Three British prime ministers – Keir Starmer, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair – joined mourners on Tuesday for the funeral of Phil Woolas, a former MP and UK government minister who as a student leader in the 1980s galvanized solidarity against a wave of campus antisemitism.

Hundreds attended the funeral at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, for Woolas, who died in March from glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, at the age of 66.

Woolas, the former Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth who rose to become immigration minister under Gordon Brown, was widely respected in the Jewish community. He emerged as a staunch defender of Jewish rights as the General Secretary of Manchester University Student Union in the early 1980s.

It was at Manchester that Phil first encountered antisemitism, disguised as anti-Zionism, and resolved to confront it, working closely with what was then the largest student Jewish Society in Europe. He was joined in this firm belief by John Mann (now Lord Mann of Holbeck Moor), a fellow Labour student who became a life-long friend and political ally. Lord Mann later became the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism and is now the UK Government’s independent adviser on antisemitism.

“Forty-eight years ago, we were forming a football team and I asked him whether he was any good,” Lord Mann told the mourners on Tuesday. “He gave that little half smile of his and replied, ‘I am Mario Kempes’,” a World Cup-winning Argentinian footballer regarded as one of the best players of all time.

“He could paint pictures with his words and weave them into others’ minds,” Lord Mann said. “He could wear your shoes and see your world. There are many different kinds of politicians. Phil never once saw himself as better than anyone else. Never, ever, first amongst equals – rather as one of a thousand flowers blooming together into a tapestry of wonder.”

“If old Mrs. Smith contacted him, anguishing about her windows that needed fixing, he would go round,........

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