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The police “overstated” the threat posed by Israeli football fans whilst underplaying the risk from local Islamists, Shabana Mahmood has declared.

The Home Secretary said she has lost confidence in the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police following the scandal over Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being banned from attending a game against Aston Villa. And Ms Mahmood said she will “reintroduce” new powers to sack failing police chiefs. The Home Secretary said Mr Guildford “no longer has my confidence”, heaping even more pressure on him to quit.

In a statement, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: “When a Chief Constable is responsible for a damaging failure of leadership, the public rightly expect the Home Secretary to act. And I intend to restore their ability to do so.

“This Government will soon reintroduce the Home Secretary’s power to dismiss Chief Constables’.”

Mr Guildford admitted his force used AI to find evidence of trouble involving the Israeli team.

And it justified banning fans after the AI search found social media posts about violence at a fictitious match involving West Ham United on November 9 2023.

That day, West Ham were playing against Greek side Olympiacos. Maccabi Tel Aviv, meanwhile, were playing in Lublin, Poland.

But Mr Guildford is said to be rejecting calls to resign, vowing to fight any attempt to remove him from his post.

A report on the scandal by the police watchdog, Sir Andy Cooke, was handed to Shabana Mahmood on Wednesday morning.

Mr Guildford wrote: “In preparation for the force response to the [HM Inspectorate] inquiry into this matter, on Friday afternoon, I became aware that the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as a result of the use of Microsoft Copilot.

“Both Asst Chief Constable [Mike] O’Hara and I had – up until Friday afternoon – understood that the West Ham match had only been identified through the use of Google. This will be further explained in the additional material being provided to the committee.

“I would like to offer my profound apology to the committee for this error, both on behalf of myself and that of O’Hara. I had understood and been advised that the match had been identified by way of a Google search in preparation for attending [the Home Affairs Committee].

“My belief that this was the case was honestly held and there was no intention to mislead the committee.”

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “The Chief Constable has disgraced his office.

“He has misled the public, misled Parliament and has become the personification of two-tier policing. He has breached his basic vow: to police without fear or favour. He should do the decent thing and resign.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch previously warned West Midlands Police “capitulated to Islamists” and then “collaborated with them to cover it up”.

The force was told, 16 days before the match, that it was wrong to ban supporters from attending the Europa League fixture.

West Midlands Police initially claimed away fans could not attend because of hooliganism fears, with 500 “hardcore Maccabi supporters” who were “very well organised, un-cooperative and militaristic” accused of carrying out “indiscriminate attacks on Muslim taxi drivers, flag burning, marches and Islamophobic chanting such as ‘Why are there no schools in Gaza, because all the children are dead’” during a previous match in Amsterdam.

But, in a bombshell report, West Midlands Police admitted they actually feared locals were plotting to attack Israeli supporters, with some even preparing to carry weapons.

Assistant Chief Constable Mike O’Hara told Parliament on January 6: “We got a lot of information intelligence to suggest that people were going to actively seek out Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and would seek violence towards them.

“We had people purporting to be Maccabi fans online who were goading local community members and saying, ‘this is what you’re going to get’.”