elections in September. In the European elections, the BNP received 808,200 votes, or 4.9 percent of the total, making them the sixth biggest party, but this amount was insufficient to win any seats. In the GLA elections, the BNP received 90,365 votes, or 4.71 percent, just failing to reach the 5 percent threshold to win a seat. In the elections for London mayor, the BNP candidate, Julian Leppert, received 58,405 first preference votes (3 percent) and 70,736 second preference votes (3.7 percent). The assessment of most observers was that the candidates standing for the anti-European UK Independence Party (UKIP) attracted many voters who otherwise might have voted for the BNP.

Despite its electoral success, and the launch of its European election campaign in April by Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen at a press conference in Altrincham, Cheshire, the BNP remains riven by dissent. Leader Nick Griffin was forced to back down after having proposed to admit non-white members to membership after the election. In August expelled founder and former chairman John Tyndall declared his intention to challenge Griffin in a leadership contest for control of the BNP during 2005. In his announcement, Tyndall wrote that “the greatest menace is the imperialism of Zionism” and that he intended the BNP to focus attention on this “menace.”

In July the BBC “Secret Agent Undercover” television documentary program featured BNP activists admitting criminal racist behavior, and others, including BNP leader Nick Griffin, inciting members at local meetings to attack Asians. Subsequent police investigations led to the arrest of Griffin and six others. The police investigation was continuing into 2005 (see below). In July Barclays Bank closed six BNP accounts following screening of the documentary, leaving the party temporarily without banking facilities. Despite modernizing its image under a more youthful and able leadership, the BNP nevertheless remains tainted by its openly neo-Nazi past and by racist violence (see below).

The National Front (NF), led by Norman Tomkinson, Bernard Franklin and Terry Blackham, stood ten candidates in the June local elections but failed to win any seats. In January and February it organized protest marches against alleged attacks by Asians on whites in both east London and Oldham; the St Georges Day March in east London in April; a demonstration outside the Finsbury Park Mosque in May; and a demonstration of 100 supporters against al-Muhajiroun in London’s Trafalgar Square in July (see below).

The England First Party, which is the campaigning name used by the White Nationalist Party (WNP), stood three candidates in the local elections but failed to win any seats. The WNP is now led by veteran far right activists Mark Cotterill, John O’Brien, Adrian Brooks and John Wood. It maintains a website and publishes Heritage and Destiny. Its main activity has been against asylum seekers and against immigrants in Ulster, but it retains the antisemitic ideology of its mostly former NF members.

The Freedom Party (FP), led by Steve and Sharron Edwards and Adrian Davis, and mostly composed of former BNP members, stood three candidates in the same ward in the West Midlands local election but failed to win any seats. It promotes an anti-European and white nationalist ideology. Sharron Edwards however retained her district council seat at Wombourne near Wolverhampton.

 

Extra-Parliamentary Groups

The tiny November 9th Society (N9S) is the most overtly Nazi of all the extra-parliamentary groups. The current leader, Kevin Quinn, succeeded the founding leader Terry Flynn, who had been active since 1980. The group is centered in Bedfordshire and Essex, although it has international contacts via its website. Activity focuses on daubing Nazi slogans on public buildings and distributing leaflets demanding an end to immigration by asylum seekers (see also below).

The Racial Volunteer Force (RVF), originally an offshoot of Combat 18 (C18) and led by Kevin Watmough, Tony White and Tony Foy, remains in existence but is largely inactive. The arrest of several members in connection with racist articles published in The Stormer magazine may have dealt a crippling blow to its activity (see below). The British Movement and Blood and Honour (B&H) manifest little activity outside of football hooliganism and the music scene. Bands connected with B&H include Razors Edge, Chingford Attack and Blackshirts. The national revolutionary International Third Position maintains contacts in eastern Europe, France, Italy and Spain and publishes an e-mail bulletin, but engages in little overt activity.

 

Militant Islamist and other Muslim Groups

The leaders of al-Muhajiroun (The Emigrants – AM) deny the Holocaust and support suicide terrorism. The most active antisemitic Islamist group, AM publicized a series of rallies during the course of the year, none of which actually took place. In July, its annual ‘Rally for Islam IX: Islam the future for Britain’, planned for London’s Trafalgar Square, was banned, but a counter-demonstration by the NF, the ad hoc United British Alliance and a group of militant Sikhs  took place and resulted in a number of arrests. A second rally entitled ‘Remember, Remember 11 September’, due to have taken place on that date, was cancelled by the venue owners. In October AM leader Omar Bakri Mohammed announced the group’s disbandment “in the interest of Islamic unity,” but this was widely regarded as a tactic to divert attention from its activities, and indeed in early January 2005, it did hold a rally under a false name at the Quaker-owned Friends House in central London.

Supporters of Sharia members demonstrated intermittently outside the north London Finsbury Park Mosque from which they were expelled during 2004, and outside Belmarsh Prison where founder and former leader Mustafa Kamel, aka Shaykh Abu Hamza al-Masri, is on remand, awaiting trial for incitement to murder Jews and other charges.

Hizb ut-Tahrir (HUT) continued its campaigning activity throughout the UK, in part using cover names in order to avoid the ban imposed on it by the National Union of Students. Among the names used are the Islamic Society at Sheffield Hallam University, the Muslim Women’s Cultural Forum at Westminster University and Queen Mary and Westfield College at London University, the Islamic Society at Bradford and Derby universities, the World Revival Society at Queen Mary and Westfield College, and the Muslim Media Forum at University College London. HUT is led in the UK by Jalaluddin Patel and Dr. Imran Waheed.

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC-UK) is essentially a web-based antisemitic Islamist group which campaigns against members of parliament who are deemed pro-Zionist. It demonizes Zionism and alleges widespread Zionist plots against Muslims and Islam. Its web postings include material by David Irving and US neo-Nazis. Its leading activist is Asghar Bukhari (see below).

The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) was established in 1997 and is led by chairman Massoud Shadjareh. The IHRC campaigns for Muslim human rights, demonizes Zionism and promotes antisemitism. It promotes a pro-Iranian perspective and organizes the annual al-Quds march at the end of Ramadan. During 2004, IHRC produced T-shirts with the logo, “The world stop Nazism, the world stop apartheid, the world must stop Zionism.”

The leading members of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) are expatriate members of the Muslim Brotherhood who promote Islamist ideology within the Muslim community. They include Muhammad Sawalha, its former president and a former West Bank Hamas military commander, and Azam Tamimi, a former Muslim Brotherhood activist in Jordan. The MAB was founded in the UK by Kamal Tawfik el Helbawy. In 2004, the MAB invited Qatar-based Muslim preacher Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi to London where he addressed several conferences (see also below).

The MAB denies Israel’s right to exist and promotes antisemitism. In its October/November 2000 edition of The New Dawn, it reproduced the Benjamin Franklin forgery “The Jewish Threat on American Society,” written in 1934 by an American Nazi sympathizer. Towards the end of 2004, MAB members took over the Finsbury Park Mosque which previously had been the base for jihadi recruitment under its previous imam, Shaykh Abu Hamsa al-Masri.

The New Black Panther Party (NBPP), established in 2004, promotes African liberation ideology, but also the antisemitic ideology of the parent US group. The BoD sought, unsuccessfully, to have NBPP leader Malik Zulu Shabbaz excluded from visiting the UK in November, but he spoke to small audiences on black violence only. 

The Party for Islamic Renewal (PIR) operates mainly online. Its founder and leader is Dr Muhamad al-Masari, a Saudi expatriate who formerly led the Saudi Islamist Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights. The PIR promotes the global jihad ideology of al-Qa`ida, and publishes antisemitic material, including the hoax quotes from the Talmud originally published by the Russian Orthodox Priest Father Pranaitis at the turn of the twentieth century, and subsequently used by neo-Nazis and other Islamist groups.

The antisemitic, US-based Nation of Islam continues activity through two centers in London but with a very small membership.

 

ANTISEMITIC ACTIVITIES

During 2003/4, racist incidents recorded by the police rose by 7 percent to 52,694, following a 10 percent fall the previous year. These included 35,022 racially or religiously aggravated crimes (31,034 in 2002/3). Over half of these were harassment offenses.

The Criminal Justice Act 1991 established a statutory requirement to publish statistics on race and the criminal justice system, and the principle of ethnic monitoring within this research is now accepted by all parts of the criminal justice system. Progress on entering data, however, has been sluggish. There is no statutory requirement to monitor antisemitic incidents, although this is done by the Metropolitan Police Service and the Greater Manchester Police Service, with both of whom the CST liaises closely. 

The CST recorded a total of 532 antisemitic incidents during 2004, a 42 percent increase over the previous year (375 incidents). Antisemitic incident levels have risen steadily since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in October 2000. The 2004 total was more than double that of 1999, the year before the intifada broke out. The ratio of incidents rooted those incidents that originate in the racial prejudice commonly associated with the far right. Of the 532 incidents, 124 showed clear anti-Zionist motivation, compared to 84 that were motivated by far right sentiment or ideology. Of the 124, 114 incidents involved specific reference to Israel or the Middle East: in 23 incidents, ‘Zionism’ or ‘Zionist’ were invoked as terms of abuse while 21 involved mention of the Iraq War. Motivation for the remaining 324 remains unknown.

