A vote for the man

I was a little miffed at Angela Epstein’s article entitled "Should you vote for the man or for the party?" It seemed somewhat ironic that she began with such plaudits for a man whom she then went on to implore readers to sack. What’s more, praising Ivan Lewis’s record on social welfare, but going on to endorse a Conservative government that has cut welfare for the disabled, disqualified 18-21 year olds from claiming housing benefit and introduced the bedroom tax, is a paradox. 

Onto the actual issue that was discussed. There’s no doubt that antisemitism has come to an ugly head within the Labour party. Indeed, Mr Lewis himself has been active in accepting the problem and confronted Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on the very issue.

Clearly, what was said was not enough to convince Corbyn to take a zero-tolerance stand, as his failure to intervene with the Livingstone saga, coupled with his past dodgy ties to Hamas and Hezbollah, is quite rightly raising more than a few eyebrows in our community. In defence of the Labour leader he, rather naïvely, was adamant in retaining the democratic process in his party by accepting the independently, but perhaps questionably, selected NCC’s ruling to suspend but not expel the former London mayor. This was a weak and incoherent excuse, if you ask me.

In order to combat this properly, we need as many strong voices as possible to oppose antisemitism within the Labour party. Many non-Jewish high profile Labour politicians, including Tom Watson, Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper, and of course our beloved John Mann (just to name a few), have come out vehemently in opposing the way the Labour party has failed the Jewish community.  And it is up to great Jewish Labour MPs like Ivan, Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth to spearhead the battle in rooting out antisemitism within the Labour party.