Ozzie the Bull at the New Street railway station, Birmingham, UK

How UK’s Hard Right Is Attacking An Independent Press Over Muslims

In a U-turn disguised as a twist in the story: the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team has announced it will not issue tickets to their fans for the Europa Cup match against Aston Villa in Birmingham, UK next month.

The Israeli club cited safety concerns and blamed “extremist figures” in Britain, a convenient echo of the hard-right agitators in the UK who weaponized the issue.

For the ban on attendance by Maccabi’s fans was never about anti-semitism. A concern about public safety, in light of those supporters’ record for violence and disturbances, was an opportunity for the hard right and their media clients to drag Birmingham into their culture war.

Seizing it eagerly, they generated a narrative which was never about protecting Jewish fans. The motive was to paint a city with a large Muslim population as dangerous, ungovernable, and divided.

Safety First, but Not for the Story

West Midlands Police and the Safety Advisory Group made their initial decision to ban Maccabi fans after a review of evidence with credible threat assessments. In recent years, those fans were involved in a series of violent incidents across Europe. They included clashes with local youths in Amsterdam where Maccabi supporters were filmed wielding sticks and chanting racist slogans, and an assault on a man carrying a Palestinian flag in Athens. In Cyprus, several fans were arrested for carrying flares and smoke bombs. Others reportedly engaged in altercations with locals.

The ban was operational, not ideological. But in Westminster and Fleet Street, nuance does not sell.

As soon as the ban was announced, politicians rushed to condemn it. The Labour Party’s leadership could not resist the reflex to apologize and appease. Instead of standing up for the professionals tasked with keeping people safe, they caved into right-wing outrage painting multi-cultural Britain as fractured. Once again, Labour flinched when it most needed backbone.

With Maccabi’s reversal and its claim that the intervention of far-right agitator Tommy Robinson’s “intervention” worsened the situation, the whole episode appears farcical. It exposes how quickly a policing decision became a stage for performative politics. The right sought a flashpoint; Labour handed them the spotlight.

An Attack on Birmingham

For years, Birmingham has been a favorite target of those eager to prove that diversity does not work. When politicians need a backdrop for their moral panic, they come here. Right-wing Conservative Robert Jenrick wanted to dramatize his speech on immigration, so he filmed himself in the area of Handsworth — dark filters, dramatic tone — omitting ordinary life around him. Pundits like Trevor Phillips ask whether “some areas are no-go zones for Jews”, not to seek truth but to sow suspicion.

So the right framed the decision to restrict fans as evidence that “the Muslims are taking over” the city and that Jewish safety is being ignored. The narrative was designed to push further apart working-class communities, minorities, British Jews, and British Muslims.

If and when violence or unrest does occur, they’ll point to my home Birmingham again, using it to justify more hostility toward minority communities. This is not about one football match; it’s about keeping the idea alive that diverse cities are doomed.

Tommy Robinson and the Theater of Outrage

Enter Tommy Robinson, a man banned from football grounds for inciting violence, now parading around in a Maccabi Tel Aviv shirt in Israel. His “solidarity” trip was pure theater: a provocateur pretending to protect Jews, whose real aim is to provoke Muslims and inflame tensions.

Robinson doesn’t care about Jewish safety. His movement’s record of anti-semitism, Holocaust denial, and hate makes that obvious. He cares about exploiting division. Maccabi’s leadership mentioning his name shows how far this story has drifted from reality into spectacle.

The hard right has perfected the art of outrage theatre. They do not want resolution. They want endless conflict to feed their politics and media cycles.

Birmingham was never the problem; it was the prop.

Every part of this saga from the outrage headlines to the Labour apologies played into the hands of the hard right. They wanted Birmingham to be a test case for “broken multi-culturalism”. Instead of pushing back with facts and confidence, Labour once again spoke the language of retreat, appearing not to understand the importance of why the initial decision was made to provide safety for all.

The irony? The very people demanding the ban be lifted are the same ones who will demonize Birmingham’s Muslim communities if trouble flares up. The same commentators who cry “free speech” for Israeli fans will call local protests “hate marches”. The same pundits who claim to defend Jews from exclusion will throw anti-Muslim slurs at those living near Villa Park.

It is hypocrisy layered on hypocrisy, and it is dangerous. When they say “failed city”, what they really mean is “too brown, too Muslim, too different”.

Birmingham Works — Despite the Politics

The Birmingham I know tells another story. In Witton, where Villa Park stands, there has never been a serious security incident linked to local Muslim residents. Not once. Those streets are calm, proud, and home to families like mine who have lived there for generations.

Aston Villa Foundation works with local mosques, schools, and community groups on youth programmes and charity projects. When the cost-of-living crisis and COVID hit, church halls, mosques and community groups partnered to run food drives and warm banks. That’s Birmingham.

You will not see that on some UK news outlets. You will see slick graphics and grim headlines about “no-go zones”. You will see provocative questions cut into viral outrage clips. You will know the hard right is using my city as a political football.

Birmingham is one of the most diverse cities in Europe. Yes, it has challenges, inequality, cuts, and neglect. However, these are failures of politics not people. For this is a city that proves multi-culturalism works not perfectly but practically. There are hijabs and headscarves next to Villa scarves, halal bakeries beside Irish pubs, and kids from every background sharing classrooms and dreams.

When the hard right attacks Birmingham, it isn’t critiquing local governance, it’s attacking the idea that people of different faiths and colors can live together with dignity. It’s the Trump playbook: attack the cities that look like the future and call them ungovernable.

A City Defamed, Not Defined

With Maccabi’s reversal, West Midlands Police will feel vindicated. The club itself admitted the match was unsafe — precisely what local authorities said from day one. Common sense has prevailed, but the damage to trust to Birmingham and perception is already done.

The real danger comes from those who profit from polarization, and from the pundits and politicians who treat Birmingham as shorthand for Britain’s “problem with diversity”. They manufacture division, then blame the city for living it.

Common sense prevailed. The match will go ahead as planned, without away supporters, because security concerns were valid. Yet the narrative that drove this saga — Birmingham as a symbol of Britain’s failure remains unchallenged by too many in power. The hard right and their media allies achieved what they wanted: another storm to feed the culture wars.

Those of us who know Birmingham know better. We have seen too much solidarity, too much cooperation, too many ordinary acts of unity to accept the damaging caricatures.

This city is not broken. The story about it is.