The Labour Party’s Cynical Sell-out of the Jewish Community on antisemitism

This is an extract from an article by Dave Rich that originally appeared on the website of Haaretz. Read the full article here.

Appearances are everything in politics, and the peerage given to Shami Chakrabarti, author of the Labour Party’s latest inquiry into its own antisemitism, appears to be an act of stunning hypocrisy and cold political cynicism.

Chakrabarti’s inquiry was commissioned by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in April, after a succession of scandals about anti-Semitic remarks by party members had reached such a crescendo that one of his MPs, Naz Shah, and one of his oldest political allies, Ken Livingstone, were both suspended from the party for antisemitism.

Holding an inquiry is a classic way to kick a problem into the long grass, but Corbyn’s way of doing politics is supposed to be different. Generally regarded as a man of principle, Corbyn claims to bring a new, more honest, approach to politics.

He is also a long-standing opponent of Britain’s honors system, which is redolent of hereditary privilege and evocative of Empire in the names of the honors it bestows. There will be no Labour peerages given out under my leadership, he said.

So much for principle.

_{Image credit: Southbank Centre/Garry Knight}