Early in the election campaign, I visited Jewish Care. Unsurprisingly, questions focused on relations between Labour and the community. Even social care policy played second fiddle.
Afterwards, I was called over to speak to a group who wanted to chat privately. That was my first of many exchanges with “shy Jewish Labour voters”. They thanked me for standing and promised me their votes; but they didn’t want their friends to find out. For some, the issue was Theresa’s May “dementia tax” and my opponent’s failure to speak out on refugee issues like the Dubs Amendment. One wanted to reward Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London.
Shy Jewish Labour voters kept popping up. They wouldn’t put up posters (one feared a brick through the window). Some ushered me inside because they couldn’t say what they wanted on the doorstep. Jewish students came to canvass away from their home turf to avoid knocking on doors of family friends. While I received a warm welcome at the Progressive shuls I visited, less predictably I was dragged away from the fishballs at Kinloss United by shy Labour Jews who were backing me in spite of (and because of) their shul chairman’s endorsement of my opponent.
The Labour vote could not have grown in the “bagel belt” of Hendon, Finchley and Golders Green and Chipping Barnet by the margins that it did without a significant increase in Labour votes from Jews. These seats showed increased Labour votes in the most concentrated Jewish polling districts.
Clearly many, perhaps most, Jewish voters were lost because of concerns around antisemitism and feelings that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t share our understanding of the problem. But the emerging theme from those conversations with shy Jewish Labour voters indicated a trend missed by some communal leaders and “experts” out of touch with the lives of ordinary Jewish people. Jews across London have also been hurt by school cuts. Jews across London are relying upon a crumbling NHS. Jews across London are getting by on benefits and hit by lack of affordable housing.
Jewish interests like antisemitism, Israel, shechita and so on, matter. But increasingly, Jewish values like protecting the vulnerable and a fairer future for our children, coupled with the impact of the cuts also determine where Jewish votes go. Perhaps we should also ask what it says about the state of communal discourse that some voters are too shy to talk about it
Jeremy Newmark stood for Labour in the Finchley and Golders Green constituency
