In October 2020, Jeremy Corbyn—under whose prior leadership the British Labor party had become a cesspool of anti-Semitism—was suspended from the party altogether after saying that anti-Semitism among its members was “dramatically overstated.” His successor, Keir Starmer, has since tried to rectify the situation, and has made multiple overtures to the Jewish community. In an interview, Jake Wallis Simmons challenged Starmer about his longstanding fealty to Corbyn as well as his plans to make Labor more welcoming to Jews.

Would Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer be, as they say, “good for the Jews”? Since the Corbyn years, this has become an inevitable question. And it is possible to argue that he would.

Sir Keir and his Jewish wife, Victoria, are members of St. John’s Wood Liberal Synagogue and are bringing their children up with a sense of Jewish identity. He has repeatedly vowed to tear out anti-Semitism “by the roots.” When we met on Monday in a comically cramped cloakroom in a nursery in Harrow, he made a point of mentioning that he had extended family in Israel.

Yet for much of the community, the jury remains firmly out on the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service. A recent poll has suggested that 65 percent of Jews still find Labor unwelcoming, as the shadow of Corbynism continues to darken local branches. It darkens parts of the opposition benches in Parliament as well. It’s hard to forget that Sir Keir was one of Jeremy Corbyn’s longest-serving shadow-cabinet members, clocking up 1,559 days under his leadership. In July 2019, he said he had “full confidence” in Mr. Corbyn as—believe it or not—the right man to root out Jew-hatred in the party.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.