`You have to bend at the waist and doff your cap to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) and the Jewish Labour Movement. They’ve made legal complaints that the British Labour Party is not compliant with equalities law. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will now conduct an investigation into these complaints. The CEO of the CAA has accused the Labour Party of failing repeatedly to address properly claims of anti-Semitism within the party. “In just four chilling years, Jeremy Corbyn has turned the party which pioneered anti-racism into the party that now finds itself in the company of the BNP”. (The BNP is the alt-right group which was also investigated by the EHRC.)
As I say, you have to hand it to the CAA and the Jewish Labour Movement for their vigilance and energy in clearing out anti-semitism within the Labour Party, anti-semitism which they claim is systemic. They will, to coin a phrase, leave no stone unturned.
A member of the Jewish Labour Movement was interviewed on Channel 4 News last night and got quite hot and bothered when John Snow suggested that it had links with a group supportive of the Israeli government. I don’t know whether the charge was true or not but it’s hard not to wonder which is worse – to have vile names flung at you because you happen to be Jewish (assuming that this has happened in the Labour Party) or to be a Palestinian, trapped in a space totally inadequate for the numbers locked there, suffering not just from a dearth of essential supplies but also from deadly attacks by Israeli forces. Me, I think I’d go with being called names. Sticks and stones, you know.
Do you think Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Jewish? I suppose it’s possible, but it would be out of synch with all that he’s done throughout his political career, defending minority groups.
Do you think there are people who would dearly love to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader with someone more Blair-like? You betcha.
Do you think these charges of anti-Semitism are in any way related to the nature of the Israeli government and its desire to present itself as other than the brutal force it currently is regarded as throughout the world? Again, you betcha.
If the CAA and the Jewish Labour Movement were to spend half as much energy on calling out the oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli government, they might have a higher reputation among not jnst the Labour Party but the wider world.
Comments are closed.