The Jewish Labour Movement has condemned the decision to reinstate Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour party, warning it would merely “embolden those who agreed with him”.
JLM said the former party leader’s statement – in which he said concerns about antisemitism were neither exaggerated nor overstated – was “insincere and wholly inadequate”.
The movement said he had “offered no apology for his total failure of leadership to tackle antisemitism” in the party.
“Once again we find ourselves having to remind the Labour party that Jeremy Corbyn is not the victim of Labour antisemitism – Jewish members are”.
Criticising the process which led to Corbyn’s reinstatement, it claimed that while allegations of antisemitism were delayed and subjected to “political manipulation”, the disciplinary process was “expedited” for Corbyn.
The Labour MP Margaret Hodge, one of Corbyn’s fiercest critics, said she could not comprehend the move, describing it as “a broken outcome from a broken system … factional, opaque and dysfunctional complaints process could never reach a fair conclusion.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews called the decision to reinstate Corbyn a “retrograde step”.
Its president, Marie van der Zyl, the Jewish leadership chairman, Jonathan Goldstein, and the community security trust chief executive, Mark Gardner, said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s dismissive approach to the damning EHRC’s findings rightly saw him suspended.
“For Jeremy Corbyn’s allies on the NEC to expedite his case whilst hundreds of other cases languished under his tenure, and his confected non-apology earlier today adds insult to injury.
“This politicisation of the process goes against what the EHRC recommended just last month. Labour’s mountain to climb to win back the trust of our community just got higher.”
The same suspects, the same old lying, the same playing the victim. Treasonous scum one and all.
Re: Guess who's at it again? ####ing Hodge and the rest
The amount of gaslighting about the EHRC report i've heard from respectable mainstream sources is annoying - who knew that the report actually said labour was NOT institutionally antisemitic; and that it most heavily criticised the right wing when they controlled the party machine, or that the criticism against corbyn's lot was largely about them pushing forward too much with antisemitism complaints and so was unfair to the accused rather than against the acusers.
Re: Guess who's at it again? ####ing Hodge and the rest
Hodge's dulcet tones were heard on the radio this morning.
'Milord. She doth protest too much' is the phrase that comes to mind about Hodge. Here are a couple of tweets. ________ Mountain @sharpeleven 2h #r4today Kuenssberg’s language dripping bias in her disgusting report. “Corbyn’s tribe.” Every word loaded with bias and contempt. ________ Michael Callaghan @oldstorling 3h The #r4today 8.00am news bulletin used a quote about @jeremycorbyn's reinstatement (that it was decided by a panel that was "stuffed with his own supporters") that their own journalist had refuted not ten minutes previously! Their bias couldn't be any more blatant.
Rachel Riley: It is disgusting Jeremy Corbyn is back in the Labour Party
18 November 2020, 08:00
By EJ Ward @EJWardNews
Rachel Riley told LBC's Nick Ferrari that the decision to reinstate Jeremy Corbyn as a member of the Labour party was "absolutely disgusting" and "ridiculous."
It comes as the former Labour leader was suspended after claiming in his response to a damning Equality and Human Rights Commission report last month that the problem had been "dramatically overstated".
The broadcaster and campaigner said the former Labour leader "was suspended for bringing the party into disrepute and he has 100% brought the party into disrepute."
She went on to say that Mr Corbyn has "caused so much upset, and has no awareness of what he's done."
When Nick asked how she would respond to comments that it was a "new day and a new dawn for the Labour Party's relationship with Jewish people," the reply was that it was "100 steps backwards."
Branding the readmission of Mr Corbyn as "beyond a joke," Ms Riley said it sends the message that "Jewish people are lying and smearing for political reasons."
The broadcaster then told LBC listeners a personal story of just some of the online abuse she has received.
"Because of these dogwhistles Jews have been harassed for five years plus," Ms Riley said.
The Islington North MP was suspended from Labour last month for his response to a damning Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report which found that the party had broken the law in its handling of anti-Semitism complaints.
Mr Corbyn claimed that the scale of anti-Semitism in the party was "dramatically overstated for political reasons" by opponents and "much of the media" - though he has since sought to clarify his comments.
A panel of the NEC decided on Tuesday that the former party leader should be readmitted as a member, but he will continue to sit as an independent MP unless Sir Keir restores the whip.
