At the Liverpool Labour Party Conference, Jeremy Corbyn quoted a 19th-century Chartist (a member of a movement to gain political rights for workers, including universal male suffrage, which flourished in England between 1838 and 1848; for more see here), one Ernest Jones, on the subject of workers who, according to Corbyn, “know the reality and injustice of their position.”
Jeremy Corbyn sparked a fresh anti-Semitism storm by using his [Labour Party] conference speech to praise a Jew-hating left-wing poet and a friend who once compared Israel to Nazis.
[Jeremy Corbyn] used his Liverpool set piece to quote poetry from 19th century Chartist Ernest Jones. Quoting a stanza by Jones [Corbyn] said: “And what we get, and what we give, We know, and we know our share; We’re not too low the cloth to weave, But too low the cloth to wear.”
And he added: “He [Jones] was making the point that workers know the reality and injustice of their position.
One assumes Corbyn did not know that Ernest Jones was, in the words of his biographer, “a liar, a cheat, an antisemite, a racist bigot,” but why didn’t he take the trouble to find out? It’s a little like his not bothering to find out who was buried in that Tunisian cemetery where he took part — he says he didn’t realize who was buried there — in a ceremony honoring dead Black September terrorists. Corbyn so often doesn’t seem to care. Due diligence is not his strong suit.
It takes an impressive hypocrisy for Corbyn to now quote lines about the plight of ill-paid workers. His wife, Laura Alvarez, has for the past few years claimed to be importing “fair trade” coffee beans into the U.K. from Mexico. They are advertised as ”fair trade” because the growers are supposedly paid “fair” amounts for their coffee. But it turns out Corbyn’s wife is as much an exploiter as anyone, though claiming the very opposite. The farmers receive only 93 p. for the 500 grams of coffee for which Laura Alvarez charges her customers 10 pounds. Those farmers live in small shacks, in terrible conditions, some of them sleeping in the factory to guard against thieves, others having to rise at 4 a.m. to start work early. All of them are paid miserably, below the Mexican poverty line. The full story is here.
And there is one other thing to ponder. Laura Alvarez sells her coffee out of the North London home she shares with Jeremy Corbyn. This is the home for which he is paid a housing allowance as a Member of Parliament. Should a private, for-profit business be operated out of Corbyn’s home? Does his wife pay rent to him for the part of the house she uses for the business? If she does, shouldn’t that be deducted from his government housing allowance? And if not, then isn’t she getting rent-free what he is paid for, as his primary residence, by the government?
Mr Corbyn also praised Uri Avnery as his “great Israeli friend” in a bid to quell the antisemitism storm that has rocked Labour Party.
But the late writer sparked fury in 2009 by comparing the actions of Israeli politics to the rise of Adolf Hitler – a slur considered antisemitic by the official definition adopted by the Labour Party.
For nearly his whole adult life Uri Avnery was an extreme “peacenik,” who famously was the first Israeli to meet with Yasser Arafat, whom he went to see in Beirut. He was one of those anti-Israel Israelis who for decades parroted the “Palestinian” line and had little sympathy for his own country’s travails. Unsurprisingly, he had no understanding of, nor interest in, Islam. No wonder Corbyn claims Avnery as his”great Israeli friend.”
Mr Corbyn had hoped to use his big speech to reset relations with the Jewish community – saying he was their “ally”.
But he risked further controversy by saying the summer had been “tough” for the party because “row over antisemitism” rather than face the issue directly.
Mr Corbyn said the issue had caused “immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party” as he addressed the problem in his conference speech.
He appealed to the Jewish community to help him “draw a line under it” – but he stopped short of apologising.
Last night Tory MP Andrew Percy said: “You couldn’t make it up. As long as Jeremy Corbyn is leader, it seems anti-Jewish racism will be given a free pass in the Labour party.”
MP Andrew Percy is right. Corbyn has not apologized, nor will he ever, except obliquely and begrudgingly, for his own antisemitism or that of his most rabid followers, waving their Palestinian flags. His “anti-Jewish racism” (as Andrew Percy no doubt knew, that is a stronger formulation than “antisemitism,” and one more likely to cut to the quick the likes of “anti-racism” campaigner Corbyn). Corbyn’s choice of the Chartist poet to quote, one who happened to have been a virulent antisemite, bespeaks an extreme carelessness — that lack of due diligence mentioned above — that is worrisome. As for invoking the name of Uri Avnery, again there is a carelessness — because anyone who is unfamiliar with Uri Avnery would soon discover that for decades he’s been the most pro-Palestinian of Israeli peace activists. “Some of my best friends” — as Corbyn is so awkwardly semaphoring “to my Jewish friends” by mentioning Avnery — “are pro-Palestinian Jews.”
Corbyn is off to a comically clumsy start. Let’s hope he keeps it up. The next general election is scheduled for May 5, 2022. But even if Theresa May can’t make a dignified exit from the E.U. and doesn’t survive a vote of no-confidence, which would move up the date of that general election, there’s still time to bring him down. This mediocre man has come surprisingly far with his banal bolshevism (which coexists — he fails to see the irony — with his wife’s exploitation of impoverished Mexican workers) and his standard-issue antisemitism, masquerading as indignation over the “plight” of the “Palestinians.” There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip. Let us hope that Jeremy Corbyn, who’s been slipping morally for many years, now slips politically as well. And during one of his pratfalls, someone far better, possibly Tom Watson, currently second in the Labour Party, a man of honor and common sense, will be able to step forward in Corbyn’s place.