by Rob Marchant
If the horrific news coming out of Israel and Gaza resulting from Hamas atrocities were not sufficient, the last six weeks have been the worst period of antisemitism in living memory, not just in Britain but in many other parts of the world.
Some Labour figures have not exactly covered themselves in glory: if you can manage to live with the cognitive dissonance of framing the “ceasefire” narrative as a neutral one, rather than one which helps Hamas; or recent serial hate marches as “peace demonstrations” – as it seems both Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan were able to, not to mention a highly-predictable Jeremy Corbyn – you are not going to get to common sense or coherence any time soon.
However, at national level, Keir Starmer has largely avoided the platitudes of his predecessors and has managed to hold a sensible line with his Shadow Cabinet in not “both-sidesing” the Hamas atrocities and the civilian casualties resulting from Israeli counter-attacks. This all in the face of Chicken-Licken comment pieces predicting imminent, and terrible, splits in the party over this stance, which in the end have turned out to be rather overblown.
In difficult times, then, Labour has managed to truly move on from the Corbyn years and not fall into the trap which has recently befallen the Spanish, Belgian and Irish prime ministers, in wetting the bed on this issue. Bravo to Starmer.
So far, so good; until we come to last weekend’s Sunday Times piece, in which it was revealed that Rosie Duffield MP, one of the very few MPs to stand up and be counted as a Jewish ally when antisemitism was rife in the party and is, let us not forget, a vice-chair of the APPG on antisemitism, has not yet been added to the approved parliamentary candidates list, despite having been reselected for Canterbury seat, on grounds of a complaint over alleged antisemitism.
You what, mate?
