Cllr Elliot Keck represents Hyde Park Ward on Westminster City Council and is Political Director (maternity cover) of the Conservative Friends of Israel.
On Thursday 7th May I was one of two Conservative councillors elected in the Hyde Park ward of Westminster. It was a hard-fought battle. The three Labour councillors we were attempting to unseat had been led for four years by Paul Dimoldenberg, whose almost 30 years on the council meant he had unparalleled knowledge of how to use incumbency to their advantage. His success, and the popularity of one of his colleagues, Shamsed Chowdhury, meant that in the end, two out of three was not a bad result.
Alongside my relief at getting over the line – and the delight at seeing a wave of Conservatives elected across Westminster – I also felt a certain relief at the fact that not a single Green was elected to the council. They came close in a number of former Labour strongholds, but ultimately failed.
Labour has been a shambles at every level of governance for some time – in Westminster of both varieties, in London, in Wales, you name it. But they are still a completely different prospect compared to the Greens, who are now consumed with a radicalism defined by hatred and envy. Gone are the days when Greens in local government cared about green spaces, hedgerows and newts. While even those focuses can seriously negatively impact housebuilding, they don’t pose a grave threat to social cohesion, or the very fabric of democracy. And they certainly don’t make life intolerable, even dangerous, for the British Jewish community.
Newly elected Greens now care increasingly about one thing, and one thing only: Palestine. The side effect that this makes our communities increasingly hostile to Jews is at best a distraction to be ignored, and at worst the icing on the cake. And they are set to make local government the next place to weaponise this issue.
The tools they can use are manifold. There is the symbolic buffoonery – using council time and motions to declare and condemn Israeli actions, even using the term “genocide” in a grotesque inversion of the reality on the ground. Twinning with cities in the West Bank and Gaza might be added to this category, as might inviting over representatives from different groups for meetings, speeches and so on. But there is more concrete action that can be taken.
Firstly, watch what happens in schools. Councils still run many schools, and have some latitude as to what is taught, what school trips, what extracurricular activities, what books the library stocks, what speakers are brought in to address children and so on. “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted”, Lenin said. Don’t be surprised if Greens heed that message.
Then there is the pension funds. These are the investments the council makes to pay for the extraordinarily expensive, and generous, pension schemes provided to council staff, and now councillors. The market value of LGPS funds at the end of March 2025 was an eye-watering £402.3 billion, or an annual cost of over £19 billion. Ensuring that the investments underwriting these payments deliver high quality, long-term returns is therefore vital. Yet the Greens are pledging to “divest” from companies with even a vague association with Israel. Just take Newham Greens, which pledges to divest the pension fund from companies based in, listed in, or even merely operating in Israel.
Then there are the charities that the council funds. Many mosques are in receipt of taxpayer cash, for example. If their imams are found to be spewing antisemitic bile to their congregation, will their local government income be stopped? Will Jewish charities and groups still receive support? Local government could be entering a dark period in some parts of the country. It is therefore vital that the Conservatives remain the loudest and proudest voice standing up for the Jewish community, and standing against hatred of Jews and Israel. This has been the party’s stance nationally, with Kemi Badenoch leading a cabinet which has consistently been on the right side of these issues, and at the very forefront of the public debate. Just look at the way Kemi responded to a heckler at an event in Essex during the local election campaign. When challenged as to why she was focusing on antisemitism specifically, there was no equivocation, no caveats, just a robust defence of British Jews. And it’s not just the right thing to do morally. Electorally it is also the right thing to as well, as shown in Barnet where we were rewarded with a gain of nine seats.
As Conservatives in local government we now need to follow her lead, and ensure that at every layer of government – from town hall to city hall to the commons and the lords, we are standing up for British Jews and against the hatred that is spreading so rapidly. Where once rhetorical support may have been sufficient, now it is time for concrete action.