Sir Keir Starmer faces a deepening antisemitism crisis after he was forced to take action against a second parliamentary candidate in 24 hours and came under pressure to investigate five more MPs and candidates. The Telegraph has the story.
The Labour leader suspended Graham Jones, who was due to stand in Hyndburn, where he was MP until 2019, after it emerged that he referred to “f—ing Israel” at a public meeting and said that British volunteers in the Israel Defence Forces should be “locked up”.
He was pushed into the decision less than a day after he was forced to remove support for Azhar Ali, his candidate for this month’s Rochdale by-election, following an outcry over a string of anti-smitic remarks made by Mr. Ali at the same gathering that went unchallenged.
On Tuesday, Sir Keir insisted that his party had changed and vowed to punish any more candidates accused of making similar comments, saying any allegations would be thoroughly investigated.
However, he was criticised over his “shambolic” handling of the crisis and urged to “get a grip” on antisemitism in the party, instead of simply playing “racist whack-a-mole”.
Sir Keir will come under further pressure to investigate five more MPs and candidates who the Telegraph can reveal have been involved in controversies over Israel.
Two Shadow Cabinet Ministers – Thangam Debonnaire and Shabana Mahmood – are among those to have expressed contentious views on Gaza, while Afzal Khan, a former Shadow Minister, previously compared the Israeli Government to Nazis.
Zarah Sultana, the Left-wing MP, liked an anti-Israel social media post last month while a councillor running in Southampton allegedly attended a pro-Palestine rally in November.
Sir Keir is also facing growing demands to reveal which MPs and councillors were at the Lancashire meeting where Mr. Jones and Mr. Ali made their incendiary remarks.
The issue of antisemitism has long plagued the Labour Party, with Sir Keir vowing to “tear out the poison” after taking over as leader from Jeremy Corbyn, who was found to have overseen the spread of racism against Jewish people within the party.
Sir Keir has come under fire from his own party over his refusal to back a ceasefire in Gaza, with Labour MPs privately fearing that some could fail to get re-elected because of a backlash among Muslim voters.
One former Labour official, who was a senior figure in Gordon Brown’s No 10, said Sir Keir needed to swiftly “get a grip” and warned that antisemitism was still “rife” within the party.
The challenge for Starmer, of course, will be drawing a line between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and conduct and antisemitism.
Worth reading in full.
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All six Prime Ministers this century have done huge damage to this country.
However all MPs are worried about are events on a different continent.
Tony Blair was responsible for the murder of 600.000 Iraqis with WMD lie. Mrs T shut a few mines and dealt with unions infested with communists. Who gets more grief from MSM and is labelled extreme?
The panic amongst the MP class is that their gravy train, truffle hunting and downright thievery is going to come to an end.
Squeaky bottom time for many of the 600 as they face the ride in to the valley of death.
I quite like that vision.
Thank you ellie.
Tory MPs I presume?
”If Israel was not a Jewish nation the world would not care at all about the ”Palestinians”. Meme.
Palestinians seem to always be taking precedence over the many people across the world who are legitimately facing persecution and genocide, be they Muslim, Christians, Yazidis, Uyghurs etc…for years this has been happening and nobody takes to the streets to bring attention to their plight, but as soon as there’s Jew involvement and another Middle East conflict kicks off involving those nations the Palestinians get the world’s sympathy while the state of Israel gets the world’s hate. Antisemitism dressed up as social justice with hypocrisy and selective outrage off the charts. So many people outing themselves as deeply unpleasant individuals who are worthy of our contempt. And it’s not hard. Just don’t be on the side of the terrorists, irrespective of how you feel about Israel’s handling of things!
Not possible for the George Galloway/Jeremy Corbyn/Hamas/Houthi/Hezbollah/Jihad Fanclubs though. They’re hardwired to hate because they’re all ‘useful idiots’ and traitors to the West. You’ll all bend over for Islam when the time comes, won’t you??
Wipe your chin, you seem to be drooling.
Out of order.
Surely the article you are commenting on contradicts exactly what you are saying? Palestinians taking precedence … but the article reports that Labour is taking action against its MPs because of their supposed anti-semitism. In other words, any criticism of anything Israel does is classified as anti-semitism and is to be punished.
Why? What is so special about Israel that does not apply to other countries? Does Israel have a special right to commit genocide? No, of course not.
You are right to condemn terrorism but one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and one should at least question why there has been a ‘Middle-East Problem’ ever since the British assumed responsibility for the area in 1918. Only 130 years ago there were hardly any Jews in Palestine at all, but in less than 50 years the Zionist cause very successfully managed to displace and subjugate the Palestinians who had owned and worked the land for the previous 2,000 years – and the Zionist cause and its effects continue to this day.
The result is understandable: strife, discontent and millions of refugees. Now place the remaining Palestinians in their own country in ‘open-air prisons’ and you have succeeded in creating a nicely explosive situation.
If you want to read some alternative sources of information regarding the alleged crimes of rape, decapitations and whatever, performed by Hamas, and the recent allegations against the UNRWA then I recommend:
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/18/israeli-army-gassed-auschwitz-soldier/
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/11/beheaded-israeli-babies-settler-wipe-out-palestinian/
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/06/scandal-israeli-october-7-fabrications/
https://expose-news.com/2024/02/12/absence-of-evidence-israels-case-against-unrwa/
But maybe it is all just plain anti-semitism …
What a shame he did not support the working class or the people who pay the tax to keep the whole show on the road.
