Harry's Place

This is a guest post by Saul Freeman

It’s May 2016 and Ken Livingstone has just been removed from the Corbynite slate for Labour’s upcoming NEC election, due to his long history of Jew baiting finally catching up with him. Ken of course puts his fall down to an alliance of Zionist conspirators and the right leaning bureaucrats of his own party. He’s being replaced on the candidate list by Rhea Wolfson, a young socialist who has stated that “winning 2020 should not be the priority of the Labour Party” and asserts that “to focus only on elections loses sight of other ways of making effective changes in society”.[1]

If Ken & Rhea didn’t exist, some of us would be tempted to invent them as clumsily drawn characters to use in our blog posts where we write about the moral and political collapse of the Left. And then enraged Corbyn supporting folk would pursue us on Twitter, pointing out that our use of such crude stereotyped invented placeholders demonstrates how the Red Tory Blairites are running scared of the truth. They’d almost certainly chuck in a bit of blaming a “Zionist” witch-hunt and point out the injustices endured by the Palestinians.

Now, of course Ken and Rhea are real. This makes them just a little bit more interesting to hang an argument on, though I suspect the same objections will be applied.

The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Leader together with the empowerment of McDonnell, Abbott, Milne etc has led to the worst local election results since the 1980s for Labour (as a party of opposition), a scandal over institutionalised anti-Semitism in the party and the mobilisation at both local and national levels of an aggressive baying-mob of social justice warrior politics which has demanded the heads of the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism and BBC political journalist Laura Kuenssberg amongst others. It’s seen a flood of entryism to the ranks of both party membership and £3 supporters from the fringes of the hard-Left and from mischievous Torys and UKIPers. It’s caused many moderate Labour members to tear up their party cards (not easy with the new plastic ones) and Jewish voters have abandoned the party almost completely (the first person to mention Michael Rosen or the 63 or whatever it is “asajew” letter writers wins a subscription to the Guardian). It’s caused ordinary, decent left-leaning folk to find themselves reading Guido’s blog for a sense check.

We’ve witnessed miserable performances at PMQs, political PR/spin own-goals that are crying out for well-informed footballing comparisons (no, I know nothing about football) and polling that suggests the Tories will be in power for the next 327 years. We see the Conservatives profoundly split over the upcoming referendum and getting away with it, along with getting away with pretty much everything else. We’ve also seen Sadiq Khan’s election as mayor of London for Labour after a campaign in which one of his key themes was to put clear (blue) water between himself and the current party leadership. We’ve gawped in disbelief (though we saw it coming) at the election by NUS of a President who flings anti-Semitic tropes around like confetti and announces that we should “await instructions” from the likes of Hamas et al and we’ve listened to generous applause for speakers opposing the marking of Holocaust Memorial Day on campuses.

Mostly, what we see is the entrenchment and growing self-confidence of a particular strand of Leftism and the cementing in place at the heart of the institutions of the Left of a world view that is probably shared as a coherent ideology by at most a few hundred thousand people across the UK electorate, though many others across key demographics may take on elements of this narrative.

This anti-imperialist, anti-West, anti-American, anti-”Zionist”, anti-capitalist set of core beliefs is most aggressively mobilised by those at the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition. Corbyn himself was of course a long-standing part of the STWC leadership until he was forced to reluctantly hand over the Chair on appointment as Labour leader and has spent a lifetime immersed in these particular radical Leftist holy waters, as has been widely documented at Harrys Place.

It’s the kind of political thinking that has in recent days led Shadow Cabinet member Diane Abbott to both dismiss claims of institutionalised anti-Semitism on the Left as a “conspiracy” and to also draw a financial, governance and moral equivalence between the governments of the UK, Nigeria and Afghanistan over the issue of political corruption.

It’s the kind of thinking that calls for the forced dismantling of the world’s only Jewish state, defends Putin’s gangster capitalist Russia, attacks Ukrainian European aspirations and makes allegiance with the forces of Islamist politics in the shape of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah and other proxies of Iran and Shia militancy.[2]

Now, the fact that those views are expressed is all good and proper. I’m all for the existence of a dedicated – if morally and politically flawed/disgraced – hard Left. That’s what you get if you adhere to the concept of political pluralism – and I do. I welcome the fact that STWC are part of our political landscape.

But I can’t welcome the fact that Labour has not only tolerated those views but has in recent decades actively embraced them as part of its much celebrated “broad church”. Apart from anything, it demonstrates a staggering complacency and a short term memory problem that would have most of us nervously making an appointment with our GP. Were the Labour MPs who nominated Corbyn as part of an effort to “widen debate” unaware of the 1980s struggles against Militant and other entryists? Had they heard of Healey’s battles with the Bennite Left (including a young Jeremy Corbyn) for the soul and the viability of the Party?

Fundamentally, how irresponsible do you have to be to hand over the keys of a political organisation to those who make it their business to operate the rule book and process in order that a minority group exerts power beyond its base?

These are the people who will push through a BDS motion at the NEC – against all published party policy – when half the meeting has nipped out for a crafty vape or whatever it was they were doing that evening.[3]

In recent days, decent Labour MPs and others in the party have called on Jews to remain in the party and to fight for it in order to vanquish the scourge of anti-Semitism from Labour. But I have to ask those well-meaning people:  “come again? You want what? Seriously?”

Let’s be clear. The Labour party defends the principle of a broad church but it is that very broad church that inevitably means that some within its ranks will express views/concepts and narratives that are anti-Semitic. And anti-West and anti-American and anti-capitalist etc. You can’t have a broad church on the Left any more without this stuff – it’s coded into the DNA of the STWC Hard-Left and it’s going to be around in one form or another long after I’m alive to get cross about it on Twitter. Sure, you can suspend or expel those who are so obsessed or stupid that they can’t moderate their behaviour in public. But that’s not the point of a political party, is it?

A party is supposed to stand for something and to stand against other somethings. That’s why a party bothers to get up in the morning. Or at least it used to be.