Antisemitic incidents fluctuate in response to events in the Middle East, as illustrated most dramatically in March 2004 when 54 incidents were recorded by the CST in the 48 hours following the assassination of Hamas leader Shaykh Ahmad Yasin. However, linkage with the Middle East is not always clear: there were no obvious reasons, for example, for the relatively high number of incidents that occurred in June 2004. Significantly, the focus for the hatred was not Israeli institutions in the UK but Jewish ones and Jews themselves, especially synagogues and Orthodox Jews.

 

Violence, Vandalism, Threats and Insults

The number of violent assaults rose by 54 percent (83 incidents) over 2003 (54 incidents). Damage and desecration of communal property decreased by 26 percent from 72 incidents in 2003 to 53 incidents in 2004. Vandalism of Jewish institutions and synagogues has been a feature of the wave of antisemitic incidents in Britain since the start of the second intifada, but this is the only category in which there was a decrease, perhaps partly explained by the introduction of improved security measures. Cases occurring during the year included arson attacks in June at South Tottenham Synagogue, causing extensive damage, and at the Aish Hatorah Centre in north west London, where the fire was kindled using Torah scrolls that were ripped up by the perpetrator; the smashing, in August, of 60 gravestones at the Witton cemetery in Birmingham, where the perpetrator was subsequently caught and convicted (see below); and the daubing of swastikas and SS insignia on gravestones at the Aldershot cemetery, in November, and again in January 2005.

Verbal and written threats to members of the community rose by 323 percent from 22 incidents in 2003 to 93 in 2004. The increase was partly fuelled by the activities of Riaz Mohammed Burahee, who was convicted of making multiple threats to north London synagogues (see below), but even without his activities, the number of incidents in this category would still be more than double the 2003 total.

Abusive behavior increased by 29 percent, from 211 incidents in 2003 to 272 incidents in 2004. This category encompasses the full range of low-level, often spontaneous antisemitic abuse and is usually taken as an indicator of the level of antisemitism in society. The number of such incidents has risen in recent years, but the likelihood of under-reporting in this particular category makes firm analysis difficult.

The targeted distribution of antisemitic literature increased by 94 percent from 16 incidents in 2003 to 31 incidents in 2004.

 

Propaganda

In February a rap music video “Dirty Kuffar,” performed by the British group Sheikh Terra and the Soul Salah Crew, was withdrawn following complaints. The video included adapted footage of US troops in Iraq shooting Iraqi civilians, US guards at Guantanamo Bay and Chechen mujahidin shooting a captured Russian soldier. Pictures of Ayman al-Zawahiri, `Usama bin Laden’s right hand man, and Ariel Sharon, morphed into animals at the end of the video: the former into a roaring lion, the latter into a pig with a Star of David on its forehead. The video was distributed in Britain by Saudi expatriate Muhammad al-Masari, who claimed that sales were high in mosques and that there was a large overseas demand.

In October the European Social Forum, attended by social movements and community groups from around Europe, met in London. The Union of Jewish Students stall was vandalized, a prayer book was stolen, posters were ripped down, and pro-Palestinian leaflets were left at the scene.

At London University School for Oriental and African Studies, a series of increasingly confrontational events in the autumn between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students took place. Notable amongst them was a “Resisting Israel Apartheid Strategies and Principles” conference which took place in December and which was marked by antisemitic comments by some participants, including the Oxford University-based poet Tom Paulin, the keynote speaker, who sought to draw parallels between Zionism and apartheid.

Many in the Jewish community, including the BoD as well as the prime minister called on Mayor of London Ken Livingstone to apologize for remarks made to Oliver Finegold, an Evening Standard reporter who had attempted to question the mayor as he left a party late at night in Central London. In responding to Finegold, the mayor likened the reporter’s role to that of a concentration camp guard. The outrage was echoed in the media with almost continuous TV, radio and newspaper coverage.

The Jewish community was further disturbed when Prince Harry, the younger son of Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, was photographed attending a friend’s party dressed in Nazi uniform.

 

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE HOLOCAUST AND THE NAZI ERA

Holocaust Commemoration and Education

Britain’s fourth Holocaust Memorial Day ­ 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz ­ was marked by a national meeting held in Belfast addressed by Prince Andrew, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, government ministers and Jewish community leaders. The day was commemorated in schools around the country and received considerable national and local media coverage. Football clubs, in particular, marked the day with articles in their fixture programs, and several cities noted the role of World War II citizens who had saved Jewish lives.

