Originally, I thought Corbyn was a nice man but....until I saw his behaviour at the Chakrabarti Report press conference. When one of his pals harangued Ruth Smeeth, he just. stood there like a pillock until Shami intervened. And then was filmed sharing a joke with the activist after Ruth Smeeth had left the meeting in tears.
Since then I've been following his handling of the A-S problem v closely. The line put out by his close circle has always been that complaints were made up to smear JC. Anti-Semitism denial, if you like. This is McCluskey's position. Livingstone said the same and so didJackie Walker, whose own case has now dragged on for nearly 3 years. And recently there's been Chris Williamson, who was only suspended when the PLP kicked up a. fuss..
And who's in charge of the investigations? Jennie Formby, who was once in a relationship with McCluskey and had a child with him. Her handling of complaints has been so dodgy that the EHRC has taken up the case. They knew about the chair of Luciana Berger's CLP for 6 months before the deselection attempt. Nothing had been done. If that's not institutional anti-Semitism, what is?
The NEC were on the verge of accepting the international definition of
A-S when Corbyn produced a sheet of A4 as an amendment, which effectively nullified what they'd agreed to. Fortunately, the NEC voted it down.
Corbyn's problem is he is so entrenched in the Palestinian cause that he actually agrees with the premise that Israel should never have been created and that the Palestinians have the Right to Return. Remember that one of the stated aims of Hamas is still to drive the Israelis out of Israel. The example he disagreed with was one which said it was anti-semitic to describe the foundation of the State of Israel - by the UN - as 'a racist endeavour'. A lot of Corbyn's friends would have fallen foul of that.
He meets with Hamas and Hezbollah. He appeared as a paid presenter on Iranian state TV. Why does he never meet with the Israelis? Why did he never meet Paisley during the Troubles?
Don't be fooled by his manifesto. They only laid out Phase One - and I don't think it said much about his foreign policy. He's anti-NATO. He thinks that it should have been disbanded when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. If I lived in one of the Baltic States or Ukraine, I wouldn't fancy my chances if Corbyn got his way. Given a choice between supporting the West or supporting Russia, Corbyn will always take Russia's side. Look what happened with Syria. Has he ever condemned Assad and Russia for bombing that UN convoy or the gassing of civilians?
So I don't think he's a nice man now. At all.