A deadly new poison has entered UK politics – it’s coming to a council near you this month

Not long ago, I would read about random knife attacks in Israel with a sense of distance. The idea of strangers being stabbed on the street purely for who they are felt alien and downright terrifying. Now it’s happening in Britain. This week in Golders Green, a man was stabbed at random purely for being Jewish. That alone is horrifying. But the more disturbing development is this: we are beginning to treat this as a normal part of daily life. This is not normal. It is the symptom of a terrible sickness creeping into our society. And it is spreading by the day.

Instead of uniting against it, parts of our political class, particularly on the left, are turning a blind eye or worse, winking at it. Ever since the 1990s, elements within the Labour movement have downplayed Islamist extremism. And they’ve called out anybody who alerted us to the danger as racists. After the 9/11 terror attacks, rather than confront the ideology behind the attacks, the left blamed US and UK foreign policy.

And they’re still pointing fingers at everybody except the people actually committing the violence. There’s a good reason Sir Keir Starmer was booed when he turned up in Golders Green yesterday. British Jews wonder whose side he’s on. This is an extraordinary and dangerous place for Britain to be.

I understand the divisions over Gaza and Israeli land seizures on the West Bank, but the obsession is taking us all to a very dark place. Chants once confined to distant lands are regularly heard in British cities, as tens of thousands gather to chant: “Globalise the intifada”. The intifada is already here, and British people will die. Jews are already packing their bags.

The hatred is happening at Glastonbury, as we saw last year with band Bob Vylan, who became famous for chanting anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish chant “Death, death to the IDF”, cheerfully echoed by many in the crowd. He’s since called for the “right to an armed resistance”. Bob Vylan is banned in the US, but set to headline two UK festivals this summer.

Instead of targeting Jew hate, Labour introduces a new law on Islamophobia, in a desperate bit to pacify its dwindling Muslim vote. This only makes it harder to call out what’s happening, while giving another layer of protection to grooming gangs. But the best example of the sickness and infecting British politics is Green Party leader Zack Polanski.

The man is a chancer. He’s been handed his moment, and can hardly believe his luck. Polanski has an eerily similar glint in his eye as Bob Vylan, when he says the previously unsayable.

Despite being Jewish himself, Polanski is fronting an organisation infiltrated by anti-Semitic Islamists, just as the Labour Party was under Jeremy Corbyn. Often, they’re the same people. They’ve found a new receptacle for their bile.

Jewish schoolchildren have been abused on buses, students threatened on campus, businesses daubed with slogans, including Jewish-owned bakery chain Gail’s. The Guardian winked at that, before it backtracked. There have been firebomb attacks on synagogues and a Jewish ambulance charity.

And what does Zack Polanski say? He waves it away, claiming Jews merely have a “perception of unsafety”. Then likes a tweet, attacking unarmed British policeman who put their lives on the line to disarm an intifada-backing knifeman. Polanski isn’t just winking. He’s riding the Islamist tiger. And middle-class, feminist friends tell me they will vote for him. Madness.

On 7 May, we have local council elections. The Green Party looks set to make major gains, including in London. That would give it real influence over policing. We may hear more cries of Allahu Akbar as the results roll in.

Don’t think this stops with the Jews. That’s just where it starts. This is part of a much wider Islamist surge, and it will affect all of us. Instead of winking at it, we need to face it down. I’ve never been more fearful for the future of British society in my life.