A broad church party that welcomes those who hold the views of the STWC Left doesn’t deserve the vote of Jews. That doesn’t mean no Jews will vote for it – of course some will. Again, that’s pluralism. But it sure as hell doesn’t deserve those votes. And the inherent logic of that plea that “Jews must stay to root out their tormentors” with the unspoken addendum “if you Jews don’t then frankly, almost no one else will” speaks for itself.

And beyond the particularised voting intentions of that tiny ethnic minority, why should anyone who embraces and celebrates their highly fortunate status/identity as a citizen of a liberal, European parliamentary social democracy vote for a party that empowers political extremists who see those credentials as badges of shame?

A broad church party that includes those seeking election to its NEC who sneer at the dull incrementalism of parliamentary social democracy doesn’t get my vote. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to empower those willing to graft away at the boring detail of politics and policy implementation and prepared to be held accountable for it at elections and by a free press. I don’t want my political structures to be replaced by the social justice warriors of social media seeking a narcissism-enhancing rush of excitement from the latest 38 Degrees petition. I can look to myself for that, thanks.

So I say to Labour as a voter: “you sort out your dysfunctional family/broad church and then maybe you get the votes”. Because we vote on what we see before us.

As an activist (though in truth I’m not really much of an activist and never have been) I could say: “I will stay and fight to dismantle the broad church that has brought shame on the party and which will keep it from office.” Only I don’t see any evidence that anyone in the Labour Party actually wants to do this. The broad church has become a shibboleth of the party, a reflexive instinct of denial about both the history and the future of the party. No one is talking about proscribing STWC and others on the mad/bad end of the Left are they? I don’t hear the voice of a Healey or a Kinnock bellowing out that a line in the sand must be drawn and that a battle for the very soul of the party is underway. If I did, I might have more to think about.

Now I appreciate that Rhea isn’t too concerned about this aspect, but how could I vote for Labour in 2020 anyway? It wouldn’t be the safe or responsible thing to do. I mean – and I know this is stretching the argument – what if Labour actually achieved power? Is anyone seriously suggesting that we vote to empower those that hold the STWC world view, in whole or in part? How might history judge us?

Yes, I know my position is hard on the many decent, honourable Labour folk both in Parliament and beyond who share almost none of the elements of the STWC world view. The party is full of those who are, like me, social democrats and not radical socialists, historical fact-mangling revolutionary polemicists or virtue-signalling social justice warriors.

But I say to them – tear down the broad church. It’s time – it’s the moment to cast aside that shibboleth of yours.

---

[1] http://www.leftfutures.org/2015/06/labour-must-not-lose-its-soul-to-pragmatism/

[2] See therealstopthewar.wordpress.com for articles deleted from the STWC website

[3] http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/149762/labour-party-votes-boycott-g4s-over-links-israel

Today is Yom HaZikaron, memorial day, in Israel

I fought in the Al Aqsa Intifada with a friend of mine from a moshav near Modiin. His younger brother was only nine at the time and was buzzing around all over the place every time we sat in his home on weekends relaxing.

In 2014 the two of us were once again sitting in his parents’ garden when his brother walked in, rifle in hand and just returned from Gaza. It wasn’t his appearance but the tired warrior look on his face that most conveyed that he was no longer a child.

Perhaps it’s only when you see someone that much younger being called upon to follow you into the breech that it really hits you just how constant, how enduring, how gut wrenchingly never ending this conflict really is.

When in uniform you trust that the fight you’re in is the one that will make the difference, that it will be the last fight that needs to be fought. The experience of our little country is that this will never be the case. That over and over again our youth will be called and thrown into the fight, that the fight before was yesterday’s battle and the new day has brought a new battle, perhaps with a new enemy but always with the same objective.

Sometimes we lose soldiers sometimes we lose civilians but each and every time we have a whole new set of dues to pay. Because it doesn’t matter that we won a lightning victory in 1967, it doesn’t matter that we won against all odds in 1973 and it doesn’t matter that we withdrew from the quagmires of Lebanon or Gaza. For the enemies of Israel it’s as if these fights never happened, Israel still exists and they still want to destroy her. Which is why in Israel there’s no such thing as a memorial day to remember victims killed in a long ago war.

We will always be healing from fresh wounds as well as counting our scars.

On Yom Hazikaron, families throughout Israel will sit together looking at the spot on the couch no longer taken, thinking of the bed no longer slept in and mourn their very personal loss. They’ll join with their friends and families and communities to mourn together the loss of the those who once had the hopes and dreams of the rest of their lives before them. This yearly ritual is as much a part of what it is to be Israeli as speaking Hebrew and serving in the military.

In Israel we serve the state. We don the uniform and pick up the rifle. We go into the breech and then we send our children into the breech knowing that victory in the defense of our country means nothing more than fating ourselves to watch our grandchildren do the same.

On Yom Hazikaron we reflect. We count the cost.

On Yom Hazikaron we ask if it was worth it.

And tomorrow we’ll celebrate what it was they died for. We’ll remember that before the state of Israel existed Jews were being killed without living in freedom in their own land.

We’ll remember that before there was a state of Israel, Jewish families had the grief of mourning their dead without recourse to any kind of justice, except for the grand justice of the Almighty.

And that just perhaps, almost 70 years ago, he heard them.

After London’s new mayor Sadiq Khan pointed out that he would be unable to visit the United States under Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from entering the country “until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” Trump responded: “There will always be exceptions.”

Khan, to his great credit, told Trump to shove it.

“This isn’t just about me – it’s about my friends, my family and everyone who comes from a background similar to mine, anywhere in the world.”

He added: “Donald Trump’s ignorant view of Islam could make both our countries less safe – it risks alienating mainstream Muslims around the world and plays in to the hands of the extremists.”

Trump previously revealed that his “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the US is something less than that when he said his rich Muslim friends would be allowed to enter.

This is a guest post by David Watkins.

We are all now familiar with Ken Livingstone’s controversial claim that

when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.

