• Brexit

    Ten reasons we should compromise and consider taking the Norwegian option, by Alan Johnson

    ‘Norway is not a member of the EU but it is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), and therefore the EU’s single market. Having a deal like Norway’s means joining the EEA and having almost the same level of tariff- and barrier-free trade with EU countries as we have now, plus the ability to strike our own trade deals with non-EU countries. It also means accepting a significant proportion of EU law, including the “four freedoms”— the free movement of goods, services, people and capital.’ (Full Fact, the UK’s Independent Factchecking Charity) ‘The concept of compromise is not particularly in vogue, especially among young idealists. This is because it is perceived as an…

  • United Nations

    Nikki Haley will be dearly missed

    This is a guest post by Grayson Slover Earlier this week it was announced that UN Ambassador Nikki Haley will resign her post, taking effect at the end of this year. President Trump, who praised Haley’s work and emphasized that she was leaving on good terms, said that he would name her successor at some point in the next several weeks. The move not only shocked experts and media pundits, but also, reportedly, came as a complete surprise to many inside the Trump administration as well. At times, Haley’s center-right foreign policy views have collided with those of others in the administration. President Trump’s consistent obfuscations on all things Russia,…

  • Islamism

    Paypal withdraws facility from War on Want

    I imagine War on Want isn’t favoured by many HP readers – and perhaps still remember their awful Christmas cards from a few years ago. Now UKLFI reports that they’ve lost their Paypal facility following allegations that they have links to a terrorist organisation, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). You can read the full story here. Hat Tip: Harvey

  • Israel,  Middle East

    Fathom 21 | ‘Understanding the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa is the key to understanding the whole Middle East conflict’: an interview with Lyn Julius

    Earlier this year Fathom’s Grant Goldberg interviewed Lyn Julius about her new book, Uprooted, which documents 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world and explains how and why that civilisation vanished in a single generation in the middle of the 20th century. Julius describes what brought Nazi Germany, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem into an alliance and how this impacted Jews in the Middle East and the formation of the State of Israel.  Grant Goldberg: What prompted you to write the book? Lyn Julius: I have a strong connection to the region. My parents arrived in Britain in 1950 as Iraqi-Jewish refugees, and throughout my…

  • Labour Party,  The Left

    How Corbynism Alienated Everyone

    This is a cross-post by John Wall In Summer 2017 Jeremy Corbyn was riding high after a better than expected election performance largely silenced his critics. He basked in the adulation at Glastonbury and predicted being in Downing Street by Christmas and cancelling the Trident replacement. A second election in 2017 may have been his best chance as the polls have subsequently stagnated but, in terms of who’d make the best PM, his ratings are below both the diminished May and Don’t Know. He’s been found out, when his far-left ideology encountered the real world, such as over Salisbury and Syria  it’s been found wanting, and his past, spent in…

  • antisemitism,  Labour Party

    Sauce for the hypocritical gander

    This is a guest post by Eve Garrard There’s a letter in yesterday’s Guardian, signed by Noam Chomsky, Ken Loach, and other luminaries, objecting to media coverage of charges that the Labour Party is institutionally antisemitic.  The signatories to the letter make the following claims: “It is of course entirely appropriate and necessary for our major news outlets to report on the horrors of antisemitism, but wrong to present it as an issue specific to the Labour party. In covering the allegations that Labour is now “institutionally antisemitic”, there have been inaccuracies, clear distortions and revealing omissions across our most popular media platforms. We believe that significant parts of the…

  • North Korea,  Trump

    DJT ♥ KJU

    I’m old enough to remember when one of the worst insults in American politics was “commie lover”– usually aimed by rightwing Republicans at liberal Democrats deemed insufficiently alarmed about the worldwide Communist menace. And just as Joe McCarthy and countless other Republicans exaggerated the Communist threat within the US and unfairly labeled liberals, there were some liberals who downplayed the horrors of Communist rule in Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba and elsewhere. So it makes my head spin a little when our Republican president unabashedly proclaims that he “fell in love” with the world’s most brutal and dangerous Communist leader. And when the reaction from his fellow Republicans is undetectable.

  • antisemitism,  Israel

    The Lynching: The anti-Israel herd at the Labour Conference yesterday

    This is a guest post by Jonathan Hoffman This is an excerpt from Jonathan’s post – you can read the piece in full here.  But this blog is not about this absurd Israel-demonising motion.  It is about the PSC’s manipulation of the delegates who voted for it and their willingness to be manipulated. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has hijacked the Labour Party and the TUC. Its Chair, Hugh Lanning, was Deputy General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), one of the largest trade unions. With many Jewish members having quit Labour and many who remain choosing to stay away from Conference, there was no-one to speak yesterday to expose the lies. Israel hate…

  • antisemitism,  The Left

    Soviet-style antisemitism funded by UK taxpayers

    This is a guest post by Jonathan Hoffman On 21 September 2018 The Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) – together with ‘Victory to the Intifada’ – held this meeting: The venue was Chadswell Healthy Living Centre near Kings Cross. This is owned by Camden Council and run by a Charity, the Kings Cross-Brunswick Neighbourhood Association (KCBNA) –  registered charity #1083901. It was clear from the notice for the meeting on Facebook that it would be antisemitic (assessed relative to the widely accepted (including by Camden) IHRA Definition).  Here is what the notice said: ‘The aim of the Zionists is to criminalise support for Palestinian resistance against Zionist occupation.’ The word ‘Zionist’ is…