Will be interesting watching the various Muslim factions forming and running their own political parties.
No time for the man. Wasn’t he also one of the ones who couldn’t say if a woman can have a penis and that he’d rather be at Davos than Westminster?
Kneel is identical to Fishy only dressed nominally in a different coloured flag. They are both fully paid up members of the WEF fan club. And that is all they will ever be – fan boys. They seem to believe that for doing Klaus’s bidding they will eventually gain access to his Round Table but the reality is that they will be discarded when deemed of no further use. Fishy may be allowed to cling on a little longer because of his father-in-law but he will be discarded eventually.
Kneel has no interest in this country and is about as trustworthy as a Democrat CIA operative. He is so dishonest he doesn’t even know if his progeny are male or female and yes he did say that he would prefer to work in Davos rather than Westminster – “every time.” A statement which confirms how bloody thick he really is.
A dangerous, treasonous P O S who is clearly still being coached by Traitor Number One – T. Bliar.
The Working Class has only ever been a useful tool to advance its Socialist ideology. And the Working Class its useful idiots.
Can’t we at least have a new pre-election smear tactic every now and then? And maybe just let people in the middle-east kill each other in whichever ways they see fit and worry about real problems closer to home instead?
Assuming I had a right to vote, I’d be interested in political issues affecting the UK, like, say, why is tendencially every existing building been torn town and replaced with another tower block of empty flats, and what opinons party leaders and prospective MPs have about them. I really don’t care for their opinons about either Israel or Palestine.
Part of the problem may be redefinition of what anti-semitism means. It’s not obvious that criticism of the Israeli military is automatic anti-semitism, or even criticism of the local government being conflated with anti-semitism.
I’m sure some people hate Jews but the term isn’t helpful. I think it’s better to talk about what people’s views are on what the UK should be doing wrt Gaza etc, and what the other sides should be doing, whether there should be a Jewish state etc etc – actual concrete proposals or opinions on specific matters.
A Jewish state exists (again) because the people who wanted and want to have one had and have the military muscle to ensure its existence. The question whether or not it should exist is entirely immaterial.
I would have thought it is highly relevant as what shape some future Jewish state might have would influence choices made now. In what direction should we be working?
That’s one of these completely bizarre human statements I absolutely cannot understand …
Do you believe that the Jews are the rightful owners of this country because God awarded it to them? If so, Israel should obviously exist because such is the will of God! However, what happened to Gods will during the time between 70AD and 1948AD? Did it become his un-will or was it perhaps temporarily suspended? If so, why?
Do you plan to recruit and army of your own or at least send the English army into the region in order to support some kind of outcome? If so, which outcome, if not, what do you mean by working on it?
Singing the songs of one side of the other side in the UK is nothing but local noise.
Of what interest is the existence or non-existence of Israel to anyone who isn’t living in the area and also not planning to conquer it?
This is a political game. Anti-semitism is one of the few sticks the Conservatives have to hit Labour over the head with.
And as always the useful idiots will buy into the game and will be outraged by the “anti-semitism” which in some cases might be real, in some cases might just be sympathy for Palestinians expressed in a way that can be exploited as “anti-semitism”.
What I am pretty sure is that the people driving this care about actual anti-semitism as much as they care about anything else. It goes as far and only as far as it’s politically expedient for them to care.
So for example caring about the jab injured isn’t at all politically beneficial so… they don’t give a sh*t.
Being outraged about “anti-semitism” yields political capital, so they care deeply.
Nail on head.
Graham Jones suspended?
He should have been arrested for inciting racism!
Don’t you mean “arrested for inciting murder or rape”? That’s the only reason for arresting anyone, not for inciting tribalism, for Pete’s sake.
If I were to say ‘F*** Iran’, anybody fighting for Iran should be arrested’, would you say I should be arrested for inciting racism?
I don’t understand how one particular religious group has been given a special protected status everywhere in the world, so that it is an international criminal act to criticise that group. Another religious group has been campaigning at the UN to give themselves a similar protected status, declaring any criticism of them to be a “hate crime”.
You never hear of people having to be investigated for “Anti-Christianism”, do you?
Let’s just drop all this nonsense.
Such a shame, my heart bleeds for him! Poor old kneel.
Labour Party – antisemitism, a feature not a flaw.
Antisemitism is actually written as ‘anti-Semitism’. The contraction makes no sense in logical terms. I know it sound weird but the notion of ‘Semitism’ isn’t that clear. If you look at the Semitic tribes there are certainly cultural tendencies but these are above this level of scrutiny. Therw were certain tribes possessing a certain language group that moved westward. I don’t mean to sound pedantic but frankly this level of discourse is kindergarten or retard level. I am not insulting you personally I am just letting you know.
The excuse being trotted out for Starmer initially supporting anti-Semitic Ali to remain the Labour candidate in Rochdale, is that if Labour didn’t field a candidate which the very large Muslim community there will approve of (ie an anti-Semite), then George Galloway (boo, hiss) might win.
Personally, I see very little difference between anti-Semitic Ali and George Galloway (boo, hiss) except Galloway has been very verbal about Blair’s illegal war in Iraq and also supported leaving the EU.
Labour imported and has assiduously courted “the Muslim vote” and is now reaping what it has sowed. Starmer can only excise anti-Semitism from the Party by removing a very large number of MPs, Candidates, Councillors and Members.
And he isn’t going to do that. He’ll get rid of one or two, mouth platitudes and tell all the other anti-Semites in the Party to keep their mouths shut …… until the crosses are on the ballot paper.