As a long-time season-ticket holder, my life is intertwined with the memorable moments at Aston Villa games. Whether standing in the terraces of Villa Park or now sitting alongside my equally passionate sons, my love for the club remains unwavering.

I’ve had the unique opportunity to meet Prince William twice, sharing lengthy conversations about our mutual admiration for the team—though I’m guessing he doesn’t share my halftime tradition of Bovril and a balti pie.

Given my background, raised by a devoted Jewish father, I am deeply disturbed by West Midlands Police’s decision to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending an upcoming away match at our club.

The involvement of local ‘Independent’ MP Ayoub Khan and the disgraced former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in petitioning to cancel the match only tarnishes the sport and our nation.

Adding to the controversy, local cleric Asrar Rashid issued an ‘Islamic ruling’ with a troubling warning that when Tel Aviv fans arrive in Birmingham, they will not be shown any ‘rahma’ or mercy.

Finally, West Midlands Police announced yesterday that Israeli fans would not be permitted to attend the game, solidifying the decision.

We should be clear about what has taken place. A group of fans have been banned from attending a match on the basis of their nationality – or perhaps their race. This is anti-Jewish racism straight out of the 1930s.

I know from personal experience that West Midlands Police can appear less than impartial. When, last year, I called the proscribed terrorist group Hamas an ‘Islamist death cult’ on X, I was stunned to find myself investigated for a so-called ‘non-crime hate incident’. It was, I was told by a senior officer, only a change in rules that prevented it being logged as such on my ‘police record’.

Yesterday, West Midlands Police said that Israeli fans would not be allowed to come to the game between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv next month

Local ‘Independent’ MP, Ayoub Khan, pictured, worked with ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to organise a petition to have the match called off

But these issues extend beyond the parochial. Britain is seeing an inexorable rise in both extremism and sectarian politics. Councillors and MPs are being elected for their views on Israel and Gaza, a conflict thousands of miles away.

Green Party deputy leader, Mothin Ali, marked his council election victory last May by donning a keffiyeh and screaming: ‘This is for Palestine! Allahu akbar!’ Climate change and recycling did not appear to be his main priorities.

Research by my office has found that between Hamas’s pogrom on October 7, 2023, and October 5 this year, Parliament discussed Israel and Gaza more than 15,000 times – compared to 8,000 or so for both the NHS and the Ukraine war, and a mere 2,500 times for immigration.

The BBC is just as myopic, obsessing over Israel while remaining comparatively mute on wars in, say, Sudan.

Yesterday, Ofcom censured the BBC for broadcasting a documentary narrated by a boy with links to Hamas, which it failed to disclose. The national broadcaster still refuses to refer to Hamas as ‘terrorists’ – though they are in law.

All this helps to fuel the lie that Israel is somehow uniquely evil – and that leads to hatred towards people rightly or wrongly identified with the country, including Britain’s Jewish community.

Let’s be clear, a group of fans have been banned from attending a match on the basis of their nationality, writes Ian Austin

The Community Security Trust, the brilliant charity that does so much to protect British Jews, is logging thousands of incidents every year. In London in July, a synagogue was reportedly smeared with excrement. In Worcester last month, buildings owned by Jewish people were daubed with red swastikas.

As the Chief Rabbi has said, it is a ‘tidal wave of Jew-hatred’ – and it culminated, tragically, in the cold-blooded murder of innocent Jews in their own synagogue a fortnight ago by an Islamist terrorist in Manchester.

This context is vital to understanding the abysmal decision of West Midlands Police to ban Jewish fans from attending their team’s game. It should be a wake-up call for our country – and we have a duty to do something about it. It is time we stood up for democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance – and tell anyone who disagrees with these values to feel free to go and live elsewhere.

The Government needs to develop a proper plan to tackle anti-Jewish extremism. The authorities must finally deal with hardline clerics preaching hatred in mosques. Racist staff should be sacked from public-sector jobs. Charities giving a platform to anti-Jewish racism should be stripped of their tax-free status.

Yes, the right to protest is sacrosanct. But the weekly anti-Semitic hate-marches must be curbed, especially after Donald Trump’s historic peace deal.

The decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans is a symptom of a far more insidious disease. Now the country must come together – and cure it for good.