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Man Bites Dog: Leftists Betray Leftists Before UK Election
The British Parliament will stand for election on 12 December 2019. The norm, which all of us have come to expect, is for “October surprises.” That is, carefully hoarded negative stories to be sprung on the “conservative” party just in time to decisively tilt the election. Obama’s college transcripts have never been leaked, nor has the damning Los Angeles Times recording of Obama with Rashid Khalidi, a Jew-hating Muslim radical. So, it is a true “man bites dog” story when the Times of London publishes a crushing story, based on a massive leak of potentially fatal internal Labour Party documents. The updated story starts:
John McDonnell has apologised to the Jewish community “for the suffering we have inflicted on them” after Labour’s failure to stamp out rampant anti-semitism in the party was exposed in a massive leak of documents from its own disciplinary department.
The secret files, seen by The Sunday Times, reveal the party is still overwhelmed with complaints about anti-Jewish racism that have been left unresolved for months or years. Most have resulted in lenient punishments or no sanctions, according to the documents, despite Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaign claims of zero tolerance.
McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, also admitted for the first time that the party’s handling of the issue has damaged its prospects in Thursday’s general election.
The full, disgusting details are behind the paywall, but the intrepid PowerLine Blog has provided a taste of the potentially politically lethal details:
The secret files show half of 100 anti-semitism cases between last summer and this May involved a warning or no action at all. Some members were told to attend “diversity training” although Labour has not set up such a scheme despite promising to do so.
Other members were let off without punishment this year despite posting comments about Holocaust denial and distortion, sharing articles about “a Jewish agenda to obtain the conquest of the gentile world” and saying it was justified to “have a dim view of the Jews”.
…A Labour member from Birmingham was subject to a complaint after posting on Facebook that the Red Sea was the “ideal destination” to get rid of the Jews “who are a cancer on us all” before adding, “no need for gas chambers anyway gas is so expensive and we need it in England”. It took eight months for him to be expelled from the party after he was suspended by Labour last year.
Without going into Kremlinology or reading the walls in Beijing, it is obvious that someone inside the Labour Party either has a basic moral sense (thank you Adam Smith), or has assessed that Labour is going to take a bath and wants to shift the blame onto Jeremy Corbyn (the venomous leftist Jew-hater). Corbyn rode Jew-hatred to Labour Party leadership and calculated, like the US Democratic Party, that demographic destiny would carry this position to permanent majority rule. He rightly read the first half of the proposition, now the British public is fully informed, for once, and will either confirm or contradict the second assumption this Thursday, December 12, 2019.
Published in Foreign Policy
How interesting that the new home of Anti-Semitism is the Left, while “Anti-Fa” claims to fight fascism as they show up to protests dressed all in black wearing masks and destroy property, break windows, set cars on fire, and assault dissenters, doing a great impression of Hitler’s Brownshirts. And they rave about Trump and his supporters being Nazis. And they think fascism comes from the Right.
I doubt much will happen due to this.
Corbyn’s ascension to Labour Party leader was the result of the far left side of the party taking advantage of a rules change to put him in power, much in the same way that George McGovern’s nomination in 1972 was aided by the Democrats’ rule changes that ushered in the modern primary system. If there’s one thing the left is very, very good at, it’s getting ahead of the right (or the center) in either taking advantage of new political rules or finding loopholes in existing rules that can be used to their advantage.
It may be that thanks to his awful BBC interview two weeks ago, combined with the fact that Corbyn’s not really all that much against Brexit, the less anti-Semitic parts of his party and those who want Brexit stopped see releasing all this information now as a way to damage Corbyn and get him out of party leadership after Thursday’s vote (or I suppose they could think that McDonnell apologizing to the Jewish community might turn Labour’s fortunes around at the last minute. But it would have carried more weight if Corbyn had been the one making the apology).
