The Jewish Medical Association is appalled that a motion calling for the rejection of the world’s most widely accepted definition of antisemitism was passed at the British Medical Association’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in Brighton (22-24 June 2026).
This is the third consecutive year that several motions identified as hostile to Jews have been included in the ARM Agenda.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism is well-established and widely adopted in the UK. In the UK, the UK Government, Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England, several local authorities, universities and trade unions, are among the many institutions that have adopted the definition.
The contents of the motion (55) were both flawed factually and, in our view, flouted normal standards of equality, diversity and inclusion. Yet this motion was selected for inclusion in the Meeting Agenda and was debated, leading to its adoption as BMA policy.
JMA believes that the BMA has no right to undermine the longstanding definition of discrimination of one ethnic and religious minority in the UK.
Just consider for a moment the scenario where an ARM motion might seek to oppose the definition of any other type of racism? It is not conscionable.
It is unacceptable to select Jews from among all the ethnicities or religions represented in UK medicine, for the BMA ARM to reject, using inaccurate and biased narrative, the most-widely used worldwide definition of racial discrimination and hate against them.
Not content, the ARM went on to pass an ‘emergency motion’ calling, among other things, “for an immediate pause in the implementation of the Mann Review” – referring to the report: Lord Mann review of antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS and healthcare regulatory system, which was conducted as a result of serious concerns by government about rising antisemitism in the health sector, and published by DHSC earlier this month. So this motion is now BMA policy: Jewish patients and doctors must trust the NHS to ignore such an incredible request.
The majority of Jewish members of the BMA will no doubt feel rejected and excluded by the Association, had they not felt so before.
This Meeting has reminded Jews in the UK, that the concerns that led to Lord Mann’s review were entirely correct and that its implementation is of the utmost urgency if Jews who work in or use the NHS are to have confidence in it restored.
IHRA Definition of antisemitism: https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
Mann Review of antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS and healthcare regulatory system: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lord-mann-review-on-antisemitism-and-other-forms-of-racism-in-the-nhs/lord-mann-review-of-antisemitism-and-other-forms-of-racism-in-the-nhs-and-healthcare-regulatory-system
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