Do Britain’s Liberal Democracts care about evidence and free speech?
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
In a brave statement in openDemocracy, eight Liberal Democrats speak out – unhappily but firmly – against their Party’s willingess to exploit allegations of leftwing and Labour antisemitism against all the evidence.
This article was originally published by openDemocracy on Mon 16 Sep 2019. Read the original here.
Lib Dem members: party line on Labour anti-Semitism is ‘ill-judged and uncritical'
Party group call for Lib Dem leadership to distance itself from Labour anti-Semitism ‘smear campaign’.
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Sense at last particularly the comment about Corbyn !
I’ve never known the LibDems to play fair, probably because their policies are just watered down Conservatism these days so they have nothing much of substance to say, but they used to have a lot of nasty far right people involved in the old Liberal days.
The above is a bit rich coming from a party whose leader was a cheerleader for Tory austerity and which has admitted a bunch of chancers and bigots from Labour and the Tories. As if playing fair on Labour ‘antisemitism’ will make them look better…
Dave, I find your comment extraordinarily small and sectarian. Eight Lib Dems have defied their party leadership and risked the anger of fellow party members in order to do what is right by their own individual consciences – – and you accuse them of simply trying to “look better”.
Thank you for printing this letter. There are honest people everywhere.
Comforting to know that there are courageous and principled people in the LIB DEM unlike their leadership. I think Jo Swinton is going to be the worst LIB Dem leader. She’s too power hungry.
No surprises here! As is well documented “The Antisemitism Wars” (edited by Karl Sabbagh), on 26th October 2016 the Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Jenny Tonge chaired a pro-Palestine meeting in Parliament which was subsequently attacked as having been anti-Semitic. Who led the attack? Four Liberal Democrat peers WHO HAD NOT EVEN ATTENDED. Fortunately the meeting was filmed so the House of Lords’ investigator soon established that the accusations were groundless. (Incidentally it was also established that the contributor, speaking from the floor, whose views were alleged to be anti-Semitic, was a member of Neturi Karta.)
Tonge was forced out of the Liberal Democrats.
So when those MPs most strident in their defamatory accusations against Labour decided to jump ship it was obvious where they would find a warm welcome.
The Liberal Democrats present a crystal-clear example of the corrupting influence of imperialist ideas on those priding themselves on their high-minded morality.
Despite the Liberal Democrat’s opportunism and appalling record of backing a Tory austerity government which led directly to our present crises and the suffering (and deaths) of thousands I welcome this statement by the eight. They highlight the total lack of democracy and curb on free speech in their party. It seems to reflect very clearly our own Blairite wing of the LP. Undoubtedly our own leadership needed to have taken a firm stand against the political weaponisation of antisemitism from the very start. But any stand now against this cynical play with any form of racism for political advancement is to be welcomed. The Establishment has long used racism to divide and rule. Austerity is a misnomer. It actually means an attack on the working class. Antisemitism used by the LIb Dem leadership to attack the progressive policies of Labour is part of that attack.
The LD leadership is appalling in its use of second/third hand smears of Jeremy Corbyn concerning AS. Swinson and others are repeating the lies of the MSM without any evidence to justify their allegations. I fully support and stand by Corbyn with his excellent record of fighting AS all his life!!!
Jonathan, I respect your stand against fake antisemitism but you cannot or choose not to divorce yourself from the rest of the toxicity of the LibDems. You are posting here on a socialist site and that’s just not you. Remove the fake issue and what remains is real.