To wonder who left wing Jews should vote for?

[LemonyTicket]

I had this chat with my adult kids tonight as as left wing Jews, we've got no idea who we will vote for.

We don't really agree with Tory economic ideas, we believe in equitable distribution of resources. We appreciate Tories are generally supportive of Jews, but find they're hostile to other minorities. Maybe I could bring myself to vote Tory if there was a milder option, like John Major, but I don't think I could vote for this lot.

We think the left is in the thralls of an antisemitic nervous breakdown to a point of being a very uncomfortable, so that's a deal breaker for us. And while we're extremely socially liberal, we think the stuff has gone a bit far and basic common sense has left the building.

Who will you be voting for?

Same here, the subtle stuff is far worse for me.

It's like any abuse.

Being punched in the face is horrible, but no one is going to gaslight you over it or debate that punching you in the face isn't abuse.

It's the more subtle, get in your head, DARVO nonsense that sends you mad.

There has been so much of that on Mumsnet, which shows how prevalent it is in society in general.

I’ve nothing sensible to add here as I’m a Scottish Jew so vote SNP/Alba/one of the other independence type parties as I really believe that’s the best way forward for Scotland; but I’m following with interest as the issues being discussed will still effect the Jewish community up here. Scotland hasn’t voted Tory in like 20 years, so we never feel represented in Westminster anyway :(

I’m really interested in what the previous Hindi poster said and why the Tories manage to ‘do’ multiculturalism so much better despite (or because?!) of their very capitalist agenda. If only we could bottle some of that and give it to Labour

Exactly

I am Indian and not Hindu. My background is similar to Suella Braverman, and ( I think?) I disagree with what she was saying. I am left wing too, but it does irritate me when people say all the Brown people in the Cabinet are ' traitors'.To what? Why are Black and Brown people not allowed to have an opinion based on their own background and beliefs? Do they say that Gillian Keegan is a Class traitor because she didn't go to university? Black and Brown people have agency themselves outside of their race. They can also decide for themselves what party they want to belong to without looking themselves in the mirror all the time, or because they are Uncle Tom's or Coconuts or in thrall to their colonial overloads. I think that is the difference, sadly. I do think a PP that said the Left idealise people they think should be oppressed on very Black and white lines. Black/ Brown/ Working Class oppressed, White people the oppressors. I think that does come from Marxist ideology, which was, let's face it, some wealthy middle class blokes theorising about how they were going to rely on other people ( the poor working class) to rise up and smash the system. They didn't want to dirty their hands doing it themselves. Now I think the Tories see ' people like us' and ' people not like us' rather than race, whereas Labour see PoC and think they should be 'people like us'. They see the world as they think it should be rather than how it is, and if it is not how it should be its because of ' people not like us' which include wealthy Jews and yes, Hindus. And if you are an anti immigrant Brown person, you can't be an anti immigrant Brown person. You must be oppressed into doing it. I know from my own family that many Asians are fairly right wing and, yes, anti immigrant, because Brown people arent all the same. My dad was a dyed in the wool Marxist. It was basically a dirty little secret in our family. I had to fight my mother to have that bit of his life put into his eulogy when he died because it was an embarrassment to the family, but one of my memories was standing in Brixton trying to sell the Socialist Worker with him. At his funeral his sister said ' Oh your Daddy was always ringing me and telling me not to vote Tory' when we thought he had long forgotten that part of his life. Many people of Indian origin are Islamophobic in the true sense of the word. Many people who have escaped persecution want immigration restrictions because they don't want people who persecuted them living next to them because someone who lives miles away thinks they should all get on. If 2 million Palestinians came to the UK and I was Jewish, I would not feel safe at all. That's just my morning brain dump. The previous Hindu poster may disagree from her experience.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyTXa5SI96n/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Labour look pretty supportive of Israel to me.

Labour and ' the left' are two different things. I eoukd say they are now Social Democratic. They have never been purely socialist. They were formed partly out of the Quaker movement.

It's the bigotry of low expectations mixed in with oikophobia, it is rife among the vocal online left. Look at the rhetoric when Labour lost the red wall, at the next election there will be no crys of racists and uneducated when it inevitably turns back to red.

Some just view it all through a team good guy/bad guy lens and extrapolate from there

Anti zionism, standing up against war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli government is not antisemitism. I absolutely condemn Hamas barbaric attacks , full stop no justification. Equally weaponizing water and collective punishment are war crimes. I absolutely believe that right wing government is deliberately trying to mix.anti semitic and anti zionist. We need more humanity

Agree.

Who have you voted for previously?

One thing I don't see discussed enough is that I think a lot of Left wing antisemitism around Israel stems from a generally anti-religious stance that actually fails to understand religion or what it can mean in people's lives.

I've encountered very little antisemitism in my life, but a lot of very determined anti-religious stances, including from friends. People will, with no sense of irony say things like 'All religious people are bigots'. I try to explain to people that being 'a religious person' isn't always what they expect, religion doesn't always fit into people's lives as a dogma of faith and it's possible to, for example, observe your religion as a cultural and spiritual tradtion and not belief in a deity.

When it comes to Israel I'm fairly sure that many people on the Left misconstrue the conflict as 'Stupid religious people killing each other because God said so', and while religion may be at the root of the conflict, it's continuation isn't because Muslims inherently hate Jews or Jews inherently hate Muslims, it's geopolitical and it's because of the actions of the leadership of both sides. Most Israelis are irreligious as hell and they don't believe that God says they should have Israel. They fight for it because it is their home after millennia without a home. Palestinians fight for Palestine because it is their home. But I think many on the Left think it's 'stupid religion stuff', and thus why they focus on Israel and not the other occupying regimes around the world. So it's not anti-Jewishness so much as a knee-jerk problem with 'religion'

Not sure there's currently a UK political party I fully support but will vote for whoever can beat our local Tory MP. Where I live, that won't be Labour. Like OP I want an equitable distribution of resources. I really dislike Labour's new attitude to migrants (trying to appease the bigots) and their purge of the left but I'd take them over the Tories. I don't think it's my place to comment on zionism v anti-semitism as I'm not Jewish or Israeli, but as a Catholic atheist of Irish descent I appreciate the complexities.

Very informative thread thank you

@LemonyTicket ,I am surprised you think no time has been spent by the Labour Party on increasing awareness of antