Police will not investigate activists going door-to-door demanding Israeli boycott

Sussex Police have said they will not open an investigation into activists going door-to-door in Brighton asking people to stop buying Israeli goods.

Brighton MP and cabinet minister Peter Kyle had called on the police to investigate the group for alleged hate crimes and breaches of incitement laws, saying "it should not be happening". But the force said "at this time, there is no evidence of criminal activity".

Separately, Labour MP Mark Sewards, who chairs Labour Friends of Israel, has written to Green Party MP Sian Berry condemning the activists' actions as "dangerous, divisive, and intimidatory". He urged her to join him in "publicly condemning these tactics and urging the organisers to immediately call off this nefarious campaign".

A report by Sky's communities correspondent Lisa Holland on Wednesday showed that activists are seeking to create what they're calling an apartheid-free zone in Brighton and Hove. To do that, they are going door-to-door in Brighton with a list of addresses and asking people to boycott Israeli goods.

Tap here to read the full story Door-knocking campaigners told Lisa Holland that they are not antisemitic, but anti-zionist. Campaigner Seymour was asked if he could understand why people who dispute that view would be uncomfortable if they opened the door to one of his volunteers, and he replied: "It might be uncomfortable.

"But it's only a one-on-one conversation. We're very polite [at] the door.

Whatever someone's background is, we treat them like anyone else. "It's no different from the actions of a political party like the Conservative Party or the Labour Party who also go door to door and ask people how they feel." But in a letter to Ms Berry shared exclusively with Sky News, Mr Sewards hit out at the campaign as "dangerous, divisive and intimidatory - both to the local Jewish community, who have faced appalling levels of antisemitism in the city since the 7 October attacks, and to those of us who are not Jewish but strongly support the world's only Jewish state".

He cited figures published this week by the Community Security Trust, a Jewish charity, which show that last year saw the second-highest number of antisemitic incidents on record, and Sussex was the police region that recorded the sixth-highest number of antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025. "Against this backdrop, it is insensitive, inflammatory and highly irresponsible to seek to further isolate and target our fellow Jewish citizens," Mr Sewards wrote.

He said British Jews have "repeatedly stated how distressing they have found the behaviour of anti-Israel extremists on our streets.