• Welcome, guest!

    This is a forum devoted to discussion of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
    Why not sign up and contribute? Registered members get a fully ad-free experience!

Jeremy Corbyn

Well at least I won't have to type alleged every time I call him an anti Semite soon.
 
What he said, no. Did it come across as being sympathetic to anti Semites, Yes. As does the meeting he booked next week at Parliament as per Sniffers post on the MP thread. See post 3205 for the Jewish Leadership Councils view of him
 
He's not necessarily an antisemite. He's just very very keen that antisemites in the Labour Party can continue to spout their bile.

Which is entirely reasonable obviously.
 
Tony Towner said:
What he said, no. Did it come across as being sympathetic to anti Semites, Yes. As does the meeting he booked next week at Parliament as per Sniffers post on the MP thread. See post 3205 for the Jewish Leadership Councils view of him
Click to expand...

Islington Council banned a musician from performing and Williamson kicked off about it. He claimed not to know that the guy was an anti-Semite. Clearly didn't occur to him to ask the council why they saw fit to ban him.
 
Templeton Peck said:
Islington Council banned a musician from performing and Williamson kicked off about it. He claimed not to know that the guy was an anti-Semite. Clearly didn't occur to him to ask the council why they saw fit to ban him.
Click to expand...
That was one example, but the attached link pre dates that. Also the bloke with the Blockheads was infamous, not some obscure guy, Williamson knew he is was, but again had to roll out the apology after he got called on it.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/jewi...t-you-mean-by-contemporary-anti-semitism/amp/
 
Templeton Peck said:
This is the thing with Williamson. What he said the other day wasn't anti-Semitic per se but there's been a build up of things over time.
Click to expand...
FWIW I don't think he is a conscious racist. He is however symptomatic of a strain of the left whose dislike of Israel on a political level has strayed beyond that into anti-semiticism.
 
But that is the point. Anti-Zionism is attacking the country. Anti-Semitism isn't.
 
Paddingtonwolf said:
But anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism.
Click to expand...

The point TT is making, I think, is that the way legitimate criticism of Israel as a political entity has been by way of stereotypes, conspiracy theories and abuse against people because they are Jewish and therefore somehow complicit. This has been a feature of people who are clearly “of the left” and Jeremy Corbyn has given the left a voice in this country and that includes the less savoury elements.

It is not new, it’s been an issue for decades but in today’s world of social media, instant communication and the intense scrutiny of a 24 hour news cycle it is now appears more prelevant.

Chris Williamson was politically naive but not necessarily wrong. I believe that anti-semitism has been politically weaponised and this has served to undermine the seriousness with which it should be viewed. There is currently no political party spending as much time, energy and resources on dealing with anti-semitism. In 2016, the Home Affairs Select Committee concluded that the level of anti-semitism in the Labour Party was no more than any other political party or society in general. The same committee adopted the IHRC definition of anti-semitism with caveats. No other political party is under the same level of scrutiny regarding anti-semitism and parliament did not get the same level of criticism as Labour for seeking to amend the IHRC definition.

When people speak out, like Williamson did, they are attacked predominately by people who don’t share his political views both within and and out of the Labour Party. It is a consistent and predictable response which suggests that either people like Williamson are wrong...or there is something else going on.

I don’t believe that Williamson, or Corbyn, are anti-Semitic but the ongoing narrative has the effect of making the, so in the eyes and minds of many. They are, therefore, bad people.

Meanwhile, islamophobia is ignored. Legitimate criticism of Islam by way of “stereotypes, conspiracy theories and abuse against people because they are Muslims and therefore somehow complicit” barely gets any attention. It was recently claimed that to ask British Jews to speak out against the actions of the Israeli government was anti-Semitic whereas British Muslims are constantly asked the same and wrongly criticised for not speaking out. Muslims face abuse because they are Muslims. Politicians use stereotypes about Muslims on a frequent basis. Conservative MPs and the Muslim Council of GB have repeatedly claimed that there is institutional islamophobia in the Conservative Party but the silence in response to this is deafening.

I don’t think the Labour Party has done enough to root out anti-semitism in recent years, but it is doing more than any other political party to deal with racism within its ranks and wider including against anti-semitism. But the Labour Party can’t just remain silent against unwarranted attacks by those who wish to use the issue for political advantage. The likes of Chuka Umunna ignored the anti-semitism in and around the Labour Party in all the years he was a member of Parliament until....Corbyn became leader. Ian Austin, a man who has genuinely fought the scourge of anti-semitism in society was never as vocal about anti-semitism in and around the Labour Party until...Corbyn became leader. The Conservative Party never said anything about anti-semitism in and around the Labour Party...until Corbyn became leader. The media had no interest in anti-semitism in the Labour Party...until Corbyn became leader.

If it is anti-Semitic to say that people are using anti-semitism to further their own agenda rather than genuinely being concerned about anti-Semitism then we are in danger of trivialising what should be a serious issue to little more than point scoring sound bites.

There are people who support the Labour Party who are genuinely and consciously racist with their anti-semitism. There are also people who support the Labour Party who express similar thoughts about Islam. Some of these people will be active in the Labour Party and they shouldn’t be. Similar people exist in other political parties and in society and they should be challenged too. Corbyn has been challenging these people for decades yet has somehow become the poster boy for them and it is being accepted without critical thought.

Williamson is an experienced politician who should know that every word and action is going to be heavily scrutinised. But I don’t think he is either anti-Semitic or an apologist for anti-Semitism. But he hasn’t been very clever, people now believe he is anti-Semitic because they have been told he is.
 
Some really fascinating stuff in there TSB. I agree with huge amounts of it.
 
I agree with the vast majority of that post TSB, but as TP admitted earlier Williamson has a history of questionable comments and Tweets around this subject. At some point you have to question how many times you can be naïve/make an error of judgement
 
Tony Towner said:
I agree with the vast majority of that post TSB, but as TP admitted earlier Williamson has a history of questionable comments and Tweets around this subject. At some point you have to question how many times you can be naïve/make an error of judgement
Click to expand...

It could of course be both Williamson being wrong and there is something else going on.
 
Momentum fined £16,700 for multiple breaches of electoral law during 2017 election
 
I voted to elect him as leader of the Labour Party, twice... I will not vote for him again!

Came across as a principled, honest politician with the people and Country at heart and has turned into yet another waffler who is trying to force through his own ideas to the detriment of us all
 
The only thing that would keep me voting labour after my road to Damascus moment and abandoning of the Conservatives would be the fact that I think my current MP is very good. The leadership are rubbish at the moment though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Del Woppio
Top strikers - the early years.
2
Replies
31
Views
3K
Deutsch Wolf
Deutsch Wolf
D
They Wore The Shirt launch
Replies
0
Views
2K
dwarfio
D
Back
Top