[/URL]
[*][URL='https://committees.parliament.uk/work/9470/football-policing/']Inquiry: Football policing[/URL]
[*][URL='https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/83/home-affairs-committee/']Home Affairs Committee[/URL]
[/LIST]
[LIST]
[*][B]West Midlands Police must rebuild trust after failures in decision making and community outreach[/B]
[*][B]Late Government intervention exacerbated tensions[/B]
[*][B]Political interference in decision making process cannot be ruled out [/B]
[/LIST]
The report finds that West Midlands Police were overly reliant on inaccurate and unverified information for decision making that proved wholly inadequate to stand up to subsequent scrutiny. Evidence that supported pre-held narratives was readily accepted, while contradictory evidence from authoritative sources was seemingly ignored.
A lack of due diligence meant that failures in evidence gathering went unnoticed and unaddressed, even in the face of scrutiny by a Parliamentary Committee. The evidence used to assess the threat level posed by Maccabi fans was partly based on false information generated by AI that gave a misleading picture of the violence around their fixture with Ajax in Amsterdam. The gathering of evidence by WMP to support the decision is currently subject to an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
The Committee found no evidence that the WMP response was motivated by antisemitism but it is clear the force failed to take appropriate steps to engage with Jewish communities. This was in in stark contrast to its active consultation with other communities. It is right that former Chief Constable Guildford has retired so that West Midlands Police can begin to address the loss of trust and confidence that has resulted from this episode.
Concerns remain that the Safety Advisory Group’s decision making may have been unduly influenced by political pressure. Councillors had a “disproportionate opportunity to exert influence”, undermining trust that decision making was based on evidence and safety and not political considerations. The SAG further lacked the ability to challenge the evidence given by West Midlands Police and take into consideration the wider context of the fixture.
As part of its review of guidance to Safety Advisory Groups, the Cabinet Office should end the practice of local councillors sitting on Safety Advisory groups. It should also consider establishing an escalation process in cases with significant social and political consequences.
The Home Office failed to recognise the significance of the decision to ban away fans and to coordinate effectively across Government. As a result, the Government was aware of the likely intention to ban, yet failed to intervene until after the decision had been made. This intervention, when it came, was ineffective in ensuring Maccabi fans could attend the fixture and only served to increase tensions.
Support should have been offered much earlier and in private if the Government was determined to enable away fans to attend.
[HEADING=1]Chair's comment[/HEADING]
Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Karen Bradley said:
“It is an extraordinary measure to decide to ban fans from attending a fixture, particularly in the cultural and political climate that this occurred in. It is therefore crucial that the decision making process, and the information underpinning it, is beyond reproach.
“Instead, there appears to have been a ‘that’ll do’ attitude. Banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans would make policing the match much easier. To justify this step information that showed the Maccabi fans to be a high risk was trusted without proper scrutiny. Shockingly, this included unverified information generated by AI. While Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were falsely characterised as unusually violent, the threat posed by local communities was downplayed and too little care was given to the impact on the Jewish community in Birmingham.
“Government intervention was clumsy and came too late, and we reject the Government’s argument that it could only intervene once the decision was taken. The profile of this fixture should have been obvious, and it seems that No.10, the Home Office and DCMS were indeed aware. But their intervention when it came did little more than inflame tensions.
“It is vital that trust is rebuilt. Firstly, West Midlands Police must repair the damage that has been done by working hard to reach out to local communities, particularly Jewish communities. They must also ensure that there is a cultural shift around decision making where assumptions are tested and evidence fully checked. We also want to see the Government develop a more effective mechanism to support decision making around football safety. It should also reflect carefully on its own role and how it can best reduce tensions, rather than exacerbate them, in future.”
[/QUOTE]
You might notice that some things are the focus of the report and some are footnotes.
Let's get to the BBC and the Guardian headlines;
https://archive.ph/WgNLV
[QUOTE]
Government’s response to Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban was ‘clumsy’, say MPs
[/QUOTE]
https://archive.ph/ISyQV
[QUOTE]
Government 'inflamed tension' over Maccabi fan ban, say MPs
[/QUOTE]
You would think from both of those headlines that the outcome of the investigation was WMP did nothing wrong. A fairly fucking egregious misrepresentation of the report almost akin to the shit Owen Jones was saying about the ban. Fortunately the Daily Mail is a small and petty creature and as such covered some key bits of of information.
https://archive.ph/1udMG
[QUOTE]
Publishing a report on the row, the Home Affairs Committee said it could not rule out that political pressure had played a part in the decision.
The report said West Midlands Police's concerns about disorder 'combined with local political pressure and community tensions related to the international situation' led to the move.
