“There is nowhere more important than home, and it is very important to be rooted in this place”, David Lammy told a group of supporters gathered at a restaurant in his north London constituency of Tottenham on 13 November last year.

The community had been home to Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) “when they were fighting against apartheid”, as well as to refugees from Cyprus, Lammy went on. “I grew up with that community,” he said in a video obtained by Novara Media. And for this reason, he had always “wanted to associate myself with the cause, particularly, of our Kurdish brothers and sisters still fighting for justice,” he said. A round of applause broke out.

Having tugged on the heartstrings of his guests, Lammy lightened the mood with an anecdote. When Labour leader Keir Starmer phoned him during a shadow cabinet reshuffle in November 2021, he was in the Kurdish barbers.

“Head back, towel around my face, [my] phone started buzzing in my pocket,” he said “It was Keir Starmer – I thought I had better take the call.”

When Starmer asked him to become shadow foreign secretary, he was shocked. “I know that all of us in this room come from predominantly working class backgrounds. You know, in those initial moments when he asked me, I had imposter syndrome. I thought, ‘Me? Who’s he talking to, me?’ I wasn’t sure I could do it.”

Since then, Lammy has moved from opposition to become foreign secretary. But in doing so, he seems to have forgotten the friends who helped him get to where he is. The speech, as well as his longstanding support for the Kurdish cause, stand in stark contrast to his silence after a raid last month on the Kurdish Community Centre (KCC), an important hub for the large Kurdish diaspora in his Tottenham constituency.

On 27 November, counter-terror police swooped on the KCC. Hundreds of cops, including riot police in armoured vans, accompanied by dogs and helicopters, imposed a military-like occupation of the surrounding area.

The raid was part of a “significant” investigation led by the Metropolitan police’s counter terrorism command into suspected activity linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been a proscribed organisation since 2001. On Monday last week, six people – including one pictured at a party with Lammy just over a year ago – were charged with membership of the party.

Kurdish community groups say the PKK is only one part of a much broader movement and that its controversial proscription, which has been inconsistently enforced in the UK over the years, criminalises the entire Kurdish community – a community of which Lammy was proud to call himself a friend just over a year ago.

Among those arrested was Turkan Ozcan, co-chair of the KCC, who has been charged with membership of the PKK. Ozcan was present at Lammy’s dinner last year. A picture from the night, shared with Novara Media, shows Lammy posing for a photograph with her. Once feted by a man who would go on to hold a great ministry of state, Ozcan will now stand trial under Britain’s controversial anti-terror laws.

The incident has since turned into a political row. Lotte Collett, leader of a group of independent socialist councillors on Haringey council, said the raids were “a politically motivated assault on a minority ethnic community that have made their home in our borough carried out at the behest of the Turkish government and was probably sanctioned here at cabinet level”. A Met police spokesperson said: “We reiterate that this investigation has been carried out with complete operational independence.”

Since the traumatic raid on his Kurdish friends, Lammy has not said one word about it in public. Kurds who have asked Lammy for a meeting have been told that the foreign secretary is “unavailable”. Questions directed at Lammy from Novara Media were met with a boilerplate response from a foreign office spokesperson. Has he abandoned his friends?

No friends but the mountains.

In 2014, as the Syrian civil war raged, the Kurds sensed an opportunity. Often described as one of the biggest ethnic groups in the world without a country of their own, they established an autonomous territory in northeastern Syria called Rojava. Kurdish fighters lead the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which hopes to create a democratic, federalised Syria, and have successfully defended their land against Isis, finally defeating the so-called caliphate in 2019, driving its last militants out of their stronghold in Baghuz.

The Kurds’ revolution – which is based on direct democracy, gender equality and libertarian socialism – has served as an inspiration to leftwingers across the world. By contrast, Turkey views this revolution as a threat to its territorial integrity, as a Kurdish territory in Syria would encourage its own Kurdish minority. Turkey has launched numerous military operations in Syria and Iraq against the PKK over the past 10 years, including Operation Euphrates Shield (2016), Operation Olive Branch (2018), and Operation Claw Sword (2022).

As the Kurds have found themselves waging a heroic struggle against Islamofascists and dictators with unreliable support from the west, they have lamented lyrically that they have “no friends but the mountains”. But they did, until recently, have a firm friend in the UK’s parliament.

For many years, Lammy was unwavering in his support for the Kurds, damning in his criticism of Turkey and scathing about the UK’s complicity in the oppression of his friends. Now, with the balance of power in the Middle East shifting in Turkey’s favour, Lammy appears to have abandoned them.

The UK’s courting of Turkey’s strong-man president Erdoğan came in for particular criticism. In 2018, when Erdoğan visited the UK, Lammy posted on X/Twitter: “Makes me feel sick in my stomach that our government are rolling the red carpet out for president Erdoğan this week and trying to sell him more weapons. He is a dictator and tyrant who locks up journalists, has installed a regime of brutal repression and torture and is butchering the Kurds.”

In 2016, as Erdoğan launched a purge of Turkish institutions following a failed coup attempt by the armed forces, Lammy spoke in parliament saying that “the manner in which the west behaves towards Erdoğan is frankly similar to how we behaved towards Mubarak,” referring to the former Egyptian dictator. “Erdoğan is stretching democracy beyond belief”, he said.

