Just when you thought politics had got crazy enough, it gets even madder. The seismic events in Westminster last week demonstrate just how broken our system is. I write this column on Sunday morning, ahead of a week with a significant statement form the Prime Minster, followed by important votes. By the time readers come to scan this column, it may be hideously out of date.
I try to avoid taking a party-political line in this column. It would be to use the privilege given to me by the Shuttle unwisely. But there comes a point when a series of politicians leaving a great political party, for reasons of antisemitism, needs at least a comment from the local MP.
I may be a Conservative, but I recognise the work that has been done by Labour over the last century. Its fight for workers’ rights has driven improvements in employment laws. Although the welfare state was an idea from Winston Churchill, the outcome of the Beverage Report was put into place by Labour. The NHS was created by a Labour government. So, listening to Ian Austin MP’s resignation comments last week was heart-breaking, as were other Jewish Labour MPs, some who had already resigned, others thinking about leaving.
I’m no expert of the internal intricacies of Labour, so not qualified to comment. But a simplified idea put forward is that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour stands up for the oppressed against the oppressors. If he sees workers as oppressed, then it follows that the rich might be the oppressors. If you see that many of the dynastic wealthy families are Jewish (the Rothschilds, Warbugs, Schroders, Oppenheimers), then it follows (unjustifiably, in my view) that they typify the oppressors. Add to the mix the situation in Israel and Palestine, where Jeremy Corbyn has declared he is a friend of Hamas (dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the Jewish nation), and maybe some clue to what is going on starts to emerge.
I want to be clear that in my personal experience of Labour politicians, be they MPs or local councillors here in Wyre Forest, I have never yet met one that I do not admire for their resolve to serve their community nor ever felt they had a racist bone in their bodies. But their party seems to have been taken away from them. I hope they get it back, for all politics’ sake