There was something depressingly familiar in the antics of Birmingham council.
Like death and taxes, it seems almost certain that politicians in Britain’s second city will have a deranged obsession with Israel.
One might assume that the new coalition governing the city might have a fair amount in the in-tray they want to be cracking on with.
There is the small matter of the bin strike, which has been ongoing since March year and at the time of writing is still unresolved.
With reports of rats as big as cats terrorising the city’s residents, you’d think this would be a top priority for a new administration that may want to differentiate itself from its predecessor.
The largest local authority in Europe only emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year, so surely generating growth and investment in the city – and creating local jobs – would be a top priority for the new administration.
However, it seems that the new coalition governing the city – an alliance of the Liberal Democrats, Green Party and local independent groupings – would much rather opine about Israel and voted for a motion, labelled sectarian by critics, which opens the door to divestment from the Jewish state.
Chants of “free Palestine” erupted from the council chamber as it passed by a significant margin of 54 to 19 votes, with Labour councillors voting alongside their Green, Lib Dem and independent rivals to blast the Jewish state.
Birmingham council insisted that the motion wasn’t singling out Israel and that following amendments the motion also covered “conflicts in Ukraine, Congo, United Emirates [sic] and Sudan”. However, to the surprise of no-one, it was Palestine that the mob was chanting about.
Native Brummie Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary, shared a video of councillors chanting “free Palestine” from the council chamber, along with the caption: “Is this Ramallah? Gaza City?
“No, it’s Birmingham. Where bins go uncollected, more than a quarter of the adult population is economically inactive, and the benefits bill is higher than anywhere else in the country.
“I will never tire in fighting this disgusting sectarianism.”
When the latest actions of this new chapter of Birmingham politics opened up last week, I can’t say I was particularly surprised.
As JC Political Editor, I’ve exposed the falsehoods peddled by authorities in Birmingham about fans of Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The cover-ups, falsehoods and denials were told to hide a simple truth: that there was more of a danger to the Israeli fans travelling to Birmingham by extremists than there was posed by the travelling Maccabi fans.
So I can’t say I’m surprised by the Israel Derangement Syndrome that grips Birmingham politics.
But here’s the awkward truth: even though Labour is now in opposition in the city, a lot of the stories involving deranged attitudes to Israel involve their people.
The party has notably often failed to take substantial action against such views.
One senior Labour local figure earlier this year spoke about “conspiratorial” views about Israel being widespread in the party in the area and blasted the “pandering” to extremists in order to attempt to win votes.
Bushra Bi, a former Labour councillor who has since defected to the Greens, was forced to apologise for suggesting that Sir Keir Starmer was biased in favour of Israel because his wife was Jewish.
The conspiratorial talk about Israel predates October 7 and subsequent conflict with Hamas. The previous Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Zafar Iqbal, in 2016 shared a post on Facebook by American white supremacist David Duke on social media.
The video linked CNN, Goldman Sachs & the “Zio Matrix” with a description claiming the clip “reveals how the Zionist Matrix of Power controls Media, Politics and Banking”.
The mayor apologised for sharing it, saying he had “no recollection” of doing so. He was allowed to remain a Labour councillor despite criticism from the Board of Deputies.
This isn’t just a matter confined to a particular wing of the Labour Party.
Jewish communal organisations generally have a favourable view of Shabana Mahmood’s performance as home secretary when it comes to her willingness to call out Islamist extremism and understanding of the threats posed to Britain’s Jews.
But in the not too distant past she herself was indulging in extreme anti-Israel politics and what was called “mob rule”.
In 2014, then as now MP for Birmingham Ladywood, Mahmood posed for a video online boasting about shutting down a supermarket during the conflict that year between Israel and Hamas.
“I was with 200 activists outside Sainsbury’s in the centre of Birmingham,” she said at the time.
“We lay down in the street and we laid down inside Sainsbury’s to say we object to them stocking goods from illegal settlements – and that they must stop. We managed to close down that store at peak time on a Saturday. This is how we can make a difference.”
What did surprise me about Birmingham Labour’s actions was that they came so quickly after some of the city’s MPs seemed to break with the Israel-obsessing past, and actually robustly spoke up against the Green Party’s embrace of a motion equating Zionism with racism.
But Labour could do with looking inwards as well.
In Birmingham, as in other places up and down the country, why is it that local politicians devote so much time and resource to Israel, rather than dealing with the agenda of local issues that voters want addressed?
It seems that while Labour MPs are happy to call out the Greens on sectarianism, Andy Burnham’s party also has questions of its own to answer over pandering to grievances about foreign conflicts in order to win votes.
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