The appalling terrorist attack on Thursday was shocking, but not a surprise. Rampant antisemitism and extremism has been allowed to go unchecked in the country. We saw an explosion of antisemitism after the October 7th terrorist attack. It even got so bad that the Conservative MP, Mike Freer, chose to stand down because of the risk of violence from Islamists angry at his support for Israel.

A deadly attack was sadly the logical endpoint of this escalating extremism. Warning after warning was ignored by people in authority. A feeble and spineless class of leaders have tolerated antisemitism and allowed it to grow. Whether in our universities, charities, institutions like the BBC or even the NHS, our elite class turned a blind eye.

Their warm words will be cold comfort unless they are accompanied with action. We do not need more performative acts of support, we need them to root out extremism and antisemitism ruthlessly wherever it rears its head. We need them to confront Islamism and the radical hate preachers that are able to act in our communities to stir up anti-British and anti-Jewish sentiment with impunity.

What makes the attack yesterday even more revolting is the reaction from a small section of society, who proceeded to take to the streets even as the attack was still reverberating.

The scenes outside Downing Street yesterday, where pro-Palestine protesters descended into violence and attacks against the police, were disgusting. Do these people have no shame?

To make matters worse, a repeat protest is planned for tomorrow. If the organisers had any humanity, the protest would be cancelled.

But instead it looks like it will go ahead, replete with all the usual extremist chants we’ve come to expect. The fanatics will chant to "globalise the intifada", oblivious to the violence that entails. We will no doubt hear again the genocidal chant of "from the river to the sea". When British Jews should be given space to grieve and mourn, they will once again be made to feel unsafe in the centre of their capital city.

It is a damning indictment of how bad things have got, that the Met police have been reduced to begging the organisers on social media to stand down. The authorities have said they will do whatever it takes to make British Jews feels safe once again. If they truly mean it, this protest will not go ahead.

The country cannot tolerate this any longer. Britain where our British Jewish friends are afraid is not Britain.