Whilst I'm loath to defend this bloke (who seems to be a bit of a dick), what I heard him say was 'let the 67 (or whatever number it was) Rabbis produce evidence of Labour anti-Semitism'. Which seems fair to me. The Trump-supporters thing was a bit bizarre, admittedly, but surely it was a description of those making the accusations, rather than all Jews. How is that in itself anti-Semitic? The thing is, Corbyn and a lot of his supporters are anti-Zionist, but that does not make them anti-Semites. I guess there are people among them that allow one to spill over into the other, but I would suggest that they are a small minority. There are also, however, many people - eager to damage Corbyn - who are far too quick to portray legitimate criticism of the Israeli state as racism. It isn't.
He didn’t ‘say it though, he screamed it, seemed unhinged. But anyway, I think that there are several elements of this that are telling. I quite agree that every instance of actual or debatable anti semitism in the Labour Party is seized upon by the media and possibly blown out of proportion, all to the joy of Corbyn’s enemies. Hardly surprising, they are leaving open goal after open goal on this. And this is ignoring the army of Corbyn supporting trolls who aren’t necessarily party members spewing out the real bile on social media, which I know he can’t control, but who send a message about the type of some of people he attracts.
But the complete lack of control and discipline the Labour leadership has on this is important. They can’t stop their supporters going on and on about definitions, what is anti Israel and what is anti Semitic whatever, digging the hole ever deeper. Israel/Palestine is an important issue, but let’s face it a UK government of whatever type is not going to make a difference. Why is this so important to them when it’s not beyond passing interest and regret to the majority of the electorate (I’m guessing)? In my view it’s because Corbyn and his mates are much more interested and motivated by this type of protest politics, especially about perceived injustices overseas, than they are in the tedious grind of domestic policy. After all they’ve spent 40 years going on about it. He won’t simply say ‘shut up about this, we’ll adopt the full definition of anti semitism and chuck out anyone who steps out of line’ because he doesn’t want to, it would send a message he doesn’t want to send to certain sections of his party, he thinks it’s a foreign policy rather than an ethical issue, and doesn’t want to upset the strong Islamic support he has in some parts of the country.
We know they will never really challenge the Tories on Brexit, because they are anti EU and want it to happen, but are delighted for the Tories to take the blame if things go tits up and have the hassle of doing the negotiation. But there are plenty of other issues where they could be roasting the Tories but are not - Labour had a very popular manifesto, when do we hear about their policies now? They are facing the weakest, most incompetent government I can remember and really not making them work (thankfully the Tories are pretty good at doing this themselves).
Obviously I don’t like Corbyn and really don’t want a Corbyn government (I know, I’m truly ****ed come the next election) but I do think we need a proper opposition and we haven’t got one, we’ve got a bunch of people who were born to sit on the back benches Rebelling against their own party or be on platforms surrounded by people who think the same as them and protest about stuff while not being accountable for anything. I saw this lot (and Corbyn, at close quarters) in action in the early 80s and time hasn’t improved them. Sorry for the length of this response.
Serious question....open to all.
Does anyone see this divide that has been opened up in this country ever being healed ?
I can’t personally ‘cos whichever side gets its way, the other is gonna feel aggrieved and bitter.
Sad really
No it won’t be healed, but the divide was there before the referendum and it’s not just about the EU. In fact I don’t think it’s a simple two way divide, it’s more of a fragmentation. It’s just all much more visible and nasty now. To be fair the divides exist in every other country as well, sometimes with different fault lines, but some are better at keeping a lid on it.
When I’ve lived abroad in the past I’ve been conscious that societies have problems, but because they were
their problems not
my problems it was kind of academic. This isn’t.
There is an element of the Tory party, led by our estimable PM, that wants to honour the referendum vote whilst mitigating the damage that it will inevitably do to the country. There is a smaller - but perversely more powerful, it seems - element that doesn't care what damage is done so long as they get total separation from the enemy across the Channel. These elements together form what we laughably call our government. This government is plainly incapable of agreeing with itself, let alone securing a deal with the EU, but Parliament will not (in my view) allow us to crash out of the EU with no deal in place. There is no way to 'move on' other than for 'the people' to speak again. We now no what we didn't in 2016 - it's No Deal v No Brexit. A different question, no need for best of three.
She really cocked it up though, didn’t she? When she became leader with a small but viable majority, she could have explicitly said that she wanted a Brexit which satisfies the referendum but didn’t punish the 48%, been honest enough to say that a complete break was simply not viable and gone on from there. Instead she chose to call me a ‘citizen of nowhere’, draw up unachievable red lines and pander to the extremists in her own party. She then made herself a hostage to them by ****ing up a general election and screwing up the parliamentary numbers, which is the source of her impotence. She really is a cluster.