Lammy also spoke up for the Kurds specifically, adding: “Putting Syrians into Kurdish areas to dilute the Kurdish influence in his country cannot be right. Will the minister be clear about how Erdoğan treats the Kurdish minority in his country?”

In 2016, he twice wrote to his predecessor Boris Johnson who was then foreign secretary about the human rights situation in Turkey, once asking: “What assessment have you made of the treatment of the Kurdish peoples in Turkey, particularly with regards to freedom of speech, assembly, expression, and other attendant fundamental human rights?”

While he has repeatedly criticised the Turkish state and demanded British politicians hold it to account, he has been willing to praise the actions of the PKK, despite the fact that it has been proscribed since 2001 alongside groups like Al-Qaeda and Isis.

In 2013, as negotiations between Turkey and the Kurds progressed, Lammy signed an early day motion praising the “positive steps that have been taken by the Turkish government and PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan to resume peace talks”, saying that “a peaceful resolution must come from a genuine and negotiated settlement that includes the voices of all partners as equals” including Öcalan and “the PKK leadership”.

Lammy has supported the Kurds on the streets, too. In December 2016, he attended a Kurdish protest outside the Turkish embassy in London, in which Kurds called for western countries to recognise an independent Kurdistan. At the time, the Kurdish-led SDF was pushing Isis out of its last strongholds in Northern Syria. The protest was against Turkey’s crackdown on Kurdish opposition, following a bomb attack on Istanbul which killed 48 people, later claimed by the dissident militant group Kurdistan Freedom Hawks.

At the protest, Lammy was photographed fixing a steely gaze as a distinctive red flag with a red star fluttered just behind him. It is the flag of the PKK – officially a terrorist group. At this time, police seemingly weren’t bothered about criminalising support for the PKK.

Lammy’s support for the Kurdish people has been paid back, community members say.

Aladdin Nisêbîn, a Kurdish language teacher at the KCC, said: “David was always a good friend of Kurds, he has always been very supportive and all Kurds in his constituency have been supporting and voting for him for years.”

Berivan Kerban, the sister of Berfin Kerban, one of the arrested Kurdish activists, told Novara Media: “There’s about 150,000 Kurds in the UK, and every single Kurdish person I know would only vote for Labour, and has only voted for Labour over the years.”

Thrown under the bus.

For displaced Kurds who have made a home in north London, the KCC is a lifeline. The centre provides welfare support, educational programmes and organises cultural events for a community that has had its language, rights and culture repressed. According to campaign group Hands Off Kurds, the centre has been a “sanctuary, helping them navigate the challenges of settling in a new country while preserving their heritage and sense of community.”

Lammy’s links to the centre go way back. He even used to be on the centre’s managing committee. In 2006, he helped create a communal garden. A photograph obtained by Novara Media shows him smiling, shovel in hand, as work began. The committee reported that Lammy had initiated work on the garden, which was to become “a focal point where all members of the community will be able to meet and socialise in a peaceful natural environment far from the stress of being within an enclosed space.”

Last month, when the KCC was invaded, that sanctuary was too.

Hundreds of officers stormed the KCC and the homes of seven people linked to the centre. A report compiled by Hands Off Kurds said: “The excessive use of force, including physical violence and humiliation, has been emblematic of the broader trend of militarised policing in the UK.” The group has accused the Met of misusing counter-terror laws.

The wife of one detainee experienced “symptoms of a heart attack” during the raid and had to be taken to hospital having received no immediate medical attention, its report said.

A group statement released by Kurdish community organisations said the scenes were “identical to those found in repressive, autocratic states like Turkey”.

Iida Kaykho, an organiser with the Kurdish solidarity movement, told Novara Media: “This is really unprecedented, this level of violence. There have been raids before. There have been arrests before. But this level of coordination and this level of clear and intentional disruption to community life here – this hasn’t happened before.”

According to testimony released to media by the Kurdish Assembly following the raid, one of those whose household was targeted, whose name was not given, described the raid as like “an earthquake”.

“15 balaclava-clad police officers appeared at the top of the stairs and jumped on my husband, brutally beating and then arresting him,” the person said. “Soon after my 15-year-old son appeared, and police jumped on him and started beating him also. He and I screamed telling them that he is a child and then they stopped.”

A Met Police spokesperson said: “This continues to be an investigation into what are very serious allegations, which has resulted in six people being charged with offences under the Terrorism Act.

“Local officers in Haringey continue to engage with the community – including those from the Kurdish community, whom we know have been impacted by this activity.

“We have not received any formal complaints in relation to use of excessive force at this time. Our officers are fully aware that any use of force must always be necessary and proportionate, and officers deployed to this operation were equipped with body-worn video, which ensures interactions are captured and can be reviewed where necessary.

“Given that six people have been charged and await trial, it is important that the criminal justice process can progress without impediment and to this end, we would urge people not to speculate or comment on the case until it has concluded in the courts.”

Lammy, now foreign secretary, has been strangely silent on the traumatic raid which took place in his constituency.