Thanks to three fine pieces by Paul Bogdanor, we also now know a whole lot more about Livingstone’s “source” for this claim – the anti-Semitic Trotskyist propagandist Lenni Brenner, whose writings have been published by the neo-Nazi Noontide Press. As Bogdanor concludes here, “Brenner is a propagandist, not a historian, and only a fool or a knave would rely on his books.”

As Dave Rich explains here, Livingstone

…was simply regurgitating Trotskyist propaganda that first appeared on the British left in the 1980s and had a strong influence on him. This propaganda cherry-picks examples of contact and negotiations between Zionists and Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and uses them to place Zionism and Nazism alongside each other, as if they are somehow connected.

Hitler never wanted Jewish rights or self-determination, he wanted the exact opposite. Some Zionists thought they could save Jewish lives by negotiating with Nazis, but this was an act of desperation and nothing more… Mr Livingstone… ignores all this to make his ugly political defamation of Zionism, the very movement that Jews invented as an answer to anti-Semitism.

The affair brings to mind another public figure, also no stranger to accusations of anti-Semitism, who has made a similar claim to that made by Livingstone. On page 243 of his book Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), Stephen Sizer makes the following claim:

…in the 1930s the German Zionist Federation, the Stern Gang and Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of revisionist Zionism [i.e. various Zionist groups and leaders], were all sympathetic towards fascism, or collaborated with the Nazis.

Sizer’s source is the same as Livingstone’s: Lenni Brenner. The outcome is the same too. By relying on an anti-Semitic source to link Zionism with Nazism, Sizer – like Livingstone – makes an anti-Semitic statement.

That Ken Livingstone and Stephen Sizer should make similar, anti-Semitic claims is unsurprising. What is interesting is the respective reactions to each, from their closest political and/or doctrinal allies.

Despite doing so reluctantly, despite remaining in denial about Labour’s anti-Semitism problem (and for all that some continue to dismiss concerns about anti-Semitism as “smears” or as “cynical attempts” to undermine his leadership), Jeremy Corbyn has at least suspended Livingstone pending an investigation, and has set up a fuller inquiry into anti-Semitism (and other forms of racism) within the Labour party. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has called upon Livingstone toapologise; it remains to be seen whether Livingstone will be banned for life, which appears to be McDonnell’s preferred option. For Sadiq Khan, “Ken Livingstone’s comments are appalling and inexcusable. There must be no place for this in our Party.” Lower down the Labour food chain, a group of London Assembly candidates and council leaders have called for Livingstone’s expulsion.

Such measures and statements are seen by many as half-hearted and flawed. But here’s the thing: these Labour figures have at least said and done something, rather than nothing. They have at least given the impression that they care about the issue.

Now let us compare this with the reaction to Stephen Sizer by the conservative evangelical Christian leaders with whom he identifies most closely. It is of course true that Sizer was eventually disciplined by the Anglican hierarchy. However, Sizer identifies himself as a conservative evangelical, and so it is instructive to examine the response to his statement (and other actions) by other conservative evangelical leaders, and compare this with the response to anti-Semitism from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

Sizer’s linking of Zionism with Nazism, and his citation of Lenni Brenner, did not prevent his book being published by Inter-Varsity Press (IVP), probably the leading conservative evangelical publishing house in Britain. (Nor, for that matter, did his citation on pp. 21-22 (and on Press TV) of Holocaust Denier Dale Crowley; nor his subtle insinuation of Israeli complicity in 9/11 in a footnote on p.251.) They did not prevent the book being warmly endorsed by a number of high-profile conservative evangelical leaders, including the late John Stott, the well-known preacher Dick Lucas, the former Principal of Oak Hill Theological College David Peterson, and the trainer, pastor and writer Graham Beynon. IVP later invited Sizer to write a second book on the subject for a more popular audience, Zion’s Christian Soldiers? (IVP, 2008). Whereas Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour Party for relying on Lenni Brenner to link Zionism with Nazism, conservative evangelicals did not bad an eyelid when Stephen Sizer did the same.

In fairness, we would not necessarily expect the average evangelical theologian, reviewing a book, to be familiar with Trotskyist anti-Semitism, still less to know about Lenni Brenner. Why wouldn’t they take Sizer’s claim at face value? (A respectable Christian publisher has less excuse, however, for not checking the source of an inflammatory statement.) Twelve years on, however, the evidence of Stephen Sizer’s anti-Semitism is inescapable. He has

• forwarded material written by 9/11 conspiracy theorists and Holocaust Deniers

• linked to numerous racist websites and given an interview to another

• labelled photographs of Israeli soldiers “Herod’s soldiers operating in Bethlehem today“, mirroring the classic anti-Semitic accusation that all Jews are Christ-killers

• promoted, via an interview on his Vimeo site, a boycott of four multinational public companies on the false basis that they “channel their profits to the Zionist agenda” – echoing the anti-Semitic myth that Jewish individuals and companies operate a shadowy influence on world affairs

• equated Israeli treatment of the Palestinians with the genocide of 2/3 of European Jewry in the Holocaust - and that on Press TV, the propaganda channel of the Holocaust-denying Iranian regime

• spoken at events organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, many of whose branches appear to tolerate anti-Semitism

• travelled to Iran as the guest of Zahra Mostafavi, the daughter of the Ayatollah Khomeini – a prominent supporter of the anti-Israel terrorist organisation Hezbollah, who has publicly paid tribute to child suicide bombers for their attacks on Israeli civilians.

• worked in Malaysia with known Hamas fundraisers Viva Palestina, there making the outrageous claim that the “Israel Lobby” in the USA “buys every single politician” and again falsely linking Zionists with the Far Right

• hosted an article (now removed) on his church website by Holocaust Denier “Israel Shamir”

• commented “Bring it on” in response to a call by the disgraced US journalist Helen Thomas for Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine”

• made the tasteless insinuation that Monica Lewinsky’s Jewishness motivated Hilary Clinton’s criticism of Israel – undermining any claim Rev Sizer might make that his opposition to Israel is unrelated to the Jewishness of its people

• made the deluded suggestion that the world initially held back from imposing a no-fly zone over Libya because Colonel Gaddafi and his son were linked to Israel and the USA by Jewish blood

• championed the cause of Islamist hate preacher Raed Salah

• suggested (again) that Israel was somehow behind 9/11

Nick Cohen’s words are apt: “Polite [Christian] commentators say that I must add at this point that ‘[Stephen Sizer] is not an anti-Semite’. Sorry to be a fact-checking bore, but if he isn’t a racist, then he is a remarkably stupid old man who in George Orwell’s phrase is ‘playing with fire without knowing fire is hot’.” Yet there is nothing in Stephen Sizer’s background to suggest that he is stupid.

