Ex-Labour adviser admits it's 'no surprise' Keir Starmer faced protest during Golders Green visit

Georgia Pearce
Fri, 01 May 2026 12:44:48 +0000

An ex-Labour adviser has admitted it is "no surprise" Sir Keir Starmer was "heckled" during his visit to Golders Green, telling GB News that the Prime Minister is "deeply unpopular".

Speaking to Britain's Newsroom, Danny Shaw declared that the furious reaction from the Golders Green community towards Sir Keir was "no surprise".

Crowds gathered outside an ambulance depot where the Prime Minister visited workers on Thursday, following a terror attack in the area on Wednesday.

Locals waved signs with the words 'Keir Starmer, Jew harmer' on them, later booing and jeering at the Prime Minister's motorcade as he arrived at the depot.

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Reacting to the protest, the former adviser to Yvette Cooper told GB News that the reaction from those in Golders Green is "no surprise" to him.

He said: "It's a very difficult moment for Sir Keir Starmer. He's a deeply unpopular Prime Minister in a deeply unpopular Government.

"Wherever he goes, he'll get abuse and he'll be heckled, particularly going there at a time when tensions are very high and feelings are running very high."

Mr Shaw admitted: "I'm not surprised at that reaction at all, but it's absolutely vital that he did go and make that statement."

Criticising Labour's approach to increasing protection of the Jewish community, GB News host Miriam Cates questioned why the Government appears unable to get to the "root cause" of the problem.

Mr Shaw responded: "Well, this is a complex issue. How do you attack some people's fundamental beliefs or cultural attitudes? You can't just do it overnight.

"You can swamp areas with police and you can increase protection around synagogues, those are physical things that you can do - but how do you tackle people's ingrained attitudes?"

He asked: "How do you attack people's conversations they're having in families where there's antisemitism, where there's anti-Jewish comments being made, or in some schools or institutions or in mosques, for example?

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"Those are really knotty, difficult issues that are going to take years to try and combat. So it's a start what's being proposed at the moment, but it's going to take a long time."

Agreeing with Mr Shaw, commentator Dr Renee Hoenderkamp stressed that there has been "decades" of allowing anti-Jewish rhetoric to fester in Britain.

She told GB News: "It's difficult now to undo and to put this genie back into the bottle, because we've had decades of allowing this to fester and to grow, because we have political parties whose vote depends on people that don't like Jews.

"So they're in a really difficult position. They're sitting on a fence where they don't want to upset their voter base, because Labour are terrified that that particular voter base is going to run to the Greens."

Ms Hoenderkamp urged the Labour Government to "forget their voter base" and stand up for "every citizen in this country".

She concluded: "Labour is thinking, goodness, if we really tackle this and say the problem here is that we have imported people from countries that detest Jews for decades and they want to see them dead, then we're going to lose our voter base.

"That's a big problem for these parties, and they need to actually forget their voter base and stand up for every citizen in this country, every single one."

In an address to the nation, Sir Keir pledged that the Government "will do everything in our power to stamp this hatred out".

He said: "I call on everyone to come together and fight antisemitism, and I call on everyone to fight for the decent, respectful, tolerant Britain that millions of people and I love so that our freedom and our values can still speak loud and true to a community that can no longer take it on faith."