The report continued: 'While we cannot conclude that the Safety Advisory Group's decision was made because of political pressure, on the basis of the evidence we have seen we also cannot conclude with any confidence that the decision was not politically influenced.
'It is clear that on this occasion councillors, with a stated political aim, had a disproportionate opportunity to influence Safety Advisory Group decision-making on a deeply divisive political issue.
'While the presence of elected politicians on Safety Advisory Groups has potential benefits in terms of local representation, it also risks decision making becoming politically motivated, undermining trust in the process.'
Among them was Councillor Mumtaz Hussain, who appeared in a video promoting a petition against the match, and Cllr Waseem Zaffar, an Aston Villa fan, who wrote an editorial for a local newspaper stating his opposition to it going ahead.
Cllr Zaffar died at the end of January while attending a relative's funeral in Pakistan.
[U]The Cabinet Office should ban local councillors from sitting on Safety Advisory Groups, the group of MPs said.[/U]
[/QUOTE]
Here is Birmingham Live's coverage which is fairly balanced
https://archive.ph/WT8k1
[QUOTE]
A damning report issued by a committee of MPs has suggested ‘political pressure’ may have influenced the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a [URL='https://archive.ph/o/WT8k1/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/all-about/europa-league']Europa League[/URL] match against Aston Villa.
And it criticised police, a safety group, the Government and police commissioner, for a ‘that’ll do attitude’ which led to the controversial decision for away fans being prevented from attending last November.
The Home Affairs Committee (HAC) has issued its report into the decision of [URL='https://archive.ph/o/WT8k1/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/all-about/birmingham-city-council']Birmingham City Council[/URL]’s Safety Advisory Group (SAG), announced on October 16, to ban away fans from Israel attending the match at Villa Park on Thursday, November 6 last year.
The select committee has suggested political pressure ‘may have unduly influenced’ the decision to ban fans, with two councillors on the SAG, Cllr Mumtaz Hussain (Lib Dems), the councillor for Aston where the game was taking place, and the late Cllr Waseem Zaffar (Lozells, Lab) both openly against the game.
The HAC said: “Councillors had a “disproportionate opportunity to exert influence”, undermining trust that decision making was based on evidence and safety and not political considerations.
“The SAG further lacked the ability to challenge the evidence given by [URL='https://archive.ph/o/WT8k1/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/all-about/west-midlands-police']West Midlands Police[/URL] and take into consideration the wider context of the fixture.”
The HAC report issued on Sunday (February 22) said the SAG accepted West Midlands Police’s fan ban recommendation ‘on so little evidence that it had to ask for further justification after the fact’.
The SAG ‘failed to provide sufficient challenge’ to the West Midlands Police recommendation to ban away fans, heavily based on a game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam in November 2024 which were in the public domain.
The HAC recommended local councillors should not be sitting on safety advisory groups.
And also said the Cabinet Office: “Should also consider establishing an escalation process in cases with significant social and political consequences.”
The HAC also heavily criticised West Midlands Police for being ‘overly reliant on inaccurate and unverified information for decision making’.
It said the basis for the police’s decision ‘proved wholly inadequate to stand up to subsequent scrutiny’.
It said the police’s evidence to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was partly based on false information given by Microsoft Copilot AI (artificial intelligence) both on a fictitious game involving West Ham that never took place and on a ‘a misleading picture of the violence around their fixture with Ajax in Amsterdam’.
In [URL='https://archive.ph/o/WT8k1/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/west-midlands-police-admits-overstating-33296503']agreeing with the findings of Sir Andy Cooke,[/URL] from His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the HAC said: “Evidence that supported pre-held narratives was readily accepted, while contradictory evidence from authoritative sources was seemingly ignored.”
That evidence gathering by West Midlands Police is currently being investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
[B]Read more: [URL='https://archive.ph/o/WT8k1/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/police-used-ai-like-cops-33354956']Police used AI 'like cops in Minority Report' in controversial Maccabi decision[/URL][/B]
While the HAC found there was no evidence the police’s banning recommendation was motivated by antisemitism, it said: “It is clear the force failed to take appropriate steps to engage with Jewish communities.”
But it had been in ‘active consultation with other communities’.
It said: “It is clear that West Midlands Police failed to do even basic due diligence on the information they received.
“This included false information that was generated by AI. West Midlands Police also failed to retain contemporaneous notes relating to matters central to their decision-making.
“In addition, West Midlands Police continually emphasised that it was this unique risk from the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans which led to the recommendation to ban away fans, and not local community tensions, despite evidence of risk emanating from local communities in [URL='https://archive.ph/o/WT8k1/https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/']Birmingham[/URL].”