The veteran Nazi war crimes investigator, Simon Wiesenthal, was awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen in February 2004 in recognition of his unparalleled standing in the fight against antisemitism and racism.

 

Holocaust Denial

British denier David Irving continued his legal campaign for the return of his archive which was seized by court-appointed agents following his bankruptcy.

Holocaust denial in Britain is openly expressed mainly within Islamist bodies, but local BNP, NF and WNP organizers all promote it within their meetings and through their book clubs.

 

RESPONSES TO RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM

Legislation

Government plans to enact legislation to ban incitement to religious hatred, as opposed to racial hatred, which already exists, ran into widespread opposition during the latter months of 2004. The legislation was contained within the Serious Organized Crime and Police Bill and had been continuously urged on the government by the Muslim community. Other faith community bodies, including the BoD, had also supported the proposed law on the grounds that current legislation was inconsistent, offering statutory protection to Jews and Sikhs alone. In a submission to the House of Lords Select Committee on Religious Offences, the BoD and CST had argued their belief that an inconsistency in legislation was unfair, and that the government must take account of the threat of potential religious coercion between religions and within religions themselves, as well as the need to safeguard free speech. In December 2004 the BoD joined other faith community bodies in the Interfaith Network in publishing a joint statement welcoming the proposed legislation, which they noted balanced considerations of community safety and social harmony with the need to respect freedom of speech. They noted that the threshold for prosecution would remain as high as that for incitement to racial hatred.

 

Court Cases

In March the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) dismissed an appeal brought by Omar Mahmud Muhammad `Utman, aka Abu Qatada, one of the foreign detainees held on suspicion of aiding terrorism. The SIAC decision noted that in October 1999 Abu Qatada had made a speech at the Four Feathers Mosque in London in which he gave a blessing for the killing of Jews, adding that Americans should be attacked wherever they were and that there was no difference between English Jews and Americans. He had further urged his followers to fight Jews in the United Kingdom.

The trials took place in 2004 of a number of extremist Muslims, among them, Abu Hamsa al Masri, former imam at the Finsbury Park Mosque, who had been detained since May on an American extradition request in connection with terrorism charges. In October he was charged with 16 offenses, including four of soliciting to murder Jews, six others of soliciting to murder non-Muslims, five of inciting racial hatred, and one charge of possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. These charges now take priority over the extradition proceedings and relate to tapes and other material seized from his home and from Finsbury Park Mosque.

The charges against Blackburn AM member Tassiq Rehman of sending antisemitic fax messages in the name of the Global Truth Movement calling for demonstrations against Jewish ‘terrorist groups’ in May, were dropped by the courts.

The re-trial of two of family members of the Hamas-trained British-born suicide bombers who attacked Mike’s Place Disco in Tel Aviv in April 2004, and who had attended AM and HUT meetings, will take place in 2005 after the jury failed to reach a verdict at the first trial.

Several supporters of the far right were also tried in 2004. In July two teenagers, Jerome Bingham and Michael Sinclair, were both jailed for eight years by the Central Criminal Court London for a series of violent attacks on Jewish homes in north-west London. In August Aaron Hatch was jailed for four years at Southampton Crown Court for an assault on a Jewish youth in February which shattered his jaw in four places. His two younger accomplices were each given community-based punishments. A police search of Hatch’s home revealed neo-Nazi material. In December a 16 year old boy of Russian origin was given a twelve-month community rehabilitation order and placed under six months curfew for his part in the series of attacks on Plashet East London Cemetery, which resulted in the destruction of over 500 gravestones in 2003, the most serious act of violence against a Jewish cemetery ever recorded.

In December three BNP members, Steve Barkham, Keith Webster and Richard O’Grady, all from Bradford, appeared at Leeds Magistrates Court accused of racially aggravated intentional harassment following the screening of the BBC Secret Agent Undercover documentary television program about the BNP. Their trial, and that of others featured in the program, will follow some time in 2005.

Michael Denis of the BNP, November 9 Society leader Kevin Quinn and four others were charged with conspiring to incite racial hatred at Bow Street Magistrates Court, London. A seventh man, Mark Atkinson of Combat 18, was due to be charged but failed to appear in court. The charges arose out of distribution of Screwdriver CDs and “The Longest Hatred,” a booklet put out by November 9. Atkinson had previously been tried and convicted of promoting race hatred for publishing The Stormer, an antisemitic journal linked to C18.

