Board and JLC to launch paper on Brexit impact

Jewish leaders are to launch a paper outlining how Brexit could affect Britain’s Jewish community, considering repercussions on things like charity staffing, kosher meat prices and designation of anti-Israel terror groups.

The document, published jointly by the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, will launch on Monday at a Parliamentary event featuring Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan, a founder of Vote Leave, and Labour’s Lord Andrew Adonis, who described Brexit as “a populist and nationalist spasm”.

The Board and JLC said Brexit could affect the community in several areas, such as “the tightening of immigration from Europe,” which they said “may affect the costs for Jewish communal services that hire European employees, including security for Jewish buildings, culturally-sensitive social care and kosher food”.

In the nine-page paper, which examines both challenges and opportunities, the leaders say Brexit “may make travel to and work in the UK more difficult for Israelis that currently hold European passports,” while any post-Brexit liberalisation of the meat trade “could reduce kosher meat prices”.

The document, called ‘Brexit and the Jewish Community,’ includes several “key asks” for policy-makers, including assurances that financial sanctions are not lifted on anti-Semitic terror groups after Brexit.

The Board and JLC also say that leaving the EU could “be seen as an opportunity to look at proscribing Hezbollah in its entirety,” something the community has long sought from the Home Office, which currently only bans Hezbollah’s armed wing.

The paper also asks MPs to “ensure that gains in trade liberalisation between the EU and Israel that the UK has benefited from in recent decades are not lost”.