It said the SAG have been ‘incorrectly briefed on several occasions that the Jewish community had been consulted’.
It said the police believed consulting with the ‘Community Security Trust was equivalent to consulting the Jewish community’, which ‘falls some way short of the level and quality of community engagement that the Birmingham residents are entitled to expect from their police service’.
The police were further criticised for failing to provide a copy of their full risk assessment given to the SAG and for its assessment of the Ajax game that included claims 500 to 600 Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were involved in trouble targeting local communities, 200 had links to the Israeli Defence Forces and that Maccabi fans threw locals in the river – all of which was contradicted by Dutch police.
The HAC said: “The claim by West Midlands Police that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans presented a unique challenge because “they attack community members, not rival fans” is particularly problematic.”
Then Chief Constable Craig Guildford made the claim in oral evidence on December 1 and in a document to the SAG on October 24. Evidence of this was limited to two Palestinian flags being torn down and taxis being hit with belts.
The committee acknowledged West Midlands Police had been ‘scarred’ by the visit of Legia Warsaw fans in 2023, which led to violence outside Villa Park.
And said that game: “Combined with local political pressure and community tensions related to the international situation, led to the exceptional decision to exclude Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.”
The HAC said it was right West Midlands Police Chief Constable Craig Guildford ‘retired’ so the force could ‘address the loss of trust and confidence that has resulted from this episode’.
After being asked about the use of AI on December 1, it said he had a ‘remarkable lack of professional curiosity ‘not to interrogate the evidential basis to furnish himself with accurate information ahead of our session on 6 January’ when he again denied the use of AI.
But the criticism of the HAC did not end there.
West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, was slammed for ‘appearing to prioritise defending the Chief Constable above holding him to account’.
The PCC had accepted the former Chief Constable’s confidence in the intelligence, despite also quoting a report from the Dutch Inspectorate of Justice and Security report, which contradicted the West Midlands Police’s conclusions.
The Home Office too was criticised as it ‘failed to recognise the significance of the decision to ban away fans and to coordinate effectively across Government’.
It found it was aware that a fan ban was probable on October 8, eight days ahead of the decision being announced.
The HAC said: “If the Government had intervened privately at this point, to make its preference known, and to offer assurances that the Government was prepared to support with additional resources, a different outcome might have been achieved.
“The Home Office failed to recognise the significance of the decision and escalate appropriately, which is surprising given that it had already been asked by No. 10 for information regarding the fixture.
“We believe that early intervention could have been achieved in a way that was sensitive to operational independence.”
Instead the Government, including the Prime Minister, criticised the decision which ‘helped to increase the profile of the subsequent fixture, which in turn increased risk’.
It said support should have been offered much earlier’ and in private.
Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Karen Bradley said: “It is an extraordinary measure to decide to ban fans from attending a fixture, particularly in the cultural and political climate that this occurred in. It is therefore crucial that the decision-making process, and the information underpinning it, is beyond reproach.
“Instead, there appears to have been a ‘that’ll do’ attitude. Banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans would make policing the match much easier.
"To justify this step, information that showed the Maccabi fans to be a high risk was trusted without proper scrutiny. Shockingly, this included unverified information generated by AI.
"While Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were falsely characterised as unusually violent, the threat posed by local communities was downplayed and too little care was given to the impact on the Jewish community in Birmingham.
“Government intervention was clumsy and came too late, and we reject the Government’s argument that it could only intervene once the decision was taken.
"The profile of this fixture should have been obvious, and it seems that No.10, the Home Office and DCMS were indeed aware. But their intervention when it came did little more than inflame tensions.
“It is vital that trust is rebuilt. Firstly, West Midlands Police must repair the damage that has been done by working hard to reach out to local communities, particularly Jewish communities.
"They must also ensure that there is a cultural shift around decision-making where assumptions are tested and evidence fully checked.
"We also want to see the Government develop a more effective mechanism to support decision-making around football safety. It should also reflect carefully on its own role and how it can best reduce tensions, rather than exacerbate them, in future.”
[/QUOTE]
TLDR - there are fair reasons for banning these fans from any matches. Unfortunately that was not the reason for doing so, instead it was done for two reasons.
One - local community members wanted the match banned outright and unable to get that settled for what they could via misinformation, misrepresentation and more. Much of this had direct ties to actual terrorist groups.
Two - the local police knew if the fans were allowed to attend that same local community would have murdered a large number of them which was a bad look.
As soon as those are the reasons behind the ban everything else is irrelevant. The city is controlled by Islamic extremists and should be dealt with accordingly. It won't.