Kurds and their advocates suspect that the UK’s strategic relationship with Turkey is one of the main reasons for their repression. Turkey uses its influential position in Nato to make sure Kurdish rights have been trampled across the diaspora. In 2023, Sweden amended its constitution to help its crackdown on the PKK as part of its bid to join Nato, at Turkey’s behest. Richard Moore, the former ambassador to Turkey, is now the head of MI6, giving him a key role in Britain’s security partnership with Turkey.

Turkey is a key ally of Britain and a customer for arms exports. In recent years, the UK has been courting Turkey as a trade and military partner following Brexit. Lammy is now at the heart of this diplomacy.

At an emergency press conference following the raid outside the KCC, Ibrahim Avcil from the Platform for Democratic Unity – an organisation of 27 Kurdish and Turkish speaking groups – linked the raid by the Met police counter-terror unit to Turkey.

“The British government think they’re doing a favour for their partners in Turkey, but they’re not,” he said. “They’re killing the so-called democratic principles that they claim to uphold.”

Just two weeks prior to the raid on the KCC, Lammy met with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in London. Following the meeting, Lammy said: “Turkey is an indispensable ally to the UK. Hakan Fidan and I are committed to strengthening our security and building business opportunities for British and Turkish people.”

Avcil said, “It is not a surprise” that the raid on the KCC followed this meeting. “Their main aim is to silence the Kurdish people … This is an act of revenge of the Turkish state.”

Kaykho said that Lammy’s new office, as well as his weakness of character, account for his failure to support the Kurds following the raid. “I think Lammy is one of those politicians who’s very happy to have the assumed support of a leftwing migrant community in north London,” she said. “But when it comes to showing up and putting his money where his mouth is, he’s never going to deliver, especially now that he’s foreign secretary.

“He’s bound by the long established traditions of the Foreign Office when it comes to dealing with the Kurdish community here. So for him to actually shift that … he would have to be a completely different kind of politician – someone who is willing and able to make more difficult political arguments and to actually hold a principled stance on anything for once in his life. And I don’t think he’s the man to do that.”

Novara Media wrote to the Foreign Office, asking Lammy for a comment about the raid on the KCC and his silence on the matter. We received a non-specific response from a government spokesperson, who said: “Proscription is a powerful counter-terrorism tool. The PKK has been proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 since 2001, and the UK has listed several aliases including Teyre Azadiye Kurdistan (TAK) and Hezen Parastina (HPG) Gel.

“This investigation and activity is about protecting all of our communities, but particularly those in our Turkish and Kurdish communities.”

Asked about her feelings about Lammy since the raid, Berivan Kurban said: “He is where he is, and he has become what he has through the Kurdish community, partly. So it’s a disgrace that we’ve been let down.

“The message I would probably give to David Lammy is, why have you thrown the Kurds under the bus for some dirty deals that have been made?”

Nisêbîn said: “True friendship is to defend the truth at all times, not to defend another truth when your role and title changes. This applies to many other Labour MPs. We feel really betrayed, because the only party that Kurds supported in the UK was Labour.”

Mark Campbell, who has campaigned for Kurdish rights for 30 years, said: “The Kurdish community in the UK are appalled and very angry at the Labour party generally to whom they have contributed so much, but London Labour MPs such a David Lammy especially, as they have considered them ‘family’.”

Keeping Turkey happy.

When the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fell on 8 December, Kurds had every reason to celebrate. But with Turkey emerging as a dominant power in Syria, they also have reason to be fearful. While much of Syria is in relative calm, the northeast has erupted into violence, with Turkish-backed militants of the Syrian National Army (SNA) advancing into Kurdish controlled areas, backed by Turkish airstrikes and drones.

On 8 December, Lammy made a statement to the House of Commons about the situation in Syria. Evoking his earlier barbs against his new friend Erdoğan, he called Assad “a butcher with the blood of countless innocents on his hands”.

“This is a moment of danger as well as opportunity for Syrians and for the region,” he warned, adding that he had been in touch with “partners” including Turkey.

“Assad’s victims can be found all over the world. Many have found sanctuary here in the UK over the years,” he said. He did not mention the Kurds directly.

When questioned by MPs about them, he offered platitudes about Syria becoming “an inclusive country with a place for everyone”, and said: “I fully expect Turkey, as a member of Nato and a close friend of our country, to continue to work with us on those pressing issues, recognising the threats to itself as well as to the UK.”

And yet, rising tensions within Nato are key to the oppression of the Kurds. “In order for the US to entrench its own military and political power in the world, it needs Nato to be strong,” said Kaykho. “And one way of keeping Nato strong is to keep Turkey happy. And keeping Turkey happy requires the criminalisation of Kurdish communities wherever they have a significant presence.”

These geopolitical considerations are the backdrop for what many Kurds in north London see as an epic act of betrayal, with its heart in a community centre, wedged between a railway track and some terraced houses.

A spokesperson for the Hands Off Kurds campaign said: “To David Lammy and the UK government: you stand at a critical moment in history. Will you continue to bow to external political pressures, or will you defend the principles of justice and human rights?”

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