This little article from the wretched Torygraph turned up on my internet news feed. According to the right-wing rag, Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, said he was deeply moved at the abuse suffered by J.K. Rowling and others like her for her views on gender during a debate on freedom of speech in the House of Lords yesterday. During the debate, Lady Jenkin, for the Conservatives, attacked the dangers of cancel culture and the abuse of gender critical women like J.K. Rowling and Kathleen Stock. She said that it wasn’t just the abuse on social media that was wrong, but that their livelihoods were being threatened. This was deterring more people from standing up in their defence. She also said that it wasn’t a case of women versus trans people.
Okay, the Tories in their own way are also trying to shut down debate and democracy through putting increasing restrictions on the right to demonstrate and proposing legislation that would allow them to ignore the judgements of the courts. And this is before we get to Priti Patel’s fascistic desire to strip members of ethnic minorities of British citizenship if they commit a crime, which would turn them into second class citizens.
But it is good that at last someone in authority is taking notice of the abuse and worse hurled by trans rights activists at J.K. Rowling. She’s been accused of hating trans people, and wanting them all dead. None of which is remotely true. She has said simply that transwomen are not women. As did professor Kathleen Stock, who was forced out of her post due student demonstrations including threats of violence. One of the worst aspects of Rowling’s persecution is the complete silence of PEN, the organisation that defends writers worldwide from persecution. A worthy cause, but Private Eye has run several articles in its literary section reporting that PEN has said not a dickie bird against Rowling’s persecution which has included death threats. This has demonstrated the power of the trans lobby, and the fear many have that if they too speak out, they will suffer the same treatment.
Of course trans rights activists have the right to express their views, but not to hurl abuse or issue threats of violence and death. These should be unacceptable whoever makes them. J.K. Rowling and others should have their freedom of speech respected and defended by the authorities against the mob. And it is excellent that it is being done at last, even if it is by the right.
I know this is a provocative question, but it needs to be asked. Yesterday Mike put up an excellent piece about the hypocrisy and moral cowardice of the Labour leadership. Angela Rayner had admitted that Jeremy Corbyn was right when he said that the amount of anti-Semitism in the Labour party was exaggerated. Nevertheless, it was right to suspend him because of the hurt they caused. Mike points out in his article that Rayner has effectively admitted what the victims of the anti-Semitism smear campaign have known for years – that Labour will expel people who tell the truth about it. He also says
“Hurt” and “distress” are irrelevant if they are not based on facts. And how do we know that the people saying they were “hurt” and “distressed” actually were? There are a lot of liars out there.
Quite. As the old saying goes, ‘truth hurts’. And it seems from this that the self-proclaimed ‘Jewish community’ that claims to be so hurt, simply can’t or won’t handle the truth. But then, they don’t represent the Jewish community, and they aren’t really hurt by anti-Semitism.
Organisations behind Anti-Semitism Smears Unrepresentative of Britain’s Jews
How dare I say these terrible things, which I dare say some people could twist to sound anti-Semitic. Easily, because the facts are on my side. The people behind the accusations and smears that Jeremy Corbyn and the party he led were anti-Semitic most certainly don’t represent all of the Jewish community, but Zionist sectarians. Tony Grenstein and other great, self-respecting Jewish anti-racists and critics of Zionism have pointed out again and yet again that these accusations come from Zionist organisation. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism was founded in 2012 or thereabout specifically to combat the rising hostility to Israel provoked by the bombing of Gaza. Labour Against Anti-Semitism are pretty much the same type of people in the Labour party. The Jewish Labour Movement used to be Paole Zion, Workers of Zion, and is the sister party to the Zionist Israeli Labour Party. In my view, both of these groups are deceptively and deliberately misnamed. The Campaign Against Zionism should be renamed the Campaign For Anti-Semitism, as it exists solely to manufacture accusations of Jew-hatred. As for the Jewish Labour Movement, it’s been shown that you don’t have to be Jewish or a member of the Labour party to join. It’s really a Zionist infiltration group, but obviously ain’t going to describe itself as such. And they will probably accuse you of spreading the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish conspiracies if you do. Nevertheless, it’s the truth. And the truth ain’t racist or anti-Semitic. It just is.
Chief Rabbis Sacks and Mirvis Ultra-Zionists
As for Chief rabbis Jonathan Sacks and Ephraim Mirvis, or ‘Mirv the Perv’ as I think he should be known, both of these gentlemen are, in my opinion, racist ultra-Zionists. Yes, I realise that over here they talk the language of anti-racism and interfaith dialogue. But Mirv spent years learning the Torah in one the hardline Israeli settlements. The settlers, or at least a very large majority of them, believe that all of Eretz Israel should belong to the state of Israel, and the Palestinians expelled and their lands colonised by Jews. Sacks and Mirvis also took contingents of British Jews to the March of the Flags in Jerusalem, despite pleas from British Jewish organisations not to do so. What’s the March of the Flags? It’s the day when the Israeli equivalent of Fascist boot-boys march through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem waving the Israeli flag and vandalising Palestinian property. Palestinian kids are told not to go out on that day for fear of assault by these thugs. I see no difference between it and the Orange Marches through Roman Catholic areas in Northern Ireland. Or indeed through the attempted marches of Oswald Moseley and the British Union of Fascists through the East End of London and other Jewish areas in the 1930s.
Board of Deputies Zionist and Sectarian
Then there’s the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which sounds like it should represent the whole Jewish community. It don’t. It doesn’t represent secular Jews, who comprise a third of all British Jews. They also don’t represent the Orthodox, who have their own, separate organisation. And they really don’t represent Haredi Jews, who reject Israel because it’s a secular state. For the Haredi and Jews like them, Israel can only be restored by the Almighty through the Messiah. Until that time, the Children of Israel are required to remain in galut – exile – and pray for the health of the city, just as their ancestors did in exile in Babylon. Haredi Jews are viciously persecuted by the Israeli state because they refuse to recognise it. From what I gather, they are due to overtake the United Synagogue as the main Jewish sect in Britain in a few decades. And they have particular respect for Jeremy Corbyn for the efforts he and Diane Abbott have made on behalf of their community.
Tony Greenstein and others have pointed out that the Board of Deputies is, by its constitution, a Zionist organisation. So it obviously doesn’t represent non- or anti-Zionist Jews. These range from religious Jews, like the Haredi, to politically liberal and secular Jews, who object to the Israeli ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Whether religious or secular, these Jews believe that by doing so, Israel is violating the central tenets of traditional Jewish morality. As someone once said, ‘To be a Jew is always to side with the oppressed, never the oppressors’. In fact, the Board really only represents the United Synagogue. And probably not all of them, as some have sitting representatives where there hasn’t been an election for years. Other synagogues won’t allow women to vote. And the fact that it is the United Synagogue driving these smears is shown very clearly in many of the articles the I has published smearing Labour as anti-Semitic. Alongside the name of the author of so many of these hit pieces was the statement that they were a member of the United Synagogue. The Board is therefore a sectarian organisation, that no more speaks for the whole of the Jewish community than the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks for all British Christians, who are also divided into a number of different sects and denominations.
Corbyn Not Anti-Semitic
As for the hurt these mamzers claim to have felt, it’s a peculiarly selective kind of hurt. The South African Jewish politico, Andrew Feinstein posted a video this weekend showing very clearly that Corbyn wasn’t an anti-Semite. This includes footage of the former Labour leader denouncing it and all other forms of racism in a fiery speech in 2002 and of him meeting and being warmly greeted by members of the Jewish community, including a rabbi. Feinstein showed stats from a 2015 survey showing that Labour had the second-lowest incidence of anti-Semitism in British political parties. Two years later, another survey showed that Labour was the joint lowest.