 

Official and Public Activities

In 2004 Jewish community representatives continued their public campaign against the Islamist threat in the UK. The president of the BoD and the CST communications director addressed the Home Office Committee Inquiry into Terrorism and Community Relations in November. They had earlier submitted written evidence to the inquiry which was established to examine the effect on community relations of the current terrorist threat. In their written and oral evidence, they noted the threats to Jewish communities worldwide by Islamist terrorists and the subsequent spill-over of tension on to the streets of Britain which had led to increased antisemitic violence.

In February the BoD began a campaign to have the transmissions of Hizballah’s al-Manar satellite television programs banned in the UK. Responding to one of the BoD’s complaints, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport noted that al-Manar had no broadcasting license in the UK but that the British government supported a French court’s ban on UTELSAT transmitting the programs. MP Tessa Jowell added that the British government had made specific representations to the relevant authorities in Lebanon about al-Manar’s program content in January 2005.

In August the BoD requested that Islamist preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi be prevented entry into the UK on the grounds that he promoted antisemitism and the use of women and children in suicide attacks against Israel. The controversial visit, which was organized by the Muslim Association of Britain and part hosted by Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, led to the formation of a coalition of Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, feminist and gay community groups to campaign against his presence and the use of public funds and premises to host him. A substantial dossier on Qaradawi’s offensive statements was sent to Livingstone and members of the GLA following the mayor’s refusal to meet members of the coalition. The GLA subsequently initiated an internal investigation into Livingstone’s alleged misuse of public funds to host the visit, which is expected to report during 2005. Members of both Houses of Parliament were unsuccessful with their petition to the Home Office requesting Qaradawi’s exclusion on the grounds that his founding chairmanship of the Union for Good 101 Days Coalition funded Hamas terrorism.

In April the National Union of Students passed a motion under its “No Platform for Racism” policy at its Blackpool conference banning AM, HUT and MPAC-UK from using student union premises for their activities. In November the BNP and other far right groups were banned from Manchester University campus after new revelations that the party was attempting yet again to recruit on campuses.

In the House of Commons, MP Louise Ellman MP accused Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian academic and senior spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, in June, of inciting hatred against British Jews after he voiced support for Palestinian suicide bombers in a TV interview.

The Home Office reorganized itself to take account of the growing importance of faith and minority ethnic communities in Britain at the beginning of 2004. The newly formed Communities Group now takes responsibility for this area working through three units: Community Cohesion Unit, Faith Communities Unit, and Race Equality Unit.

Government policy on race equality was discussed in “Strength and Diversity – Towards a Community Cohesion and Race Equality Strategy,” launched in May. The aim is to discuss and take account of the impact of exclusion and racism and the rise of political and religious extremism through a series of nationwide workshops. The strategy document noted the rise in antisemitism (and islamophobia) and sought recognition that political and religious extremists who support acts of terrorism in the name of Islam do not speak on behalf of the communities they purport to represent.

Policy on faith matters was articulated in its strategy document “Working Together – Cooperation between Government and Faith Communities,” launched in February by the home secretary after extensive consultation. The BoD, as the representative body of the Jewish community, was extensively involved in the process.

The government plans to establish a new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) which is to replace the three statutory commissions dealing with race relations, equal opportunities and disability rights. The CEHR will additionally assume responsibility for promoting equality and combating unlawful discrimination, sexual orientation, religion or belief, and age, and will also have responsibility for the promotion of human rights. The advancement of race relations and the statutory responsibilities of the existing Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) will remain with that body for a further five years after the creation of the CEHR, in acknowledgement of the central importance of combating racism and promoting good race relations.

The GLA, Birmingham and Manchester City Councils banned planned exhibitions by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), following the BoD’s public criticism in July of their advertising campaign based on comparisons of factory farming with the Holocaust. PETA had used images of emaciated Holocaust victims and concentration camp inmates to describe the suffering of animals.

In December the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), the industry watchdog body, published its annual report. Among its roles is that of monitoring and combating criminal racist content hosted by UK Internet service providers. After investigating 267 cases in 2004, the IWF estimated that criminally racist material constituted only 1.5 percent of all criminal postings. They further noted that incitement to racial hatred content is generally not now hosted in the UK and that the authorities need to look at foreign servers if it was to further investigate but that this was beyond the IWF remit.

At the end of 2004, the Jewish community was formally notified that the government would, in due course, reject the report it had commissioned from the Farm Animal Welfare Council on religious animal slaughter. During the course of the year, the community had formed the cross-communal Shechita UK to educate the government and to campaign against the report, which the government had initially appeared inclined to accept. Excerpts from the report were seized on by neo-Nazi organizations and used by them in their propaganda.