Jews and non-Jewish allies poured into Downing Street en masse — up to 20,000 of them, according to some estimates — to protest near the residence of Prime Minister Keir Starmer over the alarming spike in antisemitic incidents over the past two years.

The protest followed the torching of Jewish ambulances; several arson attacks against synagogues, Jewish institutions and businesses; and assaults such as a recent stabbing in the Golders Green neighborhood in London that sent two men to the hospital.

The protesters were joined by political and religious leaders representing the full mosaic of British religious life: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Hindu and Sikh. Participants carried British and Israeli flags as well as Iranian flags to protest the government’s poor response to Iran’s brutal January crackdown on protests that saw the murder of tens of thousands of Iranians.

The speakers featured an all-star cast of Britain’s top leaders, beginning with the chief rabbi of Great Britain, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

“It is unacceptable that poisonous antisemitism has become normalized in the UK,” Mirvis said.

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the U.K. Conservative Party, vowed to confront antisemitism, an issue she has made a cornerstone of her platform. She has called the recent attacks a “national emergency” and compared the current climate in Britain to the 1930s.

“The people who want us to be afraid must never be allowed to win,” she said, vowing to fight for “a Britain where Jews can go to school and worship freely.”

Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey and deputy leader of Reform U.K. Richard Tice also spoke but were initially greeted with boos. Nevertheless, the crowd appreciated what they had to say in the end.

Jewish leaders pulled no punches in speeches slamming the rising tide of hatred that has swept over Britain’s Jewish community.

“If this were any other country, there would be a national outrage,” said Saul Taylor, president of the United Synagogue. “Where are the Jewish Lives Matter marches? Where is the so-called anti-racist movement? As we know only too well, Jews don’t seem to count.”

Noting that British Jews had been living in the country for 370 years, he added, “we are not going anywhere. We are, and we always have been, proud British Jews, and we do not want to leave. We will not be beaten.”

In a stinging rebuke to British society, he said that the £1 million a year his synagogue spends on security is “a tax on being Jewish in Britain.”

Gideon Falter, CEO of Campaign Against Antisemitism, coined the term “Britifada” in his equally harsh remarks against the increase in Jew hatred.

“When Jews are murdered at synagogue on Yom Kippur, that is what the Britifada looks like,” he said. “When Jews are stabbed at the bus stops in Golders Green, that is what the Britifada looks like. Shame!”

Actor Paul Cox pointed out in an X post the notable absence of certain groups at the rally.

“At today’s Downing Street rally against antisemitism, the ‘stand up to racism’, ‘hope not hate’ and ‘anti-racism’ cohort were very much conspicuous by their absence,” he wrote. “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s as if their values are selective.”