Cabbages & Kings: Labour's anti-Semitic stumble

“In awe of the cathedral’s lofty height
I have no thought for the God within
Just so when thirsting eyes alight
Upon earthly beauty, don’t count it a sin
To appreciate and want a book for its cover
Thus spake the youthful undiscerning lover.”
From The Case of
the Ashamed Bahu
by Bachchoo

The Labour Party of the UK has stumbled upon or exposed this week a fundamental schism in its ideological foundations as a party that aspires to gain a mandate and govern through the ballot box. It didn’t begin with an MP called Naz Shah who was suspended from the party on April 27, but the ideological chasm, which has rapidly deepened, was precipitated by revelations of her anti-Semitism. The potential for a divide in the party was initiated when Left-winger Jeremy Corbyn was elected last year to the leadership. Mr Corbyn has always been a rebel and has appointed to his shadow Cabinet a fair number of MPs who have hitherto been seen as a radical fringe.

Ms Shah of Pakistani origin is the MP for Bradford West, a constituency with a sizeable if not dominant population of Mirpuri origin. She is a recent recruit to the Labour Party and admitted that she voted for George Galloway — a maverick politician expelled from the party when he supported Saddam Hussein and called for British troops to mutiny during the US-UK invasion of Iraq. In the 2015 election, Ms Shah stood as the Labour candidate against Mr Galloway and beat him by more than 11,000 votes.

Last week, it was revealed that in 2014 Ms Shah had exchanged messages on the media with anti-Israeli campaigners and had called for the state of Israel to be “relocated” to the middle of the US. In her election campaign she called for the Muslims to vote for her because “the Jews were rallying” — a remark or campaign tactic that probably escaped Labour’s central command. When the posts and remarks came to light,

Ms Shah, who had been appointed parliamentary secretary to the shadow chancellor John McDonnell, resigned from her post. The hierarchy of Labour, including Jewish donors who generously fund the party, called for further action and Ms Shah was suspended and the whip withdrawn from her “pending an investigation”, though what there remains to investigate is unclear. Ms Shah has now apologised through the media and in the House of Commons. She admitted that her tweets and posts could be construed as anti-Semitic though she insists that she is not an anti-Semite and meant the remarks as opposition, albeit ill-considered, to Israeli government actions in bombing the Palestinians of Gaza.
Then matters got curiouser and curiouser. Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London and close friend and associate of Mr Corbyn, appeared on radio and TV defending Ms Shah.

He made the usual distinction between anti-Semitism and having critical opinions of the policies and actions of the Israeli government. Fair enough. He went on to say that Hitler had in 1932 advocated an Israeli homeland in West Asia. Why he brought Hitler into the argument only he knows. His remarks and subsequent insistence insinuated, with no historical justification, that Hitler was a supporter of the state of Israel. He did go on to say that Hitler then went “mad” and persecuted the Jews. Nevertheless, the episode threw the Labour Party, which boasts of being a bastion against racism and anti-Semitism, into turmoil. Influential voices in the party insisted that Mr Livingstone be suspended and they prevailed upon Mr Corbyn to suspend him. This in itself was remarkable. The parallel in Indian politics would be Narendra Modi suspending Amit Shah from the Bharatiya Janata Party for allegedly anti-Muslim remarks.

L’affaire Ms Shah and Mr Livingstone has set the Labour Party back. It has always had a large Jewish and liberal vote and the allegiance of those voters is certainly challenged and endangered by what is being characterised as racism within the party. Sadiq Khan, the Labour candidate for London mayor in May 5 election, needed these shenanigans like a hole in the head. He was quick to denounce anti-Semitism and associate himself with being the victim rather than the perpetrator of racism and Islamic fundamentalist opinion. (At the time of writing the election result is still a day away and my prediction is that despite the row and the suspension of three Muslim councillors for anti-Semitic statements, Mr Khan will win the mayoralty.)

The Livingstone statements may not of course have anything to do with an aversion to people of a different race or religion. It may have more to do with the residual Stalinism or Trotskyism (not strictly speaking scientific Marxism) of the Livingstonian tendency in the party and in Britain, which sees all American actions and alliances as the enemy. The inclination stretches to a my-enemy’s-enemy-is-an-ally and so to sympathy and calls for talks with Hezbollah, Hamas and some of the corrupt dictatorships of South America.

Ms Shah’s remarks don’t originate in any residual Trotskyism. They were born and nurtured, as she was, in Bradford. Her predecessor as MP, Mr Galloway, a white Scotsman, won the seat for his “Respect” Party by campaigning on the grounds that he is an implacable enemy of “the Great Satan”, an opponent of the Iraq War and one who suffered expulsion for it; a campaigner against the allied presence and drone strikes in Afghanistan, for the Palestinian cause and, short of support for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, all things Islamic.

It wasn’t enough. At the 2015 election, Ms Shah was promoted by the Labour Party as all these things and a daughter of Bradford whose life reads like a melodramatic novel — an abandoned mother who later murdered her lover, a tragic arranged marriage in Pakistan when she was 15 and more. The “investigations” into anti-Semitism which the Labour Party has instituted promise to bring to the fore not racism within the party, but the split between the US-hating Left tendency and those who feel that this ideological stance is historically idealistic and loses elections.