Anti-semitism

Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi, was right to take the unprecedented action of denouncing Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour for endemic anti-Jewish prejudice. James Cleverly, the Conservative chairman, was right to draw attention to polls showing half of British Jews are contemplating emigration if Labour wins. The Jewish Chronicle was right to turn its cover into an unprecedented open letter, begging Britain’s non-Jews not to vote for Corbyn. But if support for Labour does not collapse as a result of all this condemnation, don’t be surprised. In fact, Labour is doing rather well. Before the Commons voted to hold an election, Labour averaged 23 per cent support in the polls. Now, it’s

There are many reasons why I am suspicious of the Conservatives’ current lead in the polls. The Tories may have peaked too soon. Labour voters flirting with the Liberal Democrats could return the more they see of Jo Swinson. Many Conservative target seats, while Brexity, have voted Labour since there was a Labour Party to vote for. Landlines still dominate over mobile phones in the sampling methodologies of some pollsters, under-reflecting younger and poorer voters. Labour supporters and Remainers are more likely to turn out than Tories and Brexiteers and a million more voters have joined the roll than did prior to the last election, which just reeks of young

Labour launched its ‘Race & Faith Manifesto’ earlier today amid a storm of criticism over the party’s anti-Semitism problem. The latest person to condemn Jeremy Corbyn is the chief rabbi, who questioned whether the Labour leader is fit to become prime minister. During today’s event in north London, Corbyn hit back, insisting that under his government ‘no community will be at risk because of their identity’. The party had hoped the mini-manifesto launch would focus attention on policy ideas such as a wholesale review of the Prevent strategy or the scrapping of random stop and searches. But it didn’t go to plan. Outside the venue in Tottenham, activists had parked

‘What is it with Jews and Corbyn?’ the guy asked. ‘Why are you so against him being in Number 10?’ I tend to avoid conversations about Jews and Corbyn with Labour voters these days. What more is there to say about the party’s anti-Semitism? If people still can’t see it, I generally take the view they are part of the problem. Over the last four years evidence of Labour’s institutional racism has been overwhelming. But this guy – let’s call him Matt, an architect I met at a friend’s 40th birthday party in Hackney last week – really did appear to have been living under a rock since 2015. Somehow,

Anti-racism campaign Labour Against Anti-Semitism (LAAS) has today issued its position on the General Election. LAAS, responsible for exposing a litany of anti-Semites in Labour’s ranks, warns party members that ‘Jeremy Corbyn is unfit to be Prime Minister and that the Labour Party is unfit to be in government’. It says Labour poses ‘the greatest risk to our democracy and to the safety and security of the British Jewish community’. As such, they urge the general public to vote ABC: ‘Anyone but Corbyn’.  Other positions are available, most notably from Labour MPs who once spoke of Corbyn in the same terms as LAAS. But where are they now?  Stephen Kinnock said

The December election that now looks inevitable will be, as all elections are, a test. A test of a decade-old government that isn’t entirely sure what its achievements in office have been. A test of the public’s continuing appetite for Brexit and its tolerance for parliamentary histrionics. A test, too, of whether the country is ready to return to majoritarian government or whether volatile voter intentions and hung parliaments will be with us a while longer.  None of these is the most important metric. That dubious honour goes to the anti-Semitism test: will the UK put a party of Jew-haters into power? All of us will have to confront that

Another female Jewish MP has left the Labour party, apparently bullied out of the movement she has worked in for decades. Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, announced in a letter last night that she ‘cannot advocate a government led by Jeremy Corbyn’ because he ‘is not fit to be Prime Minister’. She complains that ‘anti-Semitism has become mainstream in the Labour Party’ and that the leader ‘has attracted the support of too many anti-Semites’. It is a damning letter, and one that has widely been tweeted by the colleagues Ellman has left behind as proof that something needs to change in the party. The problem is that we’ve seen

When Labour last came to Brighton for its annual conference, I sat in a studio listening to people who had faced abuse because they were Jewish. I heard statements recorded at a fringe event suggesting it was fine to question whether the Holocaust had ever happened. As leader of the city’s council, I had to act. I wrote a letter saying Labour would not be welcome back in Brighton if it failed to sort out its issues with anti-Semitism. Two years on, I have been forced out of the party I loved. But Labour’s dark problem remains. The backlash against my message was swift and took me by surprise. I

Labour has yet again shown it doesn’t care about its Jewish members. Jeremy Corbyn said earlier this year that “there is no place for anti-Semitism or any form of racism in the Labour party”. But not for the first time – and not for the last – Jews who still belong to the party have been sidelined.  The latest cause for disquiet is the decision yesterday by the party’s National Executive Committee. Not content with scrapping the party’s student wing ahead of next week’s gathering in Brighton, the NEC has now agreed new rules concerning the handling of allegations of anti-Semitism and disciplinary procedures for expelling members. Yet it has done so

‘The Labour Party welcomes everyone* irrespective of race, creed, age, gender identity, or sexual orientation. (except, it seems, Jews)’. So says an unprecedented advert in the Guardian today, which is signed by more than 60 Labour peers. It could hardly be more damning. Yet while the advert is shocking, it stops short of pointing out the only way that Labour can solve its anti-Semitism crisis for good: by getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn. Labour peers who backed the statement aren’t the only ones to fail to state the obvious. Deputy leader Tom Watson, who says he favours the introduction of an independent complaints procedure, has also fallen short. So, too, has

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s announcement last week that it is to formally investigate Labour over anti-Jewish racism is an hour of great shame for the party. It is also, finally, a moment of hope for British Jews. The public body set up, with chilling irony by the party it is now to probe, has seen evidence of the institutional anti-Semitism that Jews have been making complaints about for four long years and decided that it is credible enough to investigate. Its decision makes Labour only the second political party in British history to face a formal racism inquiry. The first? The British National Party.  Finally Britain’s Jews are feeling as though

A Labour activist – since elected a councillor – sharing neo-Nazi material declaring that ‘the Jews declared war on Germany in 1933’. A video of a Labour MP rousing a rabble with the incendiary suggestion that ‘Zionism is the enemy of peace’. An activist for the self-proclaimed anti-racist party suggesting a march on their local synagogue. The secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour telling a crowd of pro-Palestinian marchers that Jews are ‘in the gutter’. In isolation, all of these are jaw-dropping and deeply alarming. That they all happened – or emerged – in a short period of time following years of similarly scandalous behaviour means that a certain ennui

In Salvador Dalí’s Persistence of Memory, several clocks are melting away in a surreal desert scene where a distorted horse-like creature fades into the sand, below a ledge where a pocket watch crawls with ants. The bizarre painting is rather reminds one of the surrealism of the Brexit process, especially after this week. The government has gone into full meltdown mode – it lost yet again on May’s Brexit deal (though this time by a smaller margin, only by 149 MPs); ended up whipping against itself on a motion rejecting no deal, where 13 government ministers defied the whip; and just about wrested control of Brexit from the Commons on a

Is there a name for the moment something objectionable becomes so mainstream that those responsible can solemnly lament it as a fact of life? I propose that we call it the Formby Point. This week, Labour’s general secretary Jennie Formby reportedly told a parliamentary party meeting that it was ‘impossible to eradicate anti-Semitism and it would be dishonest to claim to be able to do so’. Note the sly wording, the subtle distancing; you can almost hear the affected sigh of resignation. The woman who runs an institutionally racist party that refuses to challenge its institutional racism can, with a straight face, regret the inevitability of racism.  As a matter