She told LBC that "under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership complaints about anti-Semitism skyrocketed."
"And they chose not to deal with them," she added.
Ms Riley told LBC she never saw a path back into the party for Mr Corbyn.
"He's travelled across the world to lay wreaths for terrorists who murdered Jews, he campaigned for ten years to have people convicted of terrorism for bombing Jewish charities in London released from prison."
"It is amazing how many friends and admirers Nelson Mandela had. Particularly after his release. The people and institutions that supported apartheid, while claiming to do the opposite, are foremost among those who deserve, at the very least, a public accounting of their behaviour.
In June 1994, only two months after South Africa’s first post-apartheid election, Margaret Hodge gave an interview to the New Statesman. Hodge had just been elected as the Member of the British Parliament for the safe Labour seat of Barking. Asked what had had the greatest impact on her political beliefs, Hodge replied “the ending of apartheid and the holding of democratic elections in South Africa have restored a sense of optimism and hope that I was in danger of losing”. Asked “which political figure –living or dead – do you most admire?” well, you can guess who she answered. (See: ‘Margaret Hodge’, New Statesman, 17 June 1994, p. 13)
We can now reveal that her family’s very successful company ran a highly profitable joint-venture partnership in South Africa for the majority of the 1970s and 1980s: precisely the period in which the anti-apartheid movement had called for extensive economic sanctions and disinvestment. For the life of this joint venture, she saw fit to hold shares in the special purpose vehicle that held her family’s slice of the pie.
Open Secrets spoke with Alex Conneely Hughes, who works in the office of Margaret Hodge, following repeated attempts via email, WhatsApp and phone to elicit a written response from Hodge to our questions. Hodge conceded that she was aware of her family’s business in apartheid South Africa. According to her spokesperson, Hodge and her sisters protested this in a letter to their father in 1973. We were not provided with a copy of the letter following a request to do so. According to Hodge their father took no heed of this call. She further claimed that all profits she derived from the South African business between 1973-1994 were given to a charity. However, somewhat curiously, Hodge claims through her spokesperson not to have any recollection of the charities to which she donated her apartheid profits for a period of over 20 years. The spokesperson also couldn’t say how Hodge was able to determine what part of her dividends were made up of profits from South Africa and profits from other jurisdictions.
And while Hodge may have paid dividends to charities she can’t recall, she chose not to sell shares held in her own name. These shares would have increased in value as her family’s company thrived, including in apartheid South Africa. "
You liked that? There's more (to be fair the BNP thing was from a time when most of the labour party machine were seemingly trying to impress BNP voters) - and then there's the Jewish cemetery the council she lead was trying to get demolished in the 80s to make way for some dodgy property developer - foiled by a local antisemitic philo-semite by the name of Jeremy Corbyn:
"The British National Party has supported Margaret Hodge in calling for British-born families to take priority over immigrants in the queue for council homes. They have seized on the Labour MP's comments as a vindication of its extremist policies. 'Labour MP Margaret Hodge deserves a word of compliment from the BNP for her efforts to raise the thorny issue of social housing for native Britons, an issue that has been in our manifesto for years,' the far right party says on its website. 'Britain is full and there is no more room for any economic migrants, whatever language they speak, what religion they practice and what they look like.'
And it talks about how Hodge has gifted the BNP a win-win situation. 'If native Britons and long-established immigrant families get preference to homes over recent arrivals then the BNP's position has not only been legitimised but fulfilled,' the BNP states. 'If on the other hand hopes are falsely raised by Mrs Hodge's comments and Labour fail to deliver, many more desperate families looking for a home of their own will be moving closer to considering voting BNP.'"
"Jewish historian Geoffrey Alderman recalled an anecdote about Jeremy Corbyn on 8 May. Back in 1987, the Labour leader successfully campaigned to stop property developers taking over a Jewish cemetery.
Fighting a Hodge-led council to save a Jewish cemetery And it turns out that Margaret Hodge, who has smeared Corbyn as an antisemite, was leader of Islington Council at the time. Although Hodge’s personal view is unspecified, under her leadership the council approved “destroying the gravestones and digging-up and reburying the bodies” to build for-profit properties."
on November 18, 2020, 10:26 am