Feinstein’s arguments should carry particular weight, as he has personal, family experience of real, murderous anti-Semitism. His mother’s family is a holocaust survivor, who lost 39 members of her family in Auschwitz. Feinstein has not only been to Auschwitz, but has also lectured there. I believe he was also subjected to anti-Semitic abuse by a real Fascist, which is where the vast majority of real anti-Semitism lies.
Hypocrites Behind Smears Not Concerned with Greater Anti-Semitism in Tories and Fascism
I believe the same stats showed that there was more anti-Semitism in the Tory party. And certainly the internet fan groups for BoJob and Jacob Rees Mogg the blogger Jacobs Mates dug up includes among their vicious racists and Islamophobes anti-Semites, who believe that non-White immigration is an evil plot by the Jews to exterminate the White race. Labour was placed under immense pressure to adopt the I.H.R.A. definition of anti-Semitism in full, complete with examples. But no such pressure was placed on the Tories, who haven’t. It’s a peculiar kind of hurt, that has no objection to anti-Semitism in the Tories, but like Violet Elizabeth Bott in the Just William books ‘thcweems and thcweems’ until it’s sick at its much lower incidence in Labour.
Anti-Semitism Smears Weapon to Defend Israel against Criticism
Of course the Jewish organisations accusing Labour of anti-Semitism aren’t doing it because of real anti-Semitism. They’re doing it because they want to defend Israel. Israel’s behaviour towards the Palestinians is indefensible on rational, factual grounds, so all they can do is smear critics as anti-Semites. As Norman Finkelstein, another leading Jewish critic of Israel has said, the Israel lobby is a machine for manufacturing anti-Semites.
And Jews like Andrew Feinstein are horrified and sickened by the cynical, political use of such accusations, not least because it cheapens the deaths of the six million, who were murdered by the Nazis.
Jewish Critics of Israel Victims of Anti-Semitic Ultra-Zionist Smears
But this is precisely what the people behind the anti-Semitism smears are doing. And many of the people they smear are self-respecting Jews, who as critics of Israel can, like Shraga Stern, a Heredi supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, justly claim to have been victims of sectarian anti-Semitic abuse and vilification.
Conclusion
The Jewish organisations claiming to have been hurt by Labour anti-Semitism are liars, both about the incidence of anti-Semitism in the Labour party and their motives for denouncing it. They were protected and supported by a lying Labour party bureaucracy, and are now by a lying Labour leadership. And these smears were spread by a lying British political and media establishment terrified of a revived Labour party that would actually do something for working people. Who of course include Jews. Always have done, always will do, ever since it was founded.
‘Hurt’ nonsense! This is a nasty pack of lies that smears decent people, cheapens real victims of anti-Semitism and desensitizes people to the real anti-Semites in the Fascist fringe. How utterly, utterly contemptible!
Unfortunately, Melanie Phillips wasn’t the only person this week violating the provisions of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism in Israel’s favour. So was Ephraim Mirvis, the world’s worst Chief Rabbi. Mirv appeared in the page of the wretched right-wing libel sheet, the Jewish Chronicle, talking about his speech to AIPAC explaining why he told the British Jewish public not to vote for Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn. AIPAC is one of the very largest pro-Israel lobbying organisation in America. The largest is Ted Hagee’s equally vile Christians United for Israel, but AIPAC is extremely influential. Leading American politicos, including presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton, have appeared before it, pledging their undying support for Israel and seeking the organisation’s endorsement. And its leaders include such charmless nerks as Sheldon Adelson. Adelson’s a casino billionaire, who has apparently made it public that his first loyalty is to Israel. The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism says it is anti-Semitic to accuse Jews of being more loyal to a foreign country. For the vast majority of Jews, this is undoubtedly the case – they’re loyal citizens and accusing them of such disloyalty would be anti-Semitic. But in Adelson’s case, apparently, it’s true.
Mirv’s Violation of IHRA Anti-Semitism Definition
Mirv declared that Prime Ministers of Israel and key Jewish leaders have been graciously and warmly welcomed at No. 10 under the Conservatives. As Mike points out in his article, they’ve also been welcomed by Labour leaders. One of these was Tony Blair, who received considerable backing from the Israel lobby, which is probably one of the reasons why the Blairites were able to make such an alliance with the Israel lobby in the Labour Party to attack Corbyn. He then went on to ask rhetorically “What would happen if the next incumbent was Jeremy Corbyn? What would the consequences be for Jews and Judaism and the State of Israel?” As Mike also points out, that also violates another stipulation of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism – that Jews should not be identified with Israel.
Unfortunately, Zionists do it all the time. Netanyahu passed a law nearly a decade ago making all Jews everywhere automatically citizens of Israel. Many Jews weren’t impressed. There are very many Israel critical and anti-Zionist Jews. These include ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews, who believe it is their God-given duty to remain in exile and work for the good of the countries in which they live, until the Messiah comes to restore Israel. This cannot be the work of a secular state, which is an abomination. They’re a growing section of the British Israeli population. In a few years they will account for a third of it, and will have overtaken the United Synagogue as the largest section of British Jewry. Other Jews are critical of Israel from a belief in traditional liberal Jewish values, and despise the country for its barbarous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And these are also a growing part of the American Jewish population. An increasing number of American Jewish young people have no interest in Israel, or actively oppose it because of its treatment of the Palestinians. Enrollment in the heritage tours, which the Israeli state gives American school leavers so that they can visit Israel, is falling. One Jewish American, commenting on Netanyahu’s wretched citizenship law, said it was ludicrous that he, who had been born in Anchorage in Alaska, was a member of country he’d never been to, while his friend, a Palestinian, had no right to return to the country of his birth. And this opposition to Israel is shared by Jews, who have experienced genuine anti-Semitism.
Chief Rabbinate and Board of Deputies Not Representative of British Jewry
And then there’s the claim of the Zionist Jewish establishment to represent all of Britain’s Jews. Er, no, they really don’t. The Jews have never been a monolithic community. That’s a fantasy of anti-Semites. They’re as disparate and varied in their attitudes, opinions and values as every other ethnic or religious group. As Jewish bloggers like Tony Greenstein and David Rosenberg have pointed out, the Board of Deputies really only represents the United Synagogue. And its questionable how many of them it represents. Some synagogues don’t allow women to vote, others have sitting deputies whom they haven’t changed for years. And the Board’s constitution explicitly defines itself as a Zionist organisation, so non-Zionists need not apply. And needless to say, as they’re based on the synagogues, they don’t represent that third of British Jewry that is secular. But never mind. Once upon a time ’twas said that the Anglican Church was the Tory party at prayer. That was true at one time, as the Tory party stood for the monarchy, the established church and the landed aristocracy. But since Thatcher the Anglican Church has also criticised Tory policy on poverty, leading to disputes between the Tories and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It now seems that the Anglican Church is no longer such a staunch upholder of Conservatism. That role now seems to have been taken over by the United Synagogue, who can always be relied on to produce another anti-Semitism smear against Labour when the Tories are in trouble.
As for the Chief Rabbinate, as Mike has said on his blog, traditional Jewish theology and law stipulates that no rabbi’s opinion is any better than any other rabbi’s. And so when Mirvis speaks, it could be said that he speaks for himself alone, or rather, just himself and those who choose to share his opinions. The old retort Winston Churchill once gave a member of the House Lords therefore seems to apply to him: ‘The honourable member represents only himself, and I don’t like his constituency’.
Mirvis himself is a true-blue Tory, and welcomed the ascension of Tweezer as Prime Minister. He is also very much a Zionist thug. He and his predecessor, the noxious ‘Reform Jews are enemies of the faith’ Jonathan Sacks, both led British contingents to the annual March of the Flags in Jerusalem. That’s the unedifying occasion when ultra-patriotic Israeli boot-boys go marching through the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem, waving the Israeli flag around, vandalising Palestinian property and terrorising the locals. Sacks was requested by a liberal Jewish organisation not to go. He ignored them.
