The UK immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has suggested that visitors to the country will be deported if they incite anti-Semitism, even if their behaviour falls ‘below the criminal threshold’.
Jenrick said he could not go into “specific cases” of visa-holders whose behaviour was under review, saying there was a “legal process that has to be followed properly”, but noted that some people had been seen “glorifying” terrorist activity and “praising Hamas”.
It comes after he told the House of Commons on Tuesday that the process of revoking visas and expelling foreign nationals who spread “hatred and division” had already begun “in a small number of cases”.
Asked on Times Radio whether someone waving a Palestinian flag at a demonstration could have their visa revoked, Jenrick said: “No, we believe in freedom of expression.
“But I disagree with your premise that … someone who is here as a visitor to the UK has the right to be anti-Semitic, to threaten British communities and can stay unless it is of a criminal nature.
“I think there is behaviour which is below the criminal level but which is wrong and would be accepted as wrong by most reasonable people.
“If these people are not British citizens, they’re just visitors to our country enjoying the privileges of living here, of being among other British people, then I’m afraid their visas should be revoked and they should leave the country.”
He added: “We’ve all seen instances of people glorifying and valorising terrorist activity – we’ve seen people holding deeply anti-Semitic banners, being interviewed in the media and praising Hamas.
“That is disgusting behaviour. I don’t want to see it on our streets. And if that person is just a visitor to our country, they should not be doing that.
“I can’t look a British Jewish person in the eye as an immigration minister and say I’ve allowed somebody to stay in this country at our pleasure who behaves in that way – it’s wrong.
“If you come to this country, you abide by British values.”
Jenrick revealed that the process of revoking visas and expelling foreign nationals who spread “hate and division” had already begun on Tuesday, after Tory MP Jill Mortimer asked for reassurance that any asylum seeker or person on a visa who “breaks our laws and incites racial hatred and violence … will be removed”.
The minister replied: “I’ve been very clear that people who spread hatred and division in our country have no right to be here, and so those individuals who are foreign nationals who have a visa, which is a privilege, not an entitlement, and who behave in that way, who fall below the standard we expect in our country, will have that visa revoked and will be removed.
“We have already started this process in a small number of cases. And I have written to all chief constables in England and Wales asking them to bring any examples to our attention at the Home Office that we should consider”.
He said he would “not comment directly” on remarks by UN Secretary-General António Guterres that the 7 October terrorist attacks did not happen in a vacuum, but said no comparison should be made between Israel and Hamas.
Guterres said on Tuesday that the 7 October attacks by Hamas were “appalling”, but added that “the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.
Speaking on Sky News, Jenrick said: “I don’t think you should be comparing Israel to Hamas and you shouldn’t be suggesting in any way that innocent Israeli civilians are to blame or have any culpability for what happened.”
