Jeremy corbyn

It’s a measure of quite how badly split the government is on Brexit that Jeremy Corbyn, who would previously avoid the matter because of problems in his own party, looked comfortable as he devoted all six of his questions at Prime Minister’s Questions today to the subject. Theresa May came prepared, not so much with answers on who in her government is telling the truth about the Chequers agreement and the chances and consequences of a no deal, but with attacks on Corbyn’s handling of Labour’s anti-semitism row. This preparation gave the Prime Minister some decent pay-offs, including her final answer, when she closed the exchanges by saying ‘he should

Jeremy Corbyn is a man of peace with an unfortunate tendency to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong wreath – when it comes to anti-Semitism. Just last week it emerged that the Labour leader once claimed that Israel’s Prime Minister and other leading politicians compete to see ‘who can kill the most’ people in Palestine. Only Corbyn seems to be more relaxed about leaders who talk up killing Israelis and Americans. In the spring of 2004, the Labour leader – then a lowly backbencher – visited Palestine. It was a rather curious time for a visit given that after a series of assassinations

It is quite clear what today’s NEC results mean for the Corbynites in the Labour Party: they’ve consolidated their control over the party structures. All the candidates who won were backed by Momentum, apart from Peter Willsman, who had seen the Corbynite grassroots organisation drop its support after a recording emerged of him making anti-Semitic comments. Willsman pushed moderate candidate Eddie Izzard out and will remain on the party’s ruling body. Izzard and ‘independent left-winger Ann Black’ came 10th and 13th respectively. Less clear is the implication for that rather nebulous group of anti-Corbynites generally known as ‘the moderates’. One of the reasons that the implications are less clear is

If I were Benjamin Netanyahu (and I’m not) I would be thanking whatever gods there be for sending me, at a tricky time, the most useful ally it is possible to imagine in UK politics. To Bibi’s aid has come probably the only man in Britain capable of single–handedly silencing public criticism of the Israeli government’s disturbing new Basic Law, entitled ‘Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People’. If I were a British crusader for the Palestinian cause (and I’m not) I would be cursing whatever gods there be for sending — at a time when it might have been possible to rally critics of this unpleasant eruption of

Labour is belatedly about to adopt the IHRA anti-Semitism definition with all its examples, according to three members of its ruling NEC. They tell me this should happen at the next full NEC meeting on 4 September. This would seem to represent a big climbdown by Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in the face of great pressure from many in the Jewish community. In particular, he and his closest advisers, led by Seumas Milne, have been fervently resisting the IHRA examples which define as anti-Semitic any statement that the Israeli state is racist or that question the right of Jewish people to national self determination. “It looks like we will adopt

Any local reporter would be pleased to hear a leading politician stand up for public interest journalism. Jeremy Corbyn did just that in his speech on media reform yesterday. But let’s not forget that Labour – and Corbyn himself – are adamant supporters of Leveson 2. Make no mistake: this is a dangerous attempt to muzzle local newspapers and expose reporters like me to crippling and needless law-suits. The most worrying aspect of Leveson 2 is Section 40, which would force papers to pay legal costs for people suing them regardless of whether they won their case. This would make the work of journalists much more difficult. After all, many of

It should be said that Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas for shaking up the media aren’t all bad. The Labour leader is right for instance to focus on the need to help out local media; the death of regional newspapers in recent years means that local government is almost entirely unaccountable nowadays. It’s only when things go badly wrong that people actually sit up and pay attention. Corbyn is also right on the need to reform freedom of information laws, which have now been rendered virtually redundant by those in authority who know exactly how to prevaricate and obstruct requests at every turn. But too many of the Labour leader’s other ideas

Political parties rarely have good summers. If you’re in government, something normally goes wrong just as you’re settling into a deckchair. If you’re in Opposition, a good summer is when something has gone wrong in the government. A disappointing summer is when no-one notices your carefully-planned announcements. A bad summer is when you get plenty of attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Labour has had a bad summer. It has spent much of it making rather wan attempts to calm the row on anti-semitism. A handy diversion turned up this week in the form of Dawn Butler taking exception to Jamie Oliver’s jerk rice, which has led to a

Have you ever looked at a job advert with a temptingly high salary, and thought to yourself… you’d have to be mad to apply to that. Mr Steerpike suspects many Labour staffers had a similar reaction this week to a job posted on the Labour website. Labour HQ are on the lookout for a new ‘Head of Disputes,’ and they’re willing to pay over £50,000 to the person mad enough to take it. The new job holder will be responsible for internal disputes, disciplinary affairs and, rather ominously, ‘undertaking investigations as necessary’ within the party. While the job description seems innocuous at first glance, and even vaguely powerful, the toxic

This week, a Sky News video has been doing the rounds on Twitter in which an exasperated Jeremy Corbyn supporter cast doubt on the row over the ongoing wreath-laying controversy by declaring that the Labour leader is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. End of. https://twitter.com/Jamin2g/status/1029448470028013570 Just in case readers are in any doubt, Mr S can confirm this claim is not true. But Mr S thinks he can guess where it came from. A few months ago, Corbyn’s supporters began to rebut questions about his commitment to peace by asserting that he was a winner of the Gandhi Peace Prize. The prize is bestowed annually by the Indian

Benjamin Netanyahu’s intervention in the row about Jeremy Corbyn and the memorial wreath has been incredibly handy for the Labour leadership. The Israeli Prime Minister said Corbyn’s presence at the wreath laying for members of the group behind the 1972 Munich terror attack ‘deserves unequivocal condemnation from everyone – left, right and everything in between’. A number of Labour MPs have been calling on Corbyn to show contrition in order to resolve the ongoing row, but instead the party leader decided to hit back, accusing Netanyahu of ‘false’ claims and pointing to ‘the killing of over 160 Palestinian protesters in Gaza’. John McDonnell, meanwhile, who has in recent weeks urged