Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, said British Jews are now the target of every extremist group spreading hate.
“The ghastly fact is that Jews are on everybody’s list, all of those hateful groups, whether you’re extreme right, whether you’re extreme left, whether you’re Islamist terrorist, whether you’re right-wing terrorist, and some hostile states as well now with some sort of Iranian-related threats,” he told The Times.
“There’s a ghastly Venn diagram that they’re at the middle of.”
Britain’s official terror threat level was raised from substantial to severe after Wednesday’s stabbing attack. Severe is the second-highest on a five-point scale and means intelligence agencies consider an attack highly likely in the next six months.
The government said the change was not due solely to the Golders Green attack but also due to increased danger “from Islamist and extreme right-wing terrorist threat from individuals and small groups based in the UK”.
The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the UK has soared since the attack by Hamas-led militants on southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza, according to the Community Security Trust charity. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.