Jews Safe and Respected Under Corbyn
Not every Tory was happy about Mirvis’ decision to attack Corbyn. Simon Kelner wrote a piece in the I attacking it, stating that if Corbyn did win the election, nothing would happen to Britain’s Jews. There would be no riots, no pogroms. Now Kelner promoted the anti-Semitism smears as enthusiastically as all the other Fleet Street hacks. And in writing his piece he may well have been afraid that Corbyn would get in, and Mirv’s predictions of rampant Jew-hatred would have been exposed as the fearmongering it was. And as a consequence, the reputation of Chief Rabbinate would have been very badly damaged.
But Kelner would have been right. Nothing would have happened to Britain’s Jews under a Corbyn administration, because neither Corbyn nor his supporters are anti-Semites. Quite the opposite – Corbyn has always worked for the Jewish community. And he would have continued to do so. What would have happened is that Israel would have come under pressure to obey UN resolutions regarding the treatment of the Palestinians. And the ability of the Israel lobby to smear critics of Israel as anti-Semites would be severely damaged.
Jews Historically Indifferent or Opposed to Israel and Zionism
As for the relationship between British Jews and Israel, my guess is that the situation would have gone back to that pre-1969 and the launch of the Neo-Con project. William Kristol announced it in an American Jewish magazine as a method for encouraging Americans, and that included American Jews, to support Israel. Norman Finkelstein, that redoubtable Jewish American critic of Zionism, has pointed out that Kristol launched Neo-Conservatism because American Jews weren’t interested in Israel. They had no interest going to an unknown country, when they could make comfortable lives for themselves in America. David Rosenberg has said that until World War II, Zionism was a tiny minority in European Jewish opinion. Most Jews wished to remain in the nations of their birth, as equal citizens. The slogan of the Jewish socialist party, the Bund, was ‘Wherever we live, that’s our homeland!’. My guess is that British Jews have the same attitude. The Balfour Declaration was opposed by the British Jewish establishment, as they wanted Jews to be, and to be seen as, patriotic fellow Brits. They did not want to be accused of being foreign or having divided loyalties, and felt very strongly that the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine would lead to such anti-Semitic accusations. If British Jews migrated, my guess is that most of them would have gone to the same destinations as their gentile counterparts – America, or one of the White majority Commonwealth countries – Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Jews have been dinkum Ozzies since the 19th century. In the 1870s Rabbi Davis of the Sydney Synagogue took part in a rally against the enslavement of the indigenous Polynesians along with his Christian compatriots in the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. According to Patridge’s Dictionary of Historical Slang, the Australian term ‘Cobber’ comes from the Hebrew ‘Cobar’, which means ‘comrade’. If Corbyn had got in, it’s possible that all that would have resulted is that more Jews would have become indifferent to Israel. An attitude that’s probably growing anyway.
Conclusion
Mike in his piece on Mirv’s wretched speech asks if the Chief Rabbi is more concerned about representing Israeli racism than Britain’s Jews. I don’t think Mirvis is able to distinguish between Judaism and Israel, so taken is he with the Zionist lie that the two are one and the same. And at present, the absolute, uncritical support he and the Board demand for Israel does mean supporting racism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
An increasing number of British Jews, including those who consider themselves Zionist, oppose this. But it seems that Mirvis really doesn’t represent them.
I don’t really have any time for Simon Kelner. If I recall correctly, he started out as a reporter on the mid-market Tory tabloids before moving to the I. He’s very much a Tory, and has been one of those pushing the anti-Semitism smears against Labour in that newspaper’s pages. He has frequently cited his own Jewishness as some kind of proof of his assertion that Corbyn’s Labour is anti-Semitic, even though there are very many other Jews, who know that Corbyn isn’t and never has been, and could use the same argument to back up their beliefs. But it seems that yesterday’s remarks in the Times by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis repeating the smears were a step too far even for him. In today’s edition, Kelner has written an article, ‘The Chief Rabbi is wrong to preach about Labour’ criticising Mirvis and his comments. He still seems to be trying to peddle the line that Labour is anti-Semitic and Corbyn is deeply distasteful to Jews. But he realises that if Corbyn and Labour do come to power, they aren’t going to persecute the Jewish community.
He begins the article by quoting Mirvis’ own remark that by convention, the Chief Rabbi should be above party politics, commenting that
it’s safe to say that the spiritual leader of Britain’s Jews understands that his treatise on anti-Semitism in the Labour party – on the very day that Labour launched its faith and race pledges – was unprecedented, unconstitutional and potentially divisive.
He then goes on to talk about Mirvis’ better qualities – he isn’t a self-publicist, has encouraged equality for women in orthodox synagogues, supported LGBT students and promoted interfaith understanding. He’s addressed a Church of England synod, and an invited an imam to talk to his congregation while he was a rabbi in Finchley. Mirvis declared in his article that challenging racism was above party politics, before going to talk about how the overwhelming majority of Jewish Brits were afraid of Corbyn and Labour getting into power.
Kelner continues
In fairness, I don’t think they are the only community gripped by anxiety about such an outcome, but his point is that Labour’s failure to deal properly with the anti-Semitism in its ranks reveals a deeper and wider threat to the fabric of society. “Be in no doubt,” he says, portentously, “the very soul of our nation is at stake.”
Has Rabbi Mirvis overstepped the mark with such a politically incendiary contribution? If politicians don’t “do God”, should men of God do politics? It depends entirely on whether you agree with the Rabbi’s viewpoint, and, in this, and as a Jewish person myself, I find it hard to get behind him.
Yes, the Labour hierarchy has, at the very least, been found wanting in the way it has dealt with accusations of anti-Semitism within the party. It has done too little, too late, and this has been extremely bad politics on Labour’s part. It deserves to be castigated for this,. But does it amount to an existential threat to British Jewry, as Rabbi Mirvis warns?
I would suggest not. “What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government?” he asks. Well, nothing much, would be my answer. There will be no pogroms in north London, and having Jeremy Corbyn in No 10 will not immediately legitimise anti-Semitic sentiment and unleash a new hatred against Jews. There may be many reasons why you wouldn’t vote for Labour on 12 December, but the fear of Jews being drive to the edge of society should not be one of them.
I understand why many Jews of my acquaintance feel a distaste for Corbyn’s brand of politics, and the Chief Rabbi is, of course, entitled to his opinion. Given his position of privilege and influence, however, I rather wish he had heeded his own words and kept it to himself.
There are a number of issues to be raised here. Firstly, his statement that Labour hasn’t done enough to tackle anti-Semitism is a flat-out lie. Labour has just about bent over backwards to tackle the issue. They’ve ordered inquiries and suspended and expelled members. Indeed, they’ve conceded too much. The real reason for the anti-Semitism allegations has always been political. The Israel lobby are frightened of Corbyn, because he wants justice for the Palestinians and an end to Israeli apartheid and their slow-motion dispossession and expulsion. It is definitely not because he’s anti-Jewish. Indeed, his record in tackling anti-Semitism and racism is exemplary. For the Tories, Lib Dems and Blairites in Labour, the anti-Semitism allegations were nothing but a useful tool to force him and his supporters out. Hence the entirely fake allegations and kangaroo trials of decent people like Mike, Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson and many, many others. The Thatcherites – and this include the Lib Dems and the Blairites – simply want to get rid of Corbyn and his supporters because they want to restore the welfare state, revitalise the NHS and public services by ending privatisation and bringing them back into public ownership, and give working people proper rights at work, decent wages and strong trade unions to defend them.
The various communities Kelner claims are also afraid of Labour coming to power are, I would say, those of rich industrialists, newspaper proprietors, editors and right-wing journalists, afraid of this attack on their wealth, power and profiteering.
Kelner has also shown that he’s afraid that by opening his mouth, Mirvis has opened the door to other religious leaders making party political statements. And the Tories are particularly vulnerable to this. They’ve had numerous very public disputes with the Church of England and several archbishops ever since Dr. Robert Runcie and the Church published a report in the 1980s about how Thatcher her policies were causing massive poverty in Britain. Clearly Kelner’s afraid that Mirvis is in danger of setting a precedent for more religious criticism of Thatcherism.
And Mirvis himself is a prime target for such criticism, as he’s a friend of Boris Johnson who congratulated him on becoming Prime Minister.
He also seems to be worried about how Mirvis’ sputterings about racism look compared to Labour. Mirvis made his remarks on the day Labour published its pledges on race and faith, promising fresh legislation to tackle racism and revising the school curriculum so it covered the British Empire, colonialism and slavery. Corbyn himself is a determined anti-racist activist, who was arrested protesting against apartheid outside the South African embassy.
And what has Mirvis done?
Well, zip, as far as I can make out. And worse than zip. Tony Greenstein has put up an article today revealing that Mirvis joined the former Chief Rabbi when the latter took a party of British Jews to join the March of the Flags in Jerusalem a few years ago. This is the occasion when Israeli bovver-boys parade through the Muslim section of the Holy City waving Israeli flags, vandalising Palestinian homes and property, chanting ‘Death to the Arabs’. He also supported Norman Tebbit’s infamous ‘Cricket Test’. Tebbit, a former Cabinet minister under Thatcher, had a simple rule for determining who was properly British: they should support England at Cricket. If Blacks and Asians didn’t, they weren’t British. And Mirvis apparently agreed with him.
And it also appears that Kelner is worried about the consequences for the Jewish establishment – which includes not just the Chief Rabbinate, but also the Board of Deputies of British, Jewish Leadership Council and so on – if Corbyn does come to power. Because he knows full well that Corbyn isn’t an anti-Semite and won’t launch pogroms. British Jews will carry on with their own business and lives untouched and unmolested. And that’s a danger to the Chief Rabbinate and other official organs of the Jewish community, because their scaremongering against Labour will be shown to be mistaken at best. At worst it will reveal that the Jewish establishment is politically motivated and biased, and its accusations against Labour are unfounded and profoundly deceitful.
And this, it could be argued, would be far more damaging to the Jewish establishment than any threat Labour supposedly represents.
Said K. Aburish, The Forgotten Faithful: The Christians of the Holy Land (London: Quartet 1993).
Aburish is a Palestinian, born in Bethany, and the author of several books about the Arabs and specifically the Palestinians and their persecution by the Israelis – A Brutal Friendship, Children of Bethany – The Story of a Palestinian Family and Cry Palestine: Inside the West Bank. In The Forgotten Faithful he tackles the problems of the Christians of Palestine, talking to journalists, church official, charity workers, educationalists, businessmen and finally of the leaders of the PLO, Hanan Ashrawi. Christians used to constitute ten per cent or so of the Palestinian population before the foundation of Israel. Now they’re down to one per cent. Much of this decline has been due to emigration, as educated, skilled Christians leave Israel to seek better opportunities elsewhere, and the indigenous Christian future in the Holy Land, the in which Christianity first arose, is uncertain.
Said states clearly the issues driving this decline early in his book – persecution by the Israelis, and particularly their attempt to wrest the lucrative tourism industry from them on the one hand, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism on the other. He writes
Twenty-five years of Israeli occupation have been disastrous for Palestinian Christians. In addition to the widely known closures of schools, imprisonment and torture of children, deportation of dissenters and activists, the expropriation of land owned by individuals and church-owned property, the Christians’ primary source of income, tourism and its subsidiary service businesses, have been the targets of special Israeli attempts to control them. In other words, when it comes to the Israeli occupation, the Christians have suffered more than their Muslim countrymen because they have more of what the Israelis want.
Furthermore, the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism is confronting the Christians with new problems against most of which they cannot protest without endangering the local social balance, indeed their Palestinian identity. Muslim fanatics have raise the Crescent on church towers, Christian cemeteries have been desecrated, the statues of the Virgin Mary destroyed and, for the first time ever, the Palestinian Christians are facing constraints on their way of life. In Gaza a Muslim fundamentalist stronghold, Christian women have to wear headscarves and long sleeves or face stoning, and Christian-owned shops have to close on the Muslim sabbath of Friday instead of on Sunday.
These combined pressures come at a time of strain between the local Christian communities and both their local church leadership and the mainline churches of the West. The mainline churches in the West are accused of not doing enough to help them financially or drawing attention to their plight, for fear of appearing anti-Semitic and to a lesser degree anti-Muslim. The local church leaders are caught between their parishioners’ cry for help and the attitude of their mother churches and have been undermined by their identification with the latter. In addition to problems with the mainline churches, Christian evangelist groups from the United States, Holland and other countries support the State of Israel at the expense of local Christians. The evangelists accept the recreation of Israel as the prelude to the second coming to the extent of ignoring local Christian rights and feelings, a fact overlooked by Muslim zealots who blame the local Christians for not curbing their insensitive pro-Israeli co-religionists.
Two subsidiary problems contribute towards closing the ring of helplessness which is choking the local Christian communities of the Holy Land. The suffering inflicted on them by others and the direct and indirect results of the neglect of outside Christianity still haven’t induced their local church leaders to cooperate in establishing a common, protective Christian position. The traditional quarrel, alongside other disputes between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches, continues and its stands in the way of creating a constructive Christian front. Furthermore, the Israelis make the appearance of favouring them against their Muslim nationals, a divide-and-rule policy which contributes towards inflaming the feelings of ignorant Muslims who do not understand the reasons behind the Israeli actions and use them to justify whatever anti-Christian feeling exists. (pp. 2-4).
The Palestinian Christian community has largely been middle class, assimilated and patriotic. They have provided the Palestinian people with a large number of businessmen and professionals, including a significant part of the membership and leadership of Palestinian nationalism and the PLO, as well as the civil rights lawyers working to defend the Palestinian people from persecution by the Israeli state and military. They have also been active establishing charities to provide for the Palestinians’ welfare. Said visits one, which specialises in rehabilitating and providing training for people physically injured and mentally traumatised by the Israeli armed forces. Visiting a Palestinian hospital, he also meets some of the victims of the IDF wounded and crippled by the IDF, including a young man shot by a member of the Special Forces simply for spraying anti-Israeli graffiti on a wall.
This isn’t an anti-Semitic book, as Aburish talks to sympathetic Israeli journalists and academics, but he describes very clearly the violence and bigotry that comes not just from the Israeli state and army, but also from Jewish religious fanatics. In the first chapter he describes a group of Israeli soldiers sneering at Christian Palestinians, and how he deliberated placed himself between a group of Jewish schoolboys and an elderly Ethiopian nun going through one district of Jerusalem. The boys had first started insulting her, and then began throwing stones at her and Aburish before the local, Jewish inhabitants rushed into the street to drive them away. The churches and monasteries in that part of town are close to an area of Jewish religious extremists. They’re not usually physically aggressive, but they make it very clear they don’t like Christians being there.
Nor is it anti-Muslim. The Christians community itself sees itself very firmly as part of the Palestinians. Many Christian men have adopted the name Muhammad in order to show that there is no difference between themselves as their Muslim fellow countrymen. And historically they have been fully accepted by the Muslim community. Aburish talks to the headman of a mixed Christian-Muslim village. The man is a Christian, and historically Christians have formed the headmen for the village. The Christians also point with pride to the fact that one of the generals of Saladin, the Muslim leader who conquered Palestine back from the Crusaders, was a Greek Orthodox Christian. Aburish is shocked by how extremely religious the Muslim community has become, with Friday services packed and one of his aunts traveling to the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to pray. This, like the less obvious religious revival among the Christians, is ultimately due to Israeli pressure and the failure of secular Palestinian politicians. There is no truth in politics, so they seek it instead in Islam and the pages of Qu’ran. And behind this rise in Islamic intolerance are the Saudis. Aburish recommends better Muslim-Christian dialogue to tackle this growing intolerance.
Aburish hears from the Palestinians how their land is seized by the Israelis for the construction of new, Israeli settlements, how people are shot, beaten, injured and maimed, and the attempts to strangle Palestinians businesses. This includes legislation insisting that all tourist guides have to be Israeli – a blatant piece of racism intended to drive Christians out of the tourist business through denying them access to the many Christian shrines, churches and monuments that are at the heart of the industry. Christian charities and welfare services don’t discriminate between Christian and Muslim, but they are oversubscribed and underfunded. And the churches are more interested in defending their traditional institutional privileges than in helping their local flock. They look west, and are more interested in promoting and defending the churches’ response to the worlds’ problems as a whole, while the Palestinians are also being pulled east through their Arab identity. Senior Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox clergy are often foreigners, who cannot speak Arabic and may be to a greater or lesser extent indifferent to the needs and problems of their congregations. The Palestinian Christians are also hampered by the fact that they don’t want to acknowledge that they have specific problems as a minority within the wider Palestinian nation, partly for fear of further antagonising the Muslim majority.
Nevertheless, some Palestinian Christians choose to remain, stubbornly refusing to emigrate while they could get much better jobs elsewhere. And all over the world, expatriate Palestinian communities are proud of their origins and connection to the land. Aburish even talks to one optimistic Palestinian Christian businessman, who believes that Cyprus provides the model for a successful Palestine. There local people have built a thriving commercial economy without having the universities and educational institutions Palestine possesses. And some Palestinian Christians believe that the solutions to their crisis is for the community to reconnect with its oriental roots, reviving the traditional extensive Arab family structure, which has served Arabs so well in the past.
The book was published a quarter of a century ago, in 1993, and I’ve no doubt that things have changed since then. But not for the better. There have been recent magazine articles by National Geographic, among others, that report that the Palestinians are still suffering the same problem – caught between the hammer of the Israeli state and the anvil of Islamic fundamentalism. Christian Zionism, however, has become stronger and exerts a very powerful influence on American foreign policy through organisations like Ted Hagee’s Christians United for Israel. Netanyahu’s vile Likud is still in power, and Israeli politics has lurched even further to the right with the inclusion of Fascist parties like Otzma Yehudat – Jewish Power – in the wretched coalition. And some British churches maintain a very determined silence on the problems of the Palestinians. According to one anti-Zionist Jewish blog, the Methodist Church has passed regulations at its synod preventing it or its members officially criticising Israel. Because of the church’s leaders was friends with members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
I am very well aware of the long, shameful history of Christian anti-Semitism and how real, genuine Nazis have also criticised Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians and claimed that they’re just anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to provoke further bigotry against the Jewish people. But Israel is oppressing the Christians of Palestine as well as the Muslims, but we in the West really don’t hear about it. And I’m not sure how many western Christians are really aware that there is a Christian community in Palestine, or how its members largely identify totally as Palestinians. Certainly Ted Cruz, the American politico, didn’t when he tried telling a Middle Eastern Christian group that they should support Israel. He was shocked and disgusted when they very firmly and obviously didn’t agree. He made the mistake of believing they had the same colonialist attitude of western right-wing Christians, while Middle Eastern Christians are very much the colonised and know it. Hence the fact that according to Aburish, many Palestinian Christians look for theological support to South American Liberation Theology and its Marxist critique of colonialism. And they also supported Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, as a secular Arab state that would allow them to maintain their religious identity and culture.
The book’s dated, and since it was written the Christian presence in the Holy Land has dwindled further. Aburish describes in strong terms what a catastrophe a Palestine without indigenous Christians would be. He writes
The growing prospect of a Holy Land Christianity reduced to stones, a museum or tourist faith without people, a Jerusalem without believers in Christ, is more serious than that of a Rome without a Pope or a Canterbury without an archbishop. It is tantamount to a criminal act which transcends a single church and strikes a blow at the foundations and the very idea of Christianity.
I thoroughly recommend this book to every western Christian reader interested in seeing an alternative view of the religious situation in Palestine, one of that contradicts the lies and demands of the right-wing press. Like an article by the Torygraph’s Barbara Amiel back in the 1990s, which quoted a Christian mayor as stating that the Christian community welcomed the Israeli occupation. His might, but as the book shows, most don’t. Or that scumbucket Katie Hopkins telling us that we should support Israel, because it represents Judaeo-Christian values and civilisation, a claim that would outrage many Jews.
More hypocrisy from the Tory party. This week, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, gave a long speech attacking Universal Credit and zero hours contracts. He described the ‘gig’ economy the Blairites and the Tories have created, in which workers in insecure jobs are only called in if their bosses decide there’s work for them to do, and go without pay if there isn’t, the ‘return of an ancient evil’.
He made the speech after Labour had outlined its commitment to empowering workers, which included a comprehensive attack on the gig economy. Zero hours contracts will be banned, and employment benefits like sick pay and maternity leave will be extended to cover part-time workers. The party also pledged to end the ruse in which many firms seek to dodge their obligation to provide their workers with proper rights and benefits by making them officially self-employed.
The Archbishop mentioned Labour’s John McDonnell in his speech, who in turn praised the Archbishop. McDonnell said
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has set out a bold vision for a different society, one without the evils of the gig economy, the exploitation of workers and tax dodging of the multinationals.
“I welcome his speech, and the growing movement against the failures of austerity and neoliberalism. Labour will end zero hours contracts, clamp down on the tax avoiders, and ensure everyone has access to sick pay, parental leave and protections at work.”
The Tories, however, immediately went berserk, and showed their own hypocrisy when it comes to supporting the political intervention of religious leaders. They were more than happy when the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks claimed that Corbyn and the Labour party were anti-Semitic. However, they were outraged that the Archbishop had dared to criticize the wonderful Thatcherite capitalism they’d created.
The Tory MP, Ben Bradley, tweeted
‘Not clear to me when or how it can possibly be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to be appearing at TUC conference or parroting Labour policy.’
He added: ‘There are a diversity of views as to what is best for the economy, but [he] only seems interested in presenting John McDonnell’s point of view.’
Simon Maginn tweeted his response
Rabbi Sacks: “Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite.”
Tories: “Listen to the holy gentleman.”
Archbishop of Canterbury: “Tories have increased poverty.”
Tories: ‘Must keep religion out of politics.”
Mike in his article notes that Archbishop Welby was unapologetic, and observed that ‘The Bible is political from one end to the other’.
Mike concludes
His intervention is to be welcomed.
The Church of England is often seen as a haven for Conservatives and it will be interesting to see what happens to those Tories’ attitudes, considering this new direction from the pulpit.
This has been going on for decades. The Anglican Church has been described as ‘the Tory party at prayer’, and the Tory party itself was set up back in the 17th century by supporters of the aristocracy and established church against the more liberal Whigs.
However, the Church has also contained passionate reformers working against social evils. Archbishop Temple in his book, Christianity and the Social Order, published in 1942, pointed to reformers like William Wilberforce and the others in the ‘Clapham Sect’, who campaigned against slavery; John Howard and Elizabeth Fry and prison reform; and F.D. Maurice and the Christian Socialists in the 19th century. These latter wished to see businesses transformed into co-operatives, which would share their profits with their workers. This strand of Anglican social activism continued into the 20th century, and in 1924 the Anglican church held a conference to examine the question of how the Church should tackle the poverty and injustices of the age. Temple also pointed to the example of the pre-Reformation Church in attacking some of the economic and social abuses of the times, and particular Protestant Christian leaders and ministers, like John Wesley, after the Reformation.
He also quotes the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament to show how property rights, while certainly existing and respected in ancient Israel, were also limited and intended to ensure that each family had their own portion of land and that great estates held by single individuals, did not develop. He writes
In the days of the Kings we find prophets denouncing such accumulations; so for example Isaiah exclaims: “Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no room, and yet be made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.” (Isaiah v.*8); and Michah: “Woe to them that devise iniquity and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. And they covet fields and seize them; and houses, and take them away; and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage” (Micah ii, 1, 2). And the evil here was not primarily economic, though that may have been involved. The evil was the denial of what Tertullian (c.160-230) would call ‘fellowship in property’ – which seemed to him the natural result of unity in mind and spirit. (p. 38).
The first chapter of the book, ‘What Right has the Church to Interfere?’, gives the reasons Temple believes that the Church indeed possesses such a right. It’s too long to list all of them, but one of them is that the economic structure of society is immensely influential on the formation of its citizens’ morals. Temple writes
It is recognized on all hands that the economic system is an educative influence, for good or ill, of immense potency. Marshall, the prince of orthodox economists of the last generation, ranks it with the religion of a country as the most formative influence in the moulding of a people’s character. If so, then assuredly the Church must be concerned with it. For a primary concern of the Church is to develop in men a Christian character. When it finds by its side an educative influence so powerful it is bound to ask whether than influence is one tending to develop Christian character, and if the answer is partly or wholly negative the Chu5rch must do its utmost to secure a change in the economic system to that it may find in that system an ally and not an enemy. How far this is the situation in our country to-day we shall consider later. At present it is enough to say that the Church cannot, without betraying its own trust, omit criticism of the economic order, or fail to urge such action as may be prompted by that criticism. (P. 22)
Temple was also very much aware how some politicians resented the Church speaking out on political issues. For example, Queen Victoria’s first Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, is supposed to have said after hearing an Evangelical preacher that ‘if religion was going to interfere with the affairs of private life, things were come to a pretty pass’. Temple added
(L)ater prime ministers have felt and said the same about the interference of religion with the affairs of public life; but the interference steadily increases and will increase. (P. 15).
And the friction between the Tory party and the Anglican and other churches has been going on ever since Thatcher set foot in 10 Downing Street. She got very annoyed when the-then Archbishop, Robert Runcie, issued a report detailing the immense poverty that had been produced by her policies. Norman Tebbitt, her attack dog, made comments casting aspersions on the good clergyman’s sexuality, on the grounds that he had a sing-song voice and the slightly camp manner of many churchmen. He was soon showed to be very wrong, as Runcie had been an army chaplain, whose ferocity in battle had earned him the nickname ‘Killer Runcie’. A friend of mine remarked about him that the really hard men don’t show it.
The Church has gone on issuing reports and holding inquiries into poverty in Britain, and other social issues. And the Tory response has always been the same: to attack and criticize the Church’s interference. There have been comments of the kind that the clergy should stick to preaching the Gospel, and then they might have larger congregations.
But if Thatcher and the Tories didn’t feel that the Church had any right to interfere in politics, they definitely believed that they had the right to interfere in the church’s ministry and pastoral theology. And that this right was absolutely God-given. When Thatcher was on the steps of Number 10, she started quoted St. Francis of Assisi’s famous prayer, ‘Where there is darkness, let us bring light’ etc. She also took it upon herself to lecture the ministers of the church on the correct interpretation of scripture. I can remember her speaking to a conference of the Church of Scotland, in which she explained to the assembled ministers and faithful her own view of charity and the welfare state, based on St. Paul’s words, ‘If a man does not work, he shall not eat’. Needless to say, the guid ministers were not impressed, and showed it in the massed ranks of stony faces.
Temple was absolutely right in stating that Christians had a duty to examine and criticize the economic structure of society as the major force affecting people’s morals and character. But Thatcherism goes far beyond this. I’ve read pieces that have stated that Thatcher’s whole outlook was based on her peculiar right-wing religious ideas. Thatcherism isn’t simply an economic system. It’s a political theology. Thatcher was strongly influence by Keith Joseph, who was Jewish. It’s why she prattled about ‘Judeo-Christian values’ rather than just Christian values. I have no doubt that the Jewish readers of this blog will have their own views about proper Jewish morality, and that these may be very different from Joseph and Thatcher’s interpretation.
Thus in Thatcherism the free market is absolutely virtuous, and any interference in its operation is an attack on a divinely sanctioned system. But from the standpoint of a left-wing interpretation of Christianity, Thatcherite theology is like its economics, profoundly wrong, bogus and harmful. And her celebration of the free market turns it into an idol, an object of false religious worship.
More and more Christians both here and in America are turning against this idol, just as left-wing Jews are turning against right-wing politics as incompatible with the liberal politics of traditional Judaism. The Church has every right and, indeed, a duty as a moral body concerned with people’s spiritual welfare, to attack Thatcherism and its destructive legacy.
I’m very much aware that we now live in a post-Christian society, where only a minority attend Church and most people profess to have no religious beliefs. Just as there are also sizable non-Christian communities, such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and the various neo-Pagan groups, who also have every right to make their voices heard politically. Temple also advances other reasons why the Church should speak out on more rational, non-religious grounds, such as morality and common human sympathy for the victims of suffering. I hope, however, that regardless their religious views, people will support Welby on the issues of employment rights as an entirely justified attack on an iniquitous situation, which desperately needs to be corrected.
The General Strike: Jackdaw No.l05, compiled by Richard Tames (London, New York and Toronto: Jackdaw Publications Ltd, Grossman Publishers Inc., and Clarke, Irwin and Company 1972)
I picked this up about 20 years ago in one of the bargain bookshops in Bristol’s Park Street. Jackdaw published a series of folders containing reproduction historical texts and explanatory posters and leaflets on variety of historical topics and events, including the Battle of Trafalgar, the slave trade, the voyages of Captain Cook, Joan of Arc, the Anglo-Boer War, the rise of Napoleon, Ned Kelley and Wordsworth. They also published another series of document folders on specifically Canadian themes, such as the Indians of Canada, the Fenians, Louis Riel, Cartier of Saint Malo, the 1867 confederation of Canada, the vote in Canada from 1791 to 1891, the Great Depression, Laurier, and Canada and the Civil War.
This particular folder is on the 1926 general strike, called by the TUC when the Samuel Commission, set up to report into the state of the mining industry, published its report. This recommended that the mines should be reorganised, but not nationalised, and although the miners were to get better working conditions and fringe benefits, they would have to take a pay cut. The folder included a poster giving a timeline of the strike and the events leading up to it, and photos of scenes from it, including volunteer constables practising self-defence, office girls travelling to work by lorry, the Conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, and buses and train signal boxes staffed by volunteers. There’s also a Punch cartoon commenting on the end of the Strike. It also contains a leaflet explaining the various documents in the folder, along suggested projects about the issue and a short bibliography.
Poster and timeline of the Strike
Leaflet explaining the documents
The facsimile documents include
1. A leaflet arguing the Miner’s case.
2. Telegram from the Transport and General Workers’ Union to a local shop steward, calling for preparations for the strike.
3. Pages from the Daily Worker, the official paper of the T.U.C. during the Strike.
4. Notice from the Met calling for special constables.
5. Communist Party leaflet supporting the Strike.
6. Handbill giving the proposals of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the leaders of the Free Churches for an end to the Strike.
7. Handbill denouncing the strike as ‘The Great ‘Hold-Up’.
The accompanying pamphlet states that this was very far from the truth, and that it was a government lie that the T.U.C. were aiming at a revolution.
8. Emergency edition of the Daily Express.
9. Conservative PM Stanley Baldwin’s guarantee of employment to strike-breakers.
10. Contemporary Analysis of the causes of the Strike’s failure, from the Public Opinion.
11. The British Gazette, the government’s official paper, edited by Winston Churchill.
12. Anonymous letter from a striker recommending that the T.U.C. shut off the electricity.
13. Appeal for aid to Miner’s wives and dependents.
14. Protest leaflet against Baldwin’s ‘Blacklegs’ Charter’.
The General Strike was one of the great events of 20th century labour history, and its collapse was a terrible defeat that effectively ended revolutionary syndicalism and guild socialism as a major force in the labour movement. It left a legacy of bitterness that still persists in certain areas today.
The jackdaw seems to do a good job of presenting all sides of the issue, and the final section of the explanatory leaflet urges children to think for themselves about it. And one of the folder’s features that led me to buy it was the fact that it contained facsimile reproductions of some of the papers, flyers, letters and telegrams produced by the strikers arguing their case.
Looking through the folder’s contents it struck me that the strike and the issues it raised are still very much relevant in the 21 century, now almost a century after it broke it. It shows how much the Tories and the rich industrialists were determined to break the power of the unions, as well as the sheer hostility of the press. The Daily Express has always been a terrible right-wing rag, and was solidly Thatcherite and anti-union, anti-Labour in the 1980s. Since it was bought by Richard Desmond, apparently it’s become even more virulently right-wing and anti-immigrant – or just plain racist – than the Daily Heil.
The same determination to break their unions, and the miners in particular, was shown by Thatcher during the Miner’s Strike in the 1980s, again with the solid complicity of the media, including extremely biased and even falsified reporting from the BBC. It was her hostility to the miners and their power which partly led Thatcher to privatise and decimate the mining industry, along with the rest of Britain’s manufacturing sector. And these attitudes have persisted into the governments of Cameron and May, and have influenced Tony Blair and ‘Progress’ in the Labour party, who also bitterly hate the unions and anything that smacks of real working class socialism.
This story adds one piece more to the pile of evidence screaming out how thoroughly, grottily mean-spirited Nigel Farage is. On Christmas Day, Rev. Justin Welby, the current archbishop of Canterbury, tweeted the following message:
“Jesus came to us homeless and in a manger. This Christmas, please pray with me for the poor, hungry and homeless, here and abroad.”
This was too much for Farage, who tweeted back
“Merry Christmas! Ignore all negative messages from the Archbishop of Canterbury and have a great day!”
As a result, a social media campaign has been launched, where users of the site have been posting messages supporting the Archbishop under the hashtag #ImWithJustinWelby”.
Mike speculates that this may be part of a sea change against the various rightwing windbags like Farage and, indeed, the entire Tory cabinet, who have been promoted by their parties far beyond their meagre abilities, and have been responsible for making 2016 the dire mess it has been.
You actually begin to wonder what kind of society the Tories and ultra-Tories like UKIP have created, when a politico like Farage finds the Archbishop’s message offensive or controversial. Christian religious leaders and laypeople have been exhorting their co-religionists to remember the poor at this time of year since, well, actually since Charles Dickens first invented the modern Christmas way back in the 19th century with A Christmas Carol. The story was a piece of deliberate social engineering by the great novelist. Dickens was appalled by the poverty he saw in the Britain of his time – hence the term ‘Dickensian’, because of the care he took to describe it. Dickens felt that part of the solution to this problem would be to re-awaken the Christian conscience through stressing the spirit of generous charity at this festival. It was his rebuttal to the sentiments he puts in Scrooge’s mouth, about the poor finding relief from starvation through prison or the workhouse.
But this very traditional Christmas message – which has been repeated just about every year since Dickens effectively revived and reinvented its celebration in Britain – is now seen by the Fuhrage as some kind of dangerous moralistic ploy to spoil everyone’s fun. It isn’t. It’s inclusive. It’s about sharing the fun around, to combat poverty and social alienation.
And Britain might now be a largely secular society, but many atheists and secular people would agree with central point of the Archbishop’s message: that as the nation settles down to enjoy itself, it should also remember those less fortunate than themselves.
Farage’s reaction to the Archbishop’s message also shows how used the Tories are to automatically attacking any comment about social conditions from the Church. Ever since the Anglican church issued the first of a series of reports in the 1970s condemning the Tory party for increasing poverty in Britain, the Tories have been sneering and attacking them in their turn. There’s even a wretched blog, Cranmer, which states that it has been set up to support all rightwing Christians, particularly Anglicans, now that the Anglican clergy are turning to politics. The Tories’ reaction to such comments has now become instinctive. As soon as a senior clergyman dares to point out that poverty still haunts Britain, even in such a mild, inoffensive and entirely non-controversial form as the Archbishop’s Christmas tweet, someone like Farage has to stand up and denounce it.
And so, in the spirit of selfish greed and indulgence, we have Farage demanding that everyone should ignore the poor and homeless, and concentrate on stuffing themselves.
His statement also shows up another glaring moral fault in UKIP in the party’s attitude to immigration and non-Whites. Despite what the Fuhrage has said, his party is full of racist bigots, Islamophobes and White supremacists, who see Blacks and Asians as a dangerous threat to the British way of life and morality. But over Christmas, a number of Asian take-aways and restaurants have shown far more of the Christmas spirit than Farage. Mike put up a story about a fish and chip shop in Brum, run by two Asian brothers, which was going to supply free meals to the homeless and elderly on Christmas Day. I also heard that some of the Asian restaurants were also going to do likewise in Cheltenham. This spirit wasn’t confined to the Asian community – other hostelries, like a pub in Glastonbury, were also doing the same. I’m not here claiming that Blacks or Asians are any more virtuous than Whites. But the simple fact that so many Asian restaurants were doing so amply demonstrates that the obvious isn’t automatically true either. It shows how bigoted UKIP are, and their lack of compassion for society as a whole.
A few years ago one of the TV companies ran a show which adopted an interesting take on the issue of immigration. The show worked on the principle of ‘one in, one out’. Every week, the presenters gave the case for letting a particular person into the country, and canvased their viewers on who they’d like to see deported. One of those the great British public wanted to see thrown out of the country by a very long margin, according to Private Eye, was the editor of rabidly xenophobic Daily Mail, Paul Dacre. I think we should adopt the same attitude here. The Archbishop should be fully supported, and everyone who gave their time, money or other help to the poor and homeless at Christmas needs to stay, regardless of their ethnic or religious origins. Nigel Farage, however, must go.
Mike has this story over at Vox Political surrounding the outcry the Tories have raised against the comments by the senior assistant general secretary of RMT, Steve Hedley, on a debate on LBC hosted by Shelagh Fogarty: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/02/03/rmt-chiefs-demand-for-execution-of-tories-for-murdering-sparks-anger-against-him/. Hedley was justifiably outraged by the number of disabled people, who have died due to their welfare cuts. He declared the Tories were murdering them, and that for this they should be taken out and shot.
Mike makes the point that the ensuing outcry is the reason he won’t allow similar demands or recommendations of violence against the Tories on his blog, for the reason that the Tories would use it to drown out the main message – that their wretched welfare reforms are killing the disabled – and use it as an excuse to attack it.
He’s right. When faced with any really tough rhetoric, the Tories immediately claim victimhood and whine, bitch and moan. In their minds, they represent dignified civil discourse against the slovenly manners, fecklessness and hooliganism of the Great Unwashed. And they are always, always unjustly maligned by thuggish opponents. Even when the reverse is true. And their welfare benefits are killing people, and reducing those in genuine need to utter poverty. Mike on Vox Political, Stilloaks, Jayne Linney and other disability bloggers have catalogued the various deaths that have resulted.
I actually wonder how the Tories would react if they were faced with really forthright criticism. Such as, for example, from the pen of Hunter S. Thompson, the journalist and author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Thompson was the inventor of Gonzo journalism, and didn’t mince his words when it came to describing those politicos that aroused his hate and disgust. In his piece on Richard Nixon, he described the former president as ‘so crooked he had screw his pants on in the morning’. He also said that instead of giving him a land burial, they should have buried him at sea, or flushed him into the sewers with the other turds.
And the bile didn’t stop with the Watergate conspirators. He also expressed his utter contempt and loathing of the Oliver North, Pat Buchanan, Admiral Poindexter and the others in the Reagan administration responsible for the Iran/Contra affair. One of them was described as being ‘so crooked it took three Whitehouse aids to screw him into his pants’. He thought they should be shut in a bamboo cage to be poked with sharp sticks, and flogged all the way along Route 66. As for Ed Meese, Reagan’s equally crooked attorney general, he said that he should have been hung upside down from a lamp post.
Maggie Thatcher also disgusted him. In a piece he published, replying to a letter from his illustrator, Ralph Steadman, he called Thatcher a ‘denatured hog’, and said that Steadman’s delinquent son was quite right to smash windows. Any young person who didn’t want to smash windows in Thatcher’s Britain was probably brain-dead.
This is strong language indeed, especially in the American press, which is now very cautious and respectful. In Britain it would result in paroxysms of Tory fury, as any criticism, no matter how small, of the Blessed St Margaret of Grantham is regarded as the vilest blasphemy. The Conservatives – traditionally the party of the Anglican establishment – have no scruples about attacking the Archbishop of Canterbury, or indeed any other clergyman or woman, if they dare to speak out on their dreadful welfare policies. But the sanctity of Maggie Thatcher, the patron saint of monetarism and South American dictators, must be defended with all their might.
Mike’s quite right to be worried that comments urging violence would give them ammunition to ignore and distort what’s actually said on his blog. Their past masters at that. Hedley’s statement that they should be shot gave them all the material they needed to distort the debate. But they are monstrous thugs, whose policies are killing tens of thousands of people, and who can’t stand the kind of criticism their atrocities deserve.
Buddyhell over at Guy Debord’s Cat, has some very pertinent observations on the Tory party conference, beginning with their complete absence of democracy, their ranting smears against Jeremy Corbyn and the Left, Cameron’s recruitment of Blairite Andrew Adonis, and particularly journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer’s outrage at people spitting and throwing eggs at the Tories attending the conference. The Cat’s article begins
If anyone was ever in any doubt as to the Tories’ loathing of democracy, then they need look no further than this latest conference or, indeed, previous conferences. Speaker after speaker mounted the platform to address the conference, all of whom either syruped praise on their leadership or smeared their opponents. Policies are never openly debated or voted upon at Tory Party conferences. The unspoken dictum is, as ever, “we speak and you will listen”. The Conservative Party’s members have little or no say in how their party operates or how policies are decided. It is, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship. Is it any wonder why Tory governments act to crush democracy in this country when there is so little of it within their own party?
This conference also showed us how far into themselves the Tories have retreated since Jeremy Corbyn’s election to the Labour Party leadership, and the hundreds of thousands who have joined the party since his victory. In contrast, the Conservatives are estimated to have less than 100,000 ageing members. So watching the Tory Party conference was, for me at least, a little like witnessing the last days of the Roman Empire. Degenerate and decadent, they can only look inward and indulge themselves in a little mutual masturbation for a bit of comfort. Indeed, it could be said that the security barrier surrounding the conference centre was the physical manifestation of their bunker mentality.
This is exactly right, and it’s been well-known for decades. I can remember being told about it by members of the Socialist Society back at College. They were outraged at the way the Tories under Thatcher were making much of the division in the Labour ranks over the Militant Tendency, and contrasting it with the supposed tranquil orderliness of their own party. In fact, the Tory party has never been a democracy, and given its history, this should come as no surprise whatsoever. The Tories started out as the party of the Anglican aristocracy. The Anglican Church has since clashed with the Tories several times on important social issues. I can remember Norman Tebbit’s frothing outrage when the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, dared criticised St. Maggie of Grantham on her contempt for the poor. However, the aristocratic attitude of patrician leadership over the masses continues. The major decisions are always made in private behind closed doors. The Cat notes that the Tories are now down to a bare 100,000 members – coincidentally – or not – the numbers the Italian Fascist and Nazi party in Germany claimed they would limit the membership of their parties to in order to make them truly elitist. Part of the reason the Tory party has shrunk so massively is that the rank and file members feel that they are being shoved aside and ignored in favour of rich donors and the party leadership.
Then there’s the little matter of Cameron’s tirade against Corbyn. Corbyn has stated that he wants a united Ireland. This, apparently, is the basis for Cameron’s denunciation of him as ‘friend of terrorists’. This looks very much like a piece of grossly malicious slander.
A lot of people in the Labour party want a united Ireland. One of the reasons for this is that a lot of Labour party members are themselves, or are descended from, working class Irish Roman Catholics. Clare Short was one of these. I can remember an interview with her on Radio 4, in which she talked about her Irish working class roots, and how she had made pilgrimages to the sites deep in the Irish countryside where her descendants were forced to worship secretly when the Roman Catholic church was banned by the British. Short was a very controversial figure, notably for her campaign to ban page 3 of the Sun. She was not, however, to my knowledge a supporter of terrorism. Neither is Corbyn.
Cameron here is trying to use one of the major lies Thatcher used against the Labour party in the 1980s. Some sections of the Labour party aroused extreme controversy for supporting Irish Republicans, including talking to Sinn Fein. Thatcher, by contrast, portrayed herself as resolutely defying the terrorists with her usual posturing of Churchillian patriotism.
It was all a lie.
All the time she was declaring her firmness of resolve never to give in Irish Nationalist terrorists, she was in peace negotiations with them. In fact, the Tories had tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the Troubles under Ted Heath, but that collapsed due to the obstinate refusals of the Unionists. And when a peaceful settlement was eventually found, the impetus for it was not the shocking violence and loss of life created by terrorist atrocity after terrorist atrocity from the paramilitaries on both sides of religio-political divide. No, it was purely monetary. It was when the IRA bombed Canary Wharf. Suddenly realising that the IRA could wreck the multi-billion pound financial hub of the City of London, Thatcher and Major finally decided to stop pretending military force was the only solution and talk to the Republicans.
Let’s get this straight: for all the Tories maudlin rhetoric about the victims of the IRA, what they really cared about, what really frightened them, was the IRA might force the bankers and financiers out of the capital, thus dealing a severe blow to the financial sector that they favour so strongly. Human lives don’t count. Elite money does.
As for supporting terrorists, this is another piece of massive hypocrisy. The Cat has already published numerous pieces about the connections between the Ulster Unionist parties and the various Loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that the British secret state heavily supported the Loyalist paramilitaries, using them to gather intelligence and act as death squads against leading Republicans.
As for spitting on and throwing eggs at politicians, the Cat rebutted Hartley-Brewer’s argument by putting up footage of Edward Heath having eggs thrown at him. There was a flurry of it in the 1980s under Thatcher, mostly directed against Keith Joseph. So much so that it became a joke in the spoof Dear Bill diaries published in Private Eye. As for it being only a feature of the Left, well, not quite. Some of us can still remember the incident when John Prescott punched a young Welsh farmer. The lad had thrown an egg at him, and Prescott responded with his fists. A thuggish, but perfectly understandable reaction.
So, as the Cat’s article shows, the Tory Conference shows the elitist contempt for democracy, and the revival of the kind of lies and smears used by Thatcher. It’s the politics of desperation, although you could be forgiven for thinking that the opposite was true. The Beeb was practically falling over itself yesterday about how exciting and optimistic it all was. The female newsreader on Points West, the Corporation’s regional news programme for Bristol and Somerset, even went and declared that it was ‘bubbly’. She seemed positively overjoyed.
It’s all forced. The fact that Cameron is claiming that Corbyn is a supporter of terrorism, simply because he wants a united Ireland, is proof of that. Behind the smiles is the looming spectre of despair.
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