Particularly in the UK, there has always been anti-Semitism of the left. The Tories may have kept the Jews out of business and schools, but Labourites would be beating them in the streets. Thus, an anomaly in the UK is that Jews have been biased toward the Tories and LibDems rather than Labour vs. 70+% Dem. in the US.
Pre-Corbyn UK Labour got 31% in Jewish polling:
https://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/The%20political%20leanings%20of%20British%20Jews.pdf
2019 UK Labour at 7% in Jewish polling:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/polls-despite-mixed-opinions-on-brexit-93-of-uk-jews-wont-vote-for-labour/
US: https://news.gallup.com/poll/247757/one-six-jews-identify-republican.aspx
Thanks for sticking up for the Jews, Clifford. You always do.
Corbyn may as well be Maduro. But his Party will get north of 30% of the vote.
I put a lot of it down to tribalism. People are brought up supporting one or other Party and will defend them through thick and thin (and antisemitism). For my own part it took me almost 40 years of voting here in Ireland to finally turn away from the Party I supported since childhood. As it happens, the breaking point for me was that Party’s promotion of legislation outlawing trade with “settlers” in “occupied territories” (meaning Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem). A precursor for full-on BDS laws.
The British equivalent of the RealClear Politics polling average is ElectoralCalculus. But because it’s a parliamentary system they have to deal with 650 races. The election opened with a forecast of a Conservative majority of 72, dipped down into the low 30s and now is sitting at 46.
We hope to do not one but TWO episodes of London Calling for your enjoyment this week, the first our regular programming on Wednesday and a special postelection show on Friday.
Britain is a bit complicated. England was the first country to entirely ban and expel all Jews, as Jews, in 1290. That Edict of Expulsion followed a long course of increasing ugliness, including blood libels about Christian children being killed for Passover. It took Oliver Cromwell to overturn the ban.
And. One of the first great prime ministers was known by all to have been born Jewish and converted to the official state religion as a boy. Benjamin Disraeli was central to the founding of the Conservative Party, and identified with Victorian England’s imperial glory.
Must download podcasts.
This week we read in the Torah about Jacob and Esau. According to one commentator, Eliyahu Dessler, Esau was not the ugly and repugnant figure he is often portrayed to be. Instead, he was a handsome gentleman with plenty of charisma except that his true, corrupt character was hidden underneath. No one illustrates this personality more precisely than “the proper English gentleman.” During the British mandate period prior to Israel’s declaration as a state, immigration to Israel was strictly limited, even during the Holocaust. Israelis do not hate Arabs, but their opinion of the English is something else again.
Tribalism for sure. My mother’s elderly lapsed Catholic cousin who has lived in London since she left school is voting labour unquestionably. It makes no sense but it obviously gives her some feeling of doing the right thing. She also hates Trump, shocker!
Were you a blueshirt Charles? :-)
Never ever.
What do you think of Aontu?
Aontú is solid on Pro-Life issues but it’s leader comes from the appalling Sinn Féin with their hard-left economic policies, and their hatred for Israel.
In the recent European elections I deliberately spoiled my vote, following a long and honourable tradition of going to the polling station and making one’s voice heard, by rejecting everyone on offer. It annoyed me greatly that spoiled votes are now called “uncertain” votes. No-one who looked at my ballot paper could have been anything but certain about my views.
By the way that election was the first in which I didn’t vote for Fianna Fáil- once a centrist populist party, now part of the mushy soft left, with an anti-Israel stance.
Charles Mark (View Comment):
What do you think of Aontu?
I do wonder how he or Carol Nolan ever got mixed up with the Shinners, but I give them both the benefit of doubt in that Sinn Fein goes after the Young. SF are great at trotting out very young women or in some cases Travellers only to discard them or bully them out later. They both won my admiration last year (along with the other handful of TDs and Senators who defended the unborn) during that most shameful time.
I absolutely give them credit for that. Carol Nolan in particular got terrible abuse – much of it from women who constantly decry the lack of women in politics.
But it would take a lot more to vote for either of them or their Party (in his case).