It was the last of the above incidents, in January 2015, which finally prompted the Diocese of Guildford to ban Sizer from using social media for six months and to seek an undertaking from Sizer that he would no longer write or speak about the Middle East. The Archbishop of Canterbury approved. Whilst Sizer apologized – as he has done before – there is good cause to be sceptical.

The controversy surrounding Stephen Sizer has been widely reported: in the Jewish press; the Christian press (including the newspaper Evangelicals Now and the widely-read blog Archbishop Cranmer); and in the secular media. It has recently come to light again in connection with Jeremy Corbyn, who once wrote to the Church of England to defend Sizer; and in connection with Ken Livingstone, whose incendiary claim about Nazism and Zionism is similar to the one published by Sizer in 2004. And so this begs the question: how have Sizer’s conservative evangelical peers reacted to his multi-faceted anti-Semitic statements and actions? And how does this compare with the Labour Party’s reaction to Ken Livingstone? The answer, sadly, is disheartening.

• IVP continue to market Sizer’s books. Contrast this with Roy Clements, a previously influential conservative evangelical leader who left his ministry in 1999 as a result of a sex scandal. IVP rapidly pulled his books from the shelves, and no longer market them, even though they were widely considered to be theologically sound. It is hard not to see a double standard here: is racism a less serious moral failing than sexual impropriety?

• Christ Church Virginia Water (CCVW) retain Sizer as their vicar, notwithstanding his track record. This is perhaps unsurprising, since the church previously supported his international travel – even to conferences also attended byHitler-lovers and Holocaust Deniers.

• Richard Bewes OBE, previously Rector of All Souls, Langham Place, London, had no problem either joining orremaining on the preaching team at CCVW – despite recognising anti-Jewish racism elsewhere.

• It is believed that Christianity Explored Ministries no longer retain Sizer as an Advocate (trainer). However, they have made no public statement to this effect, and Sizer’s own website indicates that the association remains.

• Sizer’s website also states that he is Vice-Chair of Biblica Europe Ministries Trust. Biblica is the translation sponsor and ministry publisher of the New International Version, the most widely read contemporary English translation of the Bible.

• Whilst a handful have expressed private concerns, not a single senior British conservative evangelical leader or ministryhas publicly censured Stephen Sizer or distanced themselves from him.

• The South East Gospel Partnership is a group of conservative evangelical churches that work together on things like church planting and training. CCVW remains a partner church. When sent abundant evidence regarding Rev Sizer’s anti-Semitic activities, the SEGP Committee did not engage with that evidence. Their response – unbelievably – was that they saw ‘no justifiable grounds for breaking gospel partnership with Stephen.’

In short, conservative evangelicals have said and done virtually nothing in response to Stephen Sizer’s anti-Semitism. They have done even less than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party has done in response to Ken Livingstone’s anti-Semitism – which is saying quite something. If John Rentoul of The Independent can recognise that there is a serious problem with Stephen Sizer, why can’t conservative evangelicals?

It’s not too late for conservative evangelicals to show that they take anti-Semitism at least as seriously as Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. It’s not too late for them to publicly censure Stephen Sizer and to distance themselves from him. Hope springs eternal but, sadly, I’m not holding my breath.

PS If you’re unsure why some of the things mentioned in this article are “anti-Semitic” as opposed to mere “criticisms of the Israeli government”, this article may help. This Working Definition of anti-Semitism may be helpful too.

PPS The SNP has got in on the act. Conservative evangelicals, what are you waiting for?

This is a cross post from Trial by Jeory

One thing I’ve noticed over the past 11 years covering Tower Hamlets is how easy it is to find some kind of link in national political rows to the politics of east London.

Today, the Mail on Sunday carries a story on comments made at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign hustings in Ealing in February 2015.

It quotes Rupa Huq, then the parliamentary candidate for Ealing Central and now its MP, telling the audience that a Labour government “could probably” ensure Britain apologised for helping to create the state of Israel in 1948.

The story says this is the latest episode in Labour’s anti-Semitism row.

It’s not been a good couple of weeks for Rupa Huq. Ten days ago, she unwisely went on to the Today programme in an attempt to defend Naz Shah over her anti-Semitic Facebook postings. She told Radio 4: “If it is career destroying it seems we are entering a phase where its trial by Twitter. As far as I know Naz Shah did not write antisemitic tracts or anything, she pressed ‘Share’ on a picture which was idiotic and foolish.

“I do think this does demonstrate the perils of social media. As far as I understand, this is before she was an MP, before she was a candidate even. She shared a post on Facebook. It’s easy to click those buttons.”

It’s not only the perils of social media. As Rupa is learning, it’s also the perils of speaking in public, on the hoof, on matters about which you’re not fully briefed, where anyone can record you, and particularly if those knowledge gaps include Palestine and Israel.

I first met Rupa in 2007, when she was up against the likes of Lutfur Rahman, John Biggs and Rushanara Ali in Tower Hamlets trying to secure the Labour candidacy for Bethnal Green in Bow. She wrote a short diary piece (left) about her experiences for me at the East London Advertiser at the time – and asked it be headlined ‘Diary of a Nobody’.

She struck me then as being slightly naive about the poisonous waters of Tower Hamlets politics and I was relieved for her when she failed to beat Rushanara.

I’m not sure some of that general naivety has completely disappeared.

As a direct result of the Mail article (which, at her insistence, this morning changed the words ‘should apologise’ in its headline to ‘could apologise’), she has received some pretty vile hate mail by email.

This one has been forwarded to the police:

“Get out of my country you ugly racist cu*t! Ugly, smelly Muslim vermin.”

I won’t name the person who emailed this, but let’s look at what prompted him to send it.

In the article, Rupa was quoted in this context:

Answering a question about whether an apology should be made, Ms Huq said: ‘1948, that happened under a British government. To my mind, an apology – yes. You could do one. A Labour Government could probably get that through.’

She added: ‘But it sounds a bit Tony Blair to me though, and we all know what happened to him.

Ms Huq – whose sister is the former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq – told The Mail on Sunday that the remarks she made did not reflect her actual views.

‘I don’t think that, those aren’t my views,’ she said. ‘I was answering a question. I went on later to say that there shouldn’t be an apology.

‘I have supported Labour Friends of Israel events and am a signatory to the We Believe In Israel charter.’

The video clip of the meeting is here.

Rupa told me today that with Angie Bray, the Tory candidate, declining to attend the February 2015 meeting, she was ‘probably the most right wing person there’ and was frequently jeered. She said she felt a little bit out of her depth on the specifics of questions raised.

She said the candidates were asked ‘Should the UK apologise for Israel?’ This was her answer in full:

“On the question of the historic legacy… I mean I said at the beginning that it’s a long, long history – you can trace it back to BC. I mean I think you’re referring more specifically to 1948 that happened under a British government? To my mind… an apology… Yes you could do one…. a Labour government could probably get that through, but it sounds a bit Tony Blair to me though, and we all know what happened to him. He did apologies for the Irish potato famine in 1998 amongst other things but he was pilloried. I mean you couldn’t make it up.

“But yeah, it would be possible to do an apology, but I think what’s more important is to move forward and to make sure that Palestinian people can live in peace in an independent state of their own, I think that’s what we need to focus on. I mean an apology – yeah you could do that, it might be symbolic but for the future we want a viable Palestine.”

So a bit more nuanced. She is a strong supporter of the two-state solution and strongly supports Israel’s right to exist. No doubt she’ll get vile emails from the other side now.

However, for the wellbeing of her own political career, she’d be well advised to stick to subjects on which she is a master of detail from now on…and stay away from the media for a while.

Yesterday, Pakistani human rights activist and editor of Let Us Build Pakistan, Khurram Zaki published this statement on Facebook:

“Sadiq Khan is not a Pakistani. He is a Britisher. Credit for his rise and success goes to his own hard work and the equal opportunity quality of the British system. Pakistan and Islam have played no role in his meteoric rise. And he has proved for all British Muslims and Brits of other ethnicities that anyone who blames that system as biased and discriminatory that they are lazy and liars.

I am celebrating the greatness of Western Secular Democracy. In this day and age of Takfiri Deobandi/Wahabi terrorism and Islamophobia, London has risen above discrimination and bigotry and emerged as great centre of human civilisation setting a great example for the world. Can we ever elect an Ahmadi or Hindu or Christian PM? Forget that, we have deprived all legal powers and discretions of a democratically elected Mayor of the third largest city in the world (Karachi) on the basis of ethnicity.

And it’s so stupid and shameful of us Pakistanis that we run down humiliate our own successes like Malala and Sharmeen.”

Hours later, he was murdered, it is believed by Islamist gunmen.

Let Us Build Pakistan has said:

For the last one year, Shaheed Khurram Zaki was a target of a systematic hate campaign organized by Deobandi fanatic, Shamsuddin Amjad of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan in collaboration with the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP aka ASWJ/LeJ).

In particular, hateful and violence inciting posters against Shaheed Khurram Zaki had been published recently by the Mashal Facebook page run by Shamsuddin Amjad, Asad Wasif and a few other pro-Taliban fanatics of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Shaheed Kurram Zaki was a bigger journalist and rights activist with more valuable credentials and contributions than those in mainstream media or NGOs who remain silent on or obfuscate systematic target killing of Shia Muslims, Sunni Sufis Muslims, Christians and other communities in Pakistan at the hands of Takfiri Deobandi militants.

Khurram Zaki took a principled and courageous stance against the notorious Lal Masjid Deobandi cleric, Abdul Aziz, when the latter refused to condemn the same Taliban/ASWJ terrorists who killed 150 school children in Peshawar. Zaki’s bold and unwavering stance against this cleric brought him to the attention of the Takfiri Deobandi nexus which is also responsible for 100% of suicide bombings in Pakistan.

In boldly highlighting and supporting the rights of Sunni Barelvis, Shias, Sufis, Ahmadis, Hindus and Christians, his contribution as citizen journalism was much bigger than all journalists combined in Pakistan. His death is the grim reminder that whoever raises voice against Taliban, ASWJ/LeJ and Jamaat-e-Islami Deobandi mafia in Pakistan will not be spared. And when they have to murder, they never fail.

Sadiq Khan, the new Mayor of London is a liberal. He supported gay marriage. He was one of the first to speak out against Ken Livingstone.

However, until now, he has often chosen to work uncritically with, and sometimes to defend, those tied to precisely those Islamist groups which promote – on political and theological grounds – hatred and ultimately violence against liberals.

Muslim liberals in particular.

As Maajid Nawaz notes:

Sadiq Khan is no Muslim extremist. And it is not only his track record voting for gay rights that proves this. Having known him when I was a Muslim extremist, I know that he did not subscribe to my then theocratic views.

…

Again, Khan is no Muslim extremist. Indeed, this cannot be repeated enough. Nor can the fact that Khan clearly has a record of terribly poor judgment in surrounding himself with Islamists and Muslim extremists, and in using them for votes.

Ironically, Sadiq Khan’s election demonstrates that he does not need the support of Islamist groups and hatemongers in order to succeed in London. However, nationally, pandering to that constituency will be one of the factors which keeps Labour out of power for another generation.

The calculus in the past, for many in Labour has been:
“Will I lose more votes in cities than I gain by working with Islamists and Hamas fans and turning a blind eye to antisemitism?”

In London, the answer to that question is “no”. Not even now that the problem has become headline news. Not in safe Labour seats in cities, certainly.

But the size of Sadiq Khan victory prove that you do not need their votes for Labour to win.

By contrast, nationally, the answer to that question is “yes”. You cannot present yourself as an anti-racist, progressive party without opposing racists and theocrats. The voters understand this, even if many Labour activists still do not.

Sadiq Khan, a liberal Muslim on a journey away from a politics which was prevalent, and may now even be dominant with the grassroots of the Labour Party can make a virtue of necessity. It is a strength he can play to.

There has been a tendency in Labour to turn a blind eye to those within the party who have chummed up with Islamist groups which promote theocracy and hatred. Some have tried to make a distinction between those who support Islamist states abroad: as long as they do not support it in the United Kingdom.

That stance is both bad politics and bad principle. The Left is nothing if it does not hold to its liberal values. It is nothing if it does not show the clearest solidarity with liberals such as Khurram Zaki. It is nothing if it is not internationalist. After all, their Islamist opponents are most certainly men of principle, and internationalists to boot.

Those who murder in Karachi see no reason not to murder in London. They are no respecters of national borders.

A hallmark of Sadiq Khan’s mayoralty should be a clear stance against hatred and divisive rhetoric and politics. He should make  it clear that he won’t have any truck with organisations and institutions which sponsor and promote hatemongers. If he attends their meetings, he should not simply deliver platitudes, as he did at the conference of the hate preacher promoting FOSIS. Rather, he should take the opportunity to promote the liberal values that he cherishes.

As well as helping to detoxify Labour, such a clear stance would have the additional effect of weakening the far Left within Labour, which is wedded to its alliances with Islamists and pro-Hamas groups, and contains more than a few people who are antisemites.

Does Khan have the courage to do this. Will he dodge the issue, talk in generalities, and carry on working with the hatemongers, with the justification that we need a “Big Tent” and that you can’t just talk to “Uncle Toms”.

If he does so, it would be the wrong choice. It would also be a betrayal of solidarity with comrades such as Khurram Zaki.

A second year English student has been reported to the university authorities for writing a short story featuring a narrator who picks up and rapes a young woman in a night club.

Second year English student Benjie Beer was also told to remove Nights at the Disco, a first-person narrative about a sexual predator who targets women at Lakota and Lizard Lounge, from his blog with immediate effect.

Lynn Robinson, Bristol University’s Deputy Registrar, contacted Benjie this afternoon stating, ‘This post [Nights at the Disco] has the potential to bring the University into disrepute and as such we will be contacting you next week to request you attend a disciplinary meeting.

The report quoted above accurately describes the narrator as ‘Patrick Bateman-esque’.  Patrick Bateman, protagonist of Brett Easton Ellis’s  American Psycho, is either delusional or psychopathic and his narrative is disconcertingly affectless.  We aren’t drawn in to sympathise witth Bateman, and neither does Beer encourage the reader to trust his narrator.  Here’s the opening paragraph:

When I was deciding which university to apply to, there was one thing in particular I was looking for above all others: nightlife. I absolutely had to go to university in a city with good nightclubs. If I didn’t have that then I wouldn’t have even bothered with being a student. London was on my list, as was Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham – but, for one reason or another, I ended up going to Bristol. It had exactly what I needed: plenty of access to my favourite drugs (including 2C-B, which is hard to get in some places), very few contact hours for my course (English Literature), and a rave culture that attracted girls from the highest class of background. In my opinion they are the most good looking, and the most naïve.

And here’s another sentence which conveys the weakness beneath the arrogance.

I can barely stay away from a club for more than two days before I start to get agitated and need to lose myself once more.

Another approach to writing this story might have been to lull the reader into finding the narrator sympathetic.  Perhaps in this case Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert – another character mentioned in the report I linked to – would be a better parallel. Some find the protagonist of Nabokov’s Lolita a disconcertingly charming narrator.

It seems clear enough – contrary to what the student who reported him asserted – that the story is fiction.  And I think it’s pretty obvious from the start that we aren’t meant to like the main character, so I’m not sure it even qualifies as, to quote her statement, ‘at best very distasteful’.

Now another student has weighed into the debate.  Sarah Williams welcomes the disciplinary action.

As a student of English Literature who has just finished a module on satire, I must admit that I did not read Benjie Beer’s short story ‘Nights at the Disco – Part 1’ as a satire but quite the opposite. It seemed to be a step by step guide to rape.

Although the story was written in a Patrick Bateman-esque voice it was still unclear that this was a satirical narrative. And even if it was, satire is normally utilised as a genre to incite a shift in paradigms, although this topic does need a shift in paradigm, offering an ‘in character’ guide on how to rape is not how I would go about it and is clearly in very poor taste.

It contained such provoking lines as ‘Always maintain an air of innocence. Then get them standing up and gauge how well she’s looking. In the ideal situation, she’s so drunk she’ll go wherever you take her with no questions asked.’ This is peppered in with the voice’s ‘top tips’ on where to look for vulnerable women, how you should abduct them and the etiquette of leaving them once you’ve had your way with them.

This seems quite a narrow view of satire. To make the reader feel uncertain or morally disoriented – ’surprised by sin’ – could be just as effective as a more detached and judgemental approach. Obviously these are rather subjective issues, and of course some people will be sincerely upset or offended by this story, and find it troubling that the narrator seems to be giving tips to abusers.  However this really grated:

But I personally am finding it difficult to see how someone could write like this and not expect some kind of repercussions. Now, I am sure, Google searches of Benjie Beer will bear the mark of this incident for years to come.

She goes on:

The author claims he is simply following in the tradition of the greats before him, which is a bit concerning seeing as we are discussing a short story posted on a blog by an undergraduate, and not the work of Anthony Burgess, Benjie compares his narrative to Lolita and A Clockwork Orange, which were coincidentally, both banned for their grotesque content. If he would like to compare his short story to these pieces, then he should be prepared for a similar response.

What exactly is she arguing here?  First of all she comments unfavourably on Beer’s status as a young student, not an established writer.  She might have wanted to indicate that he doesn’t handle the issue with the required sureness of touch, that he strikes a false note.  (Though I’m not sure this should be a disciplinary matter.)  However, as she continues, it appears clear that this isn’t the issue – she implicitly condemns Burgess and Nabokov just as roundly as she condemns Beer.  Whatever you think of the story, there doesn’t seem much doubt what Beer’s intentions were.  Just over a year ago he retweeted this piece by a woman angrily addressing her assaulter.  Given that he’s clearly not some sort of Dapper Laughs fan it might have been more constructive to enter into a dialogue about the story – there are no comments beneath it – rather than report the author.

Update: Here’s a punchy response from Benjie Beer

The endless, endless tune,
Of Indy vs Yoon

Everyone agreed the campaign for Holyrood was dull, consisting of silly photo opportunities. Social media, cacophonous during the referendum and noisy during the General Election, was a dull grumble.

(An aside. Democratic politicians, like courtiers, have no dignity, nor should they. Asking for a vote is not a dignified act. The dignity is with those putting a cross on a ballot paper or counting votes.)

Counting votes in Edinburgh

Everyone agreed that the SNP would win an easy majority in Scotland’s rebarbative voting system.   And those of us who dread that referendum that is constantly going to be triggered by Brexit, Boris Johnson becoming PM, or favourable opinion polls, were depressed and anxious.  Whatever was said about this election being about taxation, education, the NHS, it was really about the constitution. Willie Rennie, the leader of the LibDems, said in the last leaders’ debate, stop threatening referendums. And received wild applause.  So perhaps it started tipping back then.

The Soviet retro front cover of The National on the eve of the election had the Nicola cult gushing. There are never enough pictures of Sturgeon for them. The heretics were WTF? Land of David Hume? Land of Billy Connolly? Was this Leader taking us to the Radiant Future and enlighten our false consciousnes with re-education camps so we obdurate Naws would share the beautiful dream of independence.

My own constituency is Edinburgh Central and I had an interesting set of candidates to choose from. All women.  Sarah Boyack, a good Labour MSP (also a cycling supporter), Alison Johnston, a good Green MSP (ditto), Ruth Davidson, a new SNP candidate and a LibDem.   My instinct was to choose Johnston, who I rate. However the Greens are officially indy.  That left Davidson and Boyack. Boyack had the better chance of beating the SNP candidate, so I chose her and Conservative for the regional vote.*

I woke up Friday morning, just about 4.   Ruth Davidson had won the seat.  3 out of the 4 Edinburgh constituency seats were going unSNP, while in Glasgow the SNP killed off Labour entirely.  As the morning wore on, it was news of a reprieve. The SNP were not in the majority and they would have to coalesce with the Greens for any pro-indy-ref legislation in Parliament. A referendum is off the cards. (Her ungracious SNP opponent refused to congratulate Davidson, as is customary.)

The SNP had run a campaign, BothVotesSNP. But indy supporting non SNPers gave their regional list votes to the more leftwards Greens. So there was rancour from the Wee Free Indies towards the SNPs, because BothVotesSNP lost possible seats for the Greens. And the SNP were scornful at Alison Johnston, a capable and likable Green MSP, for having the insolence to stand in Edinburgh Central, forgetting her proper role should be the SNP’s henchman.

Meanwhile, the Greens hold the balance of power. But, as was pointed out repeatedly prior to the election, it is power they cannot use. They have been put there to support the SNP administration. If they fail to do so, they will be severely punished in 2021.

said a haughty Sneep.

The rancour between the pure Sneeps and the Wee Free Indies was a pretty sight.  Wings of Scotland, the Indy guru, was flapping and whirring.

(Wings, for the lucky people who haven’t come across him, is the unofficial guru of the indy movement and lives in Bath.)

His exchange with Limmy the comedian shows the auld art of flyting is not dead.

Limmy’s description of the Indies’s unofficial economic adviser and the model of manners to the cybernats:-

All right, I have had my fun.

There’s plenty of more sober analysis from the Indy camp about how the chance of a grab for independence has been put on hold, alas.  These well-argued, well-written articles on Common Space and Bella Caledonia don’t seem to care how damaging this polarisation of Scotland around this issue is, how much political time and energy campaigning on it takes up which could be directed to something more productive, and even no thoughts for the politicians who had a referendum in 2014, a general election in 2015, a Holyrood election in 2016, another referendum in June and there are municipal elections in 2017. The poor sods are constantly campaigning and could do with a break – and so could the electorate.

Craig Murray:-

Finally, it is not a bad thing that the Unionists are now firmly identified as the Tories. Many of them were Red Tories anyway, and all that has happened is that their allegiance has become plain. The stark choice between Independence and the Tories is now visible. It was always there, but at the referendum many did not see it. Having the Tories leading the unionist opposition simply brings the day of Independence closer. There is only one winner in that battle.

It is true that some of the rich businessmen who are part of Unionism fear the SNP as they mistakenly think they’re socialist. Socialists persuade themselves that the SNP will head leftwards, or an indy Scotland would go that way, though Scots are no happier than Southroners about paying higher taxes.  So many of us are voting against the grain of our sympathies and class interests. I’m soft Labourish/Greenish and I don’t vote Green as they’re indy.  The kind of harder left or Corbynista type who would vote Labour now vote SNP, who are Tory lite.  It’s not a natural state of affairs.

A succinct comment laid out how the SNP should act to get some left credibility (which they won’t do):-

Embrace the Greens, keep independence on the back burner, and pull the remaining Labour lefties your way. Come up with a credible economic strategy, while hammering away at the failings of the global market. Decline to be a service economy. Could be tricky, though; some of the SNP establishment only differ from the Tories as regards independence and are extremely relaxed about Peter Mandelson too.

Adam Tomkins, Unionist guru and now a regional MSP in Glasgow is more optimistic:-

Riding both horses at once has been a hallmark of SNP success, but that is about to become a more difficult trick to pull off. Which way will Nicola Sturgeon’s new administration jump?

In her speech from Bute House yesterday there was – intriguingly – something for everyone. A nod to the Tories on education reform; a nod to the Greens on climate change; and a nod to Labour on welfare. Is that how the First Minister plans to run her government – seeking support from different parties on different issues, or will the SNP finally have to choose where it sits on the left-right spectrum? The former course may make for incoherence and indecision, but the latter risks fracturing the coalition that the SNP is.

I am not that hopeful that the Indy vs Yoon-tune will cease to be the national anthem. And those poorest in the country who left Labour to vote SNP?   I doubt if much will be done for them. Let them wave saltires.

*Some in these parts will be outraged I voted Labour with the Corbynista takeover and the anti-semitism scandals however in Scotland the Zio-media obsessive tends to be attracted to the SNP and the wilder fringes of the Nationalist movement rather than Labour.

Alec adds: to acknowledge KB Player’s success in voting for Ruth Davidson [I didn't - I voted for Sarah Boyack though I was pleased Ruth D beat the Sneep - KB] over SNP’s Alison Dickie, here is the declaration of the count. If you look carefully, you can see the precise moment Dickie’s world fell apart as she realized Davidson’s 10,399 votes were more than her 9,789.

I haven’t posted about the chavista regime in Venezuela recently, but that’s not because things there have got any better. I’ve just run out of ways to describe how abysmal the political and economic situation in that benighted country has become.

The collapse of oil prices and the failure to plan for that likelihood, combined with the utter incompetence and corruption of the regimes of Hugo Chavez and his successor Nicolas Maduro, have resulted in near-apocalyptic shortages and misery for the vast majority of the population.

Continuing in the tradition of Chavez, Maduro robotically blames the US for all of Venezuela’s problems.

(Chavez himself wisely died in 2013, when things were starting to fall apart but before they got truly awful. You may have also noticed that the International Anti-Imperialist Left is no longer singing the praises of the Bolivarian Revolution as loudly as it used to. I’ll bet Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t even bothered to call his friend El Presidente since this touching exchange two years ago.)

The Caracas Chronicles blog has been tracking Venezuela’s collapse in gruesome detail.

Although the anti-Maduro opposition won a two-thirds majority in elections to the National Assembly in December, The Washington Post reports, “a constitutional tribunal stacked with party hacks has issued annulments of every act by the new assembly, including an amnesty for scores of political prisoners.”

Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez remains imprisoned on phony charges of inciting violence.

Venezuelans have collected enough signatures on a petition to call for a recall referendum on the Maduro government, although there is no guarantee the regime and its handpicked judges will actually allow it.

Meanwhile the desperation is such that soldiers in the relatively privileged military are stealing goats for food because they don’t have enough to eat in their barracks.

This is a guest post by Phil Carmel

May 8, V.E. Day, the anniversary of the final defeat of Nazi Germany, is a national holiday across much of Europe from France in the West to Russia in the East.

Strangely though, it is not a national holiday in the UK, perhaps because Britain continued fighting in the East right up to the defeat of Japan later the same year.

I say “strangely” because, but for Britain, there would never have been a V.E. day. In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded western Poland and Britain and France declared war. Within nine months, there was no longer an independent France or indeed, an independent continental Europe, and Britain stood alone.

This war has a name: it is called World War II because ultimately, it was fought all over the world and because, in general, it was fought not just for territory but against evil. Britain could have chosen not to be involved. It was not invaded. Indeed, many on the far-right and the far-left actively campaigned for it not to be involved. They forgot their vast political differences and signed up to the Peace Pledge Union, their very own 1930’s version of the Stop the War Coalition. Their political descendants have historically opposed British membership of the European Union.

Back to WWII. While Britain chooses classic British modesty in its celebration of the defeat of Nazism, the further east you go in Europe the more bombastic and in-your-face the public displays of victory.

At some point eastwards though, this World War II we all recognise in Britain gets a different name. In Russia it is still called the Great Patriotic War as it has been for more than 70 years. This Great Patriotic War did not start in September 1939 but rather in 1941. For the then manifestation of Russia, the Soviet Union, this was a war of necessity, not of choice – not a fight against Nazism but a defence of invaded territory. Many millions of Russians died in the defence of this territory, although admittedly some of it wasn’t really their own. But as a result of the invasion by Nazi Germany of the territory of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union did not join World War II as the popular narrative goes. Rather, it simply changed sides.

The Soviet Union didn’t join World War II in 1941, because it had already joined World War II in September 1939 when it invaded eastern Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia.

You may say that the Soviet Union didn’t have a choice. That it wasn’t ready. Perhaps it was better to prepare for two years and then fight the Nazis. But then again, neither was Britain. The disarmament of the 1930s meant Britain wasn’t ready in 1939. Logically, it shouldn’t have joined in. Logically, it shouldn’t have started the war against the Nazis. Perhaps, like the Soviet Union, it should have joined in with Nazi Germany. Logically, it should have pulled out after the defeat of France in 1940. Thank God it didn’t.

It is because Britain went in unprepared in 1939 and continued alone through 1940 and most of 1941, that the rest of Europe – and Vladimir Putin’s Russia – can celebrate May 8.

By the way, the Great Patriotic War didn’t fully end on May 8, 1945 either. It ended in 1989 and 1990 when the Berlin Wall came down and those European countries invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939, while it was fighting on the same side as the Nazis, finally received their freedom. And when those other countries suppressed by the Soviet Union as from May 8, 1945 finally also received theirs.

But one’s perspective on this narrative should not just be a history lesson. It remains critical today because it is the same fault line that divides democratic left and undemocratic left – why the former always believes in fighting totalitarianism while the latter so often excuses it when it comes from what it believes to be the left. And why the former still believes that racism and antisemitism and fascism somehow cannot really come from the left.

Recently, I was given a guided tour of the Museum of Ukraine’s History of the Second World War in Kyiv. Until very recently, it was called the Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War.

There is a similar museum in Moscow. Maybe it too will one day change its name.