The Maccabi controversy police chief must be sacked now that he has admitted misleading MPs Bruce Newsome THE chief constable at the centre of the Maccabi fan ban controversy has admitting misleading MPs. Craig Guildford, the head of the West Midlands Police, told the Home Affairs Committee in a letter that his force had cited a previous match that never happened after using AI to search social media. Guildford should never work in policing again. He and his colleagues chose two-tier policing by religion, retrofitted intelligence to justify it, and misled Parliament. The trouble is that the power to remove him is ridiculously weak. And his removal wouldn’t sufficiently challenge two-tier policing. Let’s clarify why he should be removed, before we explore how he could be removed. The force’s latest scandal started in October with a decision by Birmingham City Council, acting on advice from the local Safety Advisory Group (SAG), to exclude supporters of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football team from travelling to a Europa League match against Aston Villa in Birmingham in November. Some commentators immediately speculated that the ‘real reason’ was the privileging of immoderate Muslims. When the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) called for a review, the police said they disagreed with the council’s decision, while the council said they were following police advice. Nobody involved could agree who was consulted and who made the decision. Retrospectively, police claimed the decision was based on credible intelligence of Israeli threats relayed by Dutch authorities, following disorder at a previous Maccabi fixture in Amsterdam. But leaked minutes from the SAG, in which the police force is involved, reveal that police supported the ban on what one officer described as ‘my professional judgment’ and ‘in the absence of intelligence’. After Birmingham council staff asked for information to pre-empt claims of anti-Jewish sentiment, police produced ‘significant new intelligence’ of threats from Maccabi’s fans. But the police never had any intelligence of any current threats from Maccabi fans. They had made assumptions about Israeli behaviour towards local Muslims during heightened tensions in the Middle East. Then the police used the precedent of the game in Amsterdam in November 2024 to assume threats to Birmingham. The force claimed that Israelis threw bystanders into canals, hundreds of fans ‘linked’ to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked Muslim communities and thousands of Dutch officers were called to quell the violence. However Femke Halsema, the mayor of Amsterdam, stated in a letter to the Home Affairs Committee that the West Midlands version of Dutch intelligence was ‘nonsensical’. Press reports suggested that Dutch Muslims had organised a ‘Jew Hunt’ that day. Around 30 assumed-Jews were injured: seven were taken to hospital. The Home Affairs Select Committee has twice called Guildford to testify. On both occasions, Guildford and three colleagues dodged questions about their actions, but heaped responsibility on Dutch intelligence. A member of the committee told the Times: ‘Everyone in the committee felt that the performance of the West Midlands Police was below par and didn’t convince any of us that the process was done properly and diligently and that they considered all the evidence. At this point it looks like they either misled parliament or are completely incompetent.’ British policing doctrine allows restrictive measures given credible, specific intelligence of imminent risk. It does not permit bans based on: identity, nationality, or hostility towards the banned group from others. Doctrine expects police to protect without favour. West Midlands Police appear to have banned Maccabi fans because Muslim ‘community leaders’ wanted them banned, and said they could not control their parish if Israelis arrived. The police effectively punished the victims and protected those making threats. West Midlands Police have form in privileging immoderate Muslims. In August, they cracked down on anti-asylum-centre protesters but permitted gangs of masked, armed Muslim men to take over central Birmingham. A mob attacked a family pub. Customers barricaded themselves inside, except an innocent punter who was left with a lacerated liver. The next day, Emlyn Richards of West Midlands Police explained to Sky News that his force had met ‘community leaders . . . to understand the style of policing that we needed to deliver’. What those ‘community leaders’ needed him to deliver was de-policing of immoderate Muslims, while repressing everybody else. The local authorities can’t be trusted to hold the police to account. Both Birmingham City Council and the PCC for the West Midlands represent the same party (Labour) and refuse to condemn Guildford (or anyone). Guildford was appointed in December 2022 by a panel which included the imam of Green Lane Mosque. That imam was also one of the ‘community leaders’ consulted over the Maccabi ban and the anti-asylum centre protests. This is a mosque where a preacher told congregants that beating wives and stopping them leaving the house may be justified. That was in December. The national government can’t be trusted. It’s run by the same party. In October, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood expressed unease with Birmingham’s decision, but only after the Prime Minister condemned the council’s decision. She claimed that she heard of it at the same time as the public. But later we learned she had known about it a week before it was revealed to the public, and hadn’t objected. Her constituency is a mile from Villa Park; she barely held it in 2024 from a pro-Palestine activist. Ridiculously, the Home Secretary cannot directly sack a chief constable. But she can: publicly withdraw confidence; write to the PCC requesting suspension (not likely, given the government plans to abolish PCCs); place the force into special measures. Mahmood won’t decide for herself, but will wait for a report from His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, Sir Andy Cooke, who is expected to report to Mahmood (and Parliament) this week. A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The government has been clear throughout that we disagreed with the decision to ban away fans from the match in November. We should not be a country where we tell people to stay away from certain events because we cannot protect them, or they may be a victim of racism. That is why the home secretary asked the inspectorate to investigate how the decision was reached. We cannot comment further until the home secretary has received the chief inspectorate’s findings and considered them.’ The Home Affairs Select Committee has no power to remove Guildford, but is likely to recommend his removal after calling him in for a third time. One member told the Times that sacking Guildford is the only ‘option’ if suspicions were confirmed that the force had given a misleading account. ‘I do believe strongly in the principle of police operational independence, but when you’ve got a community that’s lost all faith in its police force, and the potential that they have misled parliament, and it’s looking that way at the moment, then I don’t see any other option for the Home Secretary.’ The leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, said Guildford’s position is ‘untenable.’ Nick Timothy, Conservative MP for West Suffolk and a campaigner against Islamism, said: ‘It is now established beyond all doubt that the police have fabricated intelligence and lied about it. The only people who are yet to be convinced are the two people with the legal power to sack the Chief Constable: the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Home Secretary. What on earth is Shabana Mahmood waiting for?’ But even if Guildford is punished, he would be the sacrificial lamb for a party that is most responsible for, and has most to gain from, two-tier policing. Expect more two-tier policing.