Opinion
Westminster council adopted the IHRA antisemitism definition, why won't Labour?
Nickie Aiken says her council will do 'what we can to expose the insidious rise in anti-Jewish feeling'
August 1, 2018 15:09
2 min read
Nickie Aiken says her council will do 'what we can to expose the insidious rise in anti-Jewish feeling'
August 1, 2018 15:09As the leader of a council with one of the highest proportions of Jewish residents in the country, I find the rise of antisemitic feeling in the UK deeply ominous.
Even in Westminster – with its diverse population, home to the Pride procession and Regent’s Park Mosque, a borough which has united in the face of terrorist attacks – we are not immune. There have been 48 antisemitic hate crimes in Westminster in the year to May 2018 – that’s increase of 45 per cent on the previous 12 months.
Antisemitism is of course nothing new. Nationally, we have seen reports over the years of gravestones attacked, Nazi graffiti daubed on walls and poisonous notes sent to Jewish people.
Traditionally, the shadowy penumbra of the far right was the home of this kind of nastiness. On the margins of politics, these people peddled their familiar tropes of world financial conspiracy and Holocaust denial in a self-sustaining echo chamber.
Several factors are creating a sinister new landscape which has allowed antisemitism to be revitalised. As a Conservative politician you will regard me as pre-engaged, but it is surely beyond doubt that sections of the Labour Party now regard an anti-Israel stance as the proper posture of a far left party.
At its heart is the conviction that the foundation of Israel is itself a crime, a belief which appears to be metastasizing into full-blown antisemitism in some quarters.
Moderate Labour MPs are harangued if they raise this. Condemnation from the leader’s office is reluctantly extracted and tinged with the weasel word patina of “condemning all hatred everywhere”.
Social media is the second element injecting an unpleasant vigour into proceedings. Both the alt-right and far left are equally culpable when it comes to showering political moderates with abuse. To challenge the shrill new orthodoxy about Israel is to have abuse rain down on you in a constant firestorm.
The reality of antisemitism is wearily familiar to London’s Jews, if not to others. I visited St John’s Wood Synagogue earlier this year and was shocked by the fact the congregation is protected by heavily fortified wire fences and security staff – just to safeguard their right to worship and enjoy community events. Is this something we should accept as just ”the way it is”?
In Westminster, we will keep doing what we can to expose the insidious rise in anti-Jewish feeling.
Westminster City Council passed a motion to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, bravely backed by Westminster Labour councillors who ignored their national leadership’s refusal to adopt the same code.
I have served with Jewish councillors over the years and have good Jewish friends. All believe there is a common sense distinction between criticising Israel’s Government of the day and questioning the right of Israel to exist. I have always encountered that pragmatic approach among Jewish people I meet, right back to the period I spent as a young gentile woman on a kibbutz in Afula.
We need to ensure this common sense and decency prevail above insidious and doctrinaire beliefs. That means stripping away the ideological cloak that so often masks the new antisemitism, exposing it for the crude racism it is.
Nickie Aiken is a Conservative councillor and leader of Westminster City Council
