How many Labour MPs truly fought Corbyn? - The Jewish Chronicle

My reaction to stories that Jeremy Corbyn will finally be kicked out of the Labour Party was to ask: why has it taken so long? According to The Times, “Sir Keir Starmer has been urged by his shadow cabinet to expel Jeremy Corbyn permanently after Rishi Sunak tried repeatedly to tie the Labour leader to his predecessor.”

But why are they doing it to “stifle Tory attacks”? They should be kicking him out because it is the right thing to do — and it should have happened long ago. Someone who hung around with the IRA or called Hamas and Hezbollah his friends should never have been in a mainstream political party in the first place.

With Corbyn in charge, every crank and conspiracy theorist came out of the sewers to support him, antisemitism poisoned the party and Jewish female MPs were chased out by racist bullies.

Keir Starmer’s first act should have been to boot him out as soon as he became leader. Instead, his team now briefs the papers that they might finally get round to it after almost three years.

The background is that Corbyn remains a Labour member but sits as an independent MP because he lost the whip after his appalling response to the EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party.

Starmer points to the removal of the whip as evidence of courageous and determined leadership. What actually happened was that Corbyn was suspended from membership, a panel was swiftly organised to consider the issue and the suspension was lifted. Corbyn’s supporters claim they had struck a deal with the leadership to get him readmitted. That sounds credible because the panel could not have been organised so quickly without the leadership’s agreement.

The Jewish community was furious, at least one MP threatened to quit and Starmer then removed the whip.

The whispered briefings suggest they are about to resolve the issue, but why can’t they get on with it? All the better if it provokes a row and other hard left members leave with him. At least the public might notice that he is trying to rid the party of a leader they rejected so overwhelmingly.

Millions of people like me voted Labour all our lives but turned away in disgust as the hard left poisoned the party. I regard myself as Labour and of course would want a Labour government but it is very difficult to reconcile oneself to the Corbyn years and the people who enabled it all.

Anyway, it is easy to stand up to Corbyn now he is no longer the leader. But why could they not do it when Corbyn was in charge?

In 2018, the Jewish community finally lost patience and organised a rally to say “Enough is Enough” outside Parliament. Just 30 Labour MPs supported the protest. Keir was not one of them.

Later, Tom Watson organised a letter demanding that Chris Williamson should not be allowed back into the Parliamentary Party. A hundred MPs and Peers added their names, but the only member of the shadow cabinet to sign was Tom himself.

If you were a Labour MP but didn’t cross the road to join the rally or sign Tom’s letter, can you really say you fought to rid Labour of anti-Jewish racism under Corbyn?

This is why Ruth Smeeth was completely right in the Labour leadership election in 2020 to say that “no currently serving member of the Shadow Cabinet deserves our vote … They chose to sit by when we needed them to stand up.”

Ruth has spent decades in public service, fighting racism and working for all sorts of good causes. But setting all that aside, just for standing up to racism in the Labour Party she more than deserves her peerage.

Others — like Keir Starmer — served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, supported his leadership and campaigned to make him Prime Minister. As late as February 2019, Keir Starmer said: “I do think Jeremy Corbyn would make a great Prime Minister”.

And even after the election defeat, he attacked those who campaigned against him, saying: “The attacks on Jeremy Corbyn were terrible, they vilified him, and they knew what they were doing and why they were doing it.”

There are even people who actually nominated Corbyn to be leader now serving in senior positions in the Shadow Cabinet.

But of course we are expected to believe that, from Keir Starmer down, they were all resolutely opposed to Corbyn’s leadership and strained every sinew to fight antisemitism and extremism.

Here’s a deal: I’ll stop pointing out that they didn’t do anything much to stand up to Corbyn, if they stop pretending they did.

Topics:

Labour Party