Earlier this week, Midlands Police confirmed that the primary reason for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was because of the risk that hooligans in their midst posed to the local people of Birmingham. This proved controversial because Keir Starmer and culture secretary Lisa Nandy both implied that the decision was made chiefly because of the risk to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.

Now, Lisa Nandy has refused to admit that she misled parliament and the public:

‘You said it was about antisemitism. That was wrong, wasn’t it?’@Lewis_Goodall challenges Lisa Nandy on the government’s opposition to banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from an Aston Villa match, which West Mids Police now confirm was due to hooliganism. pic.twitter.com/NOEZKvAsXL

— LBC (@LBC) November 9, 2025

This is turning into something of a brawl itself, isn’t it?

Nothing to see here, Lisa Nandy?

In the video above, Lewis Goodall says to Lisa Nandy:

You told the House of Commons that that decision was based in no small part on the risk based to those fans that are attending to support Maccabi Tel Aviv because they are Israeli and because they are Jewish.

You can see part of the Commons speech in question here:

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the house, “What is astonishing in this case is that it’s unprecedented in modern times that all away fans have been banned,”

This is not unprecedented at all. The match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Napoli on November 4th has been banned. pic.twitter.com/3Q7SZhO38P

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) October 20, 2025

Following her speech, Jeremy Corbyn wrote Nandy the following:

I have written to Lisa Nandy, following her grossly misleading comments over the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban.

This is about a group of fans with a history of racism and violence. It is not about banning Jewish people – and any attempt to conflate the two is shameful. pic.twitter.com/B2MsaaZBGq

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) October 21, 2025

Back to the interview, Goodall asked:

West Midlands Police told Parliament this week and Sky News this week that that was not the reason, that the reason was because of the hooliganism of those fans. Would you like to apologise to West Midlands Police?

Staggeringly, Lisa Nandy responded:

No

She continued, stating that she:

would like to commend West Midlands Police for the policing operation that saw hundreds of officers deployed onto the streets with care and sensitivity.

But I want to be really clear with you on this point, Lewis. I, of course, as you would expect, the advice from Westminster Police to the safety advisory group who make the ultimate decision on this before we took any decisions around it. That advice was crystal clear that there are a number of factors that went into the decision that Westminster Police, the recommendation that they put forward that away fans should be banned. That was based on an assessment of risk that included an element of hooliganism amongst the away fans.

But it was absolutely crystal clear that the risk to the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was high.

This is very, very interesting, because chief superintendent Tom Joyce actually said the following:

We are simply trying to make decisions based on community safety, driven by the intelligence that was available to us and our assessment of the risk that was coming from admitting travelling fans.

I’m aware there’s a lot of commentary around the threat to the [Maccabi] fans being the reason for the decision. To be clear, that was not the primary driver. That was a consideration.

This is what Goodall asked next:

Chief Superintendent Tom Joyce told Sky News, ‘we are simply trying to make decisions based on community safety driven by the intelligence that was available to us and our assessment of the risk that was coming from admitting travelling fans’. They have been clear this week that the primary driver around this was about the threat posed by those fans. And you said it was about antisemitism. That was wrong, wasn’t it?

Nandy responded:

It was not wrong. And I’m telling you, Lewis, that I have read that report from West Midlands Police to the Safety Advisory Committee who make the decision. And that report was absolutely crystal clear that although there were a number of factors that went into their recommendation to ban away fans, the high risk that they identified was was to those fans themselves.

That was not just on the basis that they were Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.

It was because it was an Israeli team and it’s because many of those supporters were Jewish.

Well, well, well – what’s all this then?

The statements from the police and Lisa Nandy are directly at odds with one another – i.e. someone’s telling fibs.

Having lied once @lisanandy doubles down on her lies, contradicting *senior* West Midl Police Officer who spelled out clearly decision to ban Maccabi away fans was based on their record of hooliganism. Shameless lies from Nandy to save face after being found out #ItWasAScam https://t.co/zIRb4sNEed

— Mrs Gee (@earthygirl011) November 9, 2025

Lisa Nandy is still doubling down even though the West Midlands Police clarified why they banned Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.pic.twitter.com/YDI8KZflMx

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) November 9, 2025

Porkies

There can only be two conclusions to all this: either Lisa Nandy is lying about what was in that report, or the police are.

Given that Labour aren’t calling for an investigation into why the police are telling porkies, it seems that the former is most likely.

There’s one way to clear this up, anyway, and that’s to release the report.

Featured image via LBC

By Willem Moore

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