He seems too often a weathervane, when what the Labour Party needs is a signpost.Manually writing instagram hashtags can be a long thing to do to get tags for likes and more instagram followers. Instead of appearing to be at the mercy of party factions, opinion polls and focus groups, Sir Keir must show that he can give Labour a clear sense of direction. There is little that he appears to believe now that he also believed in 2020 when standing for the Labour leadership, when he promised that he would “build on” Corbyn’s “radicalism”. That will not be an easy task for someone who seems to bend so easily to pressure. Had there been such findings about the Conservatives or Reform UK, we would never have heard the end of it.įor Labour to be taken seriously as a party of government, Sir Keir must now convince voters that the party treats women and all minorities fairly. It is astonishing that the Forde report has received so little attention. Another claimed that “the Labour Party is not a welcoming place for people of colour”. Women and ethnic minorities were expected to apply and interview for posts yet it was common for white men to arrive without going through a recruitment process.” Another respondent told a staff member that “BAME women” tended to get “thrown under the bus”. “Recruitment practices”, one respondent declared, “were routinely flouted. In a staff survey in June 2020, 54 per cent of respondents “reported encountering discrimination while working” for Labour. Where race is concerned, Labour has been, as it were, an equal opportunities party.įorde discovered a culture of widespread racism, including Islamophobia, as well as sexism in the party. Indeed, as the report by the eminent KC, Martin Forde, showed in 2022, Labour’s problems with race were not restricted to anti-Semitism. It is not as if those who dislike Jews are overflowing with love for the rest of humanity. The late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, once said that anti-Semites are never just anti-Semites. Did Sir Keir really believe what he was saying? On the Andrew Marr Show, it was suggested that Corbyn might be a danger to the Jewish community, but Sir Keir responded, “I don’t accept that”, even though one poll had shown that 40 per cent of British Jews would have considered leaving the country had Corbyn entered No 10. Sir Keir, as shadow Brexit secretary, helped to legitimise Corbyn, who, so Sir Keir assured us in February 2019 “would make a great Prime Minister”. In 2020, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that Labour had breached its legal obligations in that there had been “unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination” against Jews “for which the Labour Party is responsible”. Who, after all, knew or cared that Grant Shapps and Margaret Hodge are Jewish? Even before the war, Mosley’s Fascists, although frightening many in the Jewish community, were negligible electorally, never contesting seats in a general election.Ĭorbyn, however, was not a fringe politician, but Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, who nearly won the 2017 general election. Until Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party in 2015, anti-Semitism was not really an issue in British politics. How one is dealt with by Labour does seem to depend not on the degree of the offence but on which faction the offender belongs to. It beggars belief that members were unaware of his views – his offensive remarks were made in Labour Party meetings. One possible reason for Labour’s hesitation was that Ali, in contrast to other Labour MPs suspended for making anti-Semitic comments, such as Andy McDonald and Kate Osamor, is on the Right of the party and therefore an ally of Starmer’s.Īli is indeed far from being an unknown figure in Labour circles, having been leader of the party on Lancashire County Council. Then, after further unsavoury comments were uncovered, second thoughts prevailed and Labour disowned Ali. A shadow cabinet minister, Lisa Nandy, turned up to canvass for him at the weekend. Labour’s first instincts, when it was revealed that Ali had suggested that Israel had deliberately allowed the murderous assault of October 7, was to brazen it out after he apologised. The Azhar Ali episode in Rochdale shows that he still has much to do. When Sir Keir Starmer became Labour leader in April 2020, he declared that his first task was to remove the “poison” of anti-Semitism, a “stain” on the party.
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