Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy’s speech has been disrupted.
David Lammy has been heckled with chants of “shame on you” at a synagogue terror attack vigil. Mourners shouted at the Deputy Prime Minister by telling him to “go to Palestine”, “you have blood on your hands” and “you are not wlecome here today”.
The crowd warned him to “stop the marches” set for this weekend despite the killing of two people at Heaton Park synagogue, in Manchester, on Thursday. Mr Lammy said: “For those who are considering marching over the weekend, I ask them to reflect with all human dignity… to stop and stand back.”
Members of the public gathered shouted: “Tell them to stop”.
Joanne Sheldon, 61, from Radcliffe, Bury, said she turned her back when Mr Lammy began to speak.
She said: “We didn’t know he would be speaking here and when we found out we just thought ‘why is he here?’ Jewish people don’t feel it’s safe in Britain now.”
Her friend Hayley Lawson, 49, said hatred was being “stirred up” by pro-Palestine marches.
She said: “It is not our fault what is going on between Israel and Gaza. Nobody wants war.
“There were marches at the beginning with Ukraine and Russia but those marches have all gone and what about all the other things happening in the world? People aren’t marching for them.
“That says to me these marches are against Jewish people, pure and simple, because if they weren’t they’d be marching about other things going on in the world.”
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy heckled (Image: Sky News)
Mr Lammy called for the UK to stand together as he was heckled by members of the crowd at the vigil on Middleton Road.
The Deputy Prime Minister said: “We must stand together we must stand in grief in solidarity and in defiance. Grief for the incident lives takes so cruelly. Senseless murders carried out on Yom Kippur, grief that causes so much pain and suffering.”
The Justice Secretary said “we all feel terrorism” and used the example of his “best childhood friend” who was “blown to smithereens” in the July 7 2005 London bombings.
He added: “We stand with you against those who think bombs and blasts will break us, we stand against all states who would minimise or coddle or obfuscate on anti-Jewish hate.
“We know terrorism in this country. We know it, of course, in this city – we saw it at the arena, and we have seen it in Heaton Park.
“We all know terrorism, we all feel terrorism – my best friend from childhood, James Adams, was blown to smithereens in the 7/7 bombings.
“And I vow to you, every Christian, every Muslim, every Jew, every Mancunian, every Brit: We will never stop fighting it.”
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham also paid tribute to the Jewish community at the event.
He said: “We have your back. That is us, that is Greater Manchester.”
A worshipper died and another was injured after they were accidentally shot by armed police while attempting to prevent a knife-wielding terrorist from entering a synagogue.
Killer Jihad Al-Shamie was shot dead by police seven minutes after officers were called about the attacker ramming into people with a car and stabbing a man outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester, on Thursday.
Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66, both died and three others remain in hospital with serious injuries following the attack, which took place on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day.
Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson said the only shots fired outside the synagogue were by armed officers as Al-Shamie did not have a firearm.
