Kemi Badenoch has branded an article in the Guardian “disgusting” and “antisemitic” after it claimed the opening of a Gail’s bakery near a Palestinian café is “heavy-handed aggression”. The Mail has more.

The Conservative Party leader condemned the opinion piece today, saying it is “appalling”, “ridiculous” and “antisemitic”.

It follows a storm of accusations on social media after the column suggested the presence of the new Israeli-founded bakery near the independent cafe was “symbolic” of the war in Gaza.

The Israeli embassy’s spokesman in the UK, Alex Gandler, said the piece, published on Saturday, was “an astonishing exercise in bigotry disguised as moral commentary”.

Badenoch has now waded in on the debate, telling the Jewish News it is “extraordinary that Gail’s bakeries are being attacked now, supposedly because they are Israeli-owned”.

She said: “This is just a cover; it’s antisemitism. It is disgusting. We need to stamp out this culture.

“We need more enforcement, more punishment for people who carry out these violent acts… they are trying to intimidate people.

“I think it was an utterly ridiculous column… appalling, actually.” …

In this weekend’s feature, Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew described the arrival of Gail’s 20 metres away from Palestinian-owned Café Metro as “symbolic” and “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression”.

Liew wrote: “Critics accuse (Gail’s) of accelerating gentrification and squeezing out smaller outlets. Campaigners point out that its parent company, Bain Capital, invests heavily in military technology, including Israeli security companies.”

He added: “And so even though Gail’s describes itself as ‘a British business with no specific connections to any country or government outside the UK’, its very presence 20 metres away from a small independent Palestinian café feels quietly symbolic, an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression.”

Worth reading in full.