Former Prime Minister joined survivors and bereaved families.
The Nova Exhibition closed its doors in Shoreditch on Wednesday night, bringing to an end eight remarkable weeks, and it was fitting that one of Britain’s most recognisable political figures made a last, powerful visit to ensure its message continues to resonate long after the exhibition itself has gone.
Boris Johnson visited the exhibition on Tuesday, two days before it closed, walking through the recreated festival site alongside released hostage Bar Kuperstein, Nova survivor May Hayat, and Michael Marlowe, the bereaved father of murdered Brit Jake Marlowe. It was a visit marked not by political posturing, but by genuine, visible emotion, and by a call to action that Johnson delivered with characteristic clarity and force.
“People should come and see this,” Johnson said. “I think it’s the douse of reality — it’s the bucket of cold water that people need over their heads to understand what happened on October 7th.”
A Former PM, Unflinching in the Face of Horror
Those who know Johnson’s rhetorical style will recognise the vividness of his language, but this was no ordinary soundbite. Standing among burnt out vehicles and the personal effects of young festival-goers murdered in the attack, Johnson didn’t shy away from describing what he saw as harrowing and, at times, deeply difficult to confront.
“There were some things I find very hard to look at — some very graphic stuff, stuff I hadn’t seen before,” he admitted. “I’m here to pay my respects to the survivors, victims of the October 7th massacre, but also to stress how vital it is that people remember what happened and the sheer naked cruelty of what Hamas did to a lot of completely innocent, wonderful, happy young people.”
It is this combination of moral seriousness and plain speaking that has long defined Johnson’s public voice, and it was on full display as he reflected on what the festival represented before the attack: young people simply celebrating life and music, in an atrocity he described as “entirely calculated by Hamas,” and “sickening and evil.”
A Warning About Antisemitism the West Cannot Ignore
Perhaps most striking was Johnson’s broader reflection on the resurgence of antisemitism since October 7, a warning delivered with the kind of memorable phrasing that has made him one of the most quoted politicians of his generation.
“Antisemitism is a virus in the human bloodstream,” he said. “Sometimes it’s dormant beneath the floorboards for a hundred years… And sometimes it comes out — and it’s out now, and it’s horrific.”
He went further, urging the public to confront what he called “the madness that’s going on in the West right now, because it needs to end,” a message that will resonate strongly with readers who have watched with concern as antisemitic incidents have risen sharply across Britain and Europe since the attacks.
Praise for the Survivors and Organisers
True to form, Johnson used his platform not to draw attention to himself, but to honour the courage of those who built the exhibition and the families who continue to tell their loved ones’ stories.
“I’m very grateful to everybody who’s put on this exhibition, and particularly to the survivors and very, very brave relatives of people who were murdered… who’ve had the courage to come and try to explain what happened,” he said. “I think they’ve shown huge bravery in putting this exhibition on.”
He added a note of personal reflection, admitting he wished he had visited sooner: “It’s been very important for me to come. Personally, I wish I’d come earlier. I think if you’ve got a spare hour, please come to this exhibition. People need to see what happened.”
A Fitting Final Chapter for a Landmark Exhibition
Johnson’s visit added his name to a remarkable roll call of over 40,000 visitors who passed through the Nova Exhibition since it opened on 20 May, including Wes Streeting, David Lammy, Angela Rayner, Sadiq Khan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and senior figures from across British public life, music, and faith communities.
The exhibition itself, featuring the actual staging from the festival, burnt out vehicles, and thousands of personal items recovered from the attack site, drew widespread critical acclaim throughout its run. The Telegraph described it as leaving visitors “shaken to the core,” while The Times argued that even pro-Palestinian activists should see it for themselves.
Now that its doors have closed, Boris Johnson’s visit stands as a reminder of why the exhibition mattered, not as a political statement, but as an act of remembrance, one that, in Johnson’s own words, reflects what “any democratically elected politician of any country faced with this kind of suffering by the people of that country, would do everything in their power to stop happening again.”
The Nova Exhibition ran at The Stage, Shoreditch, London, from 20 May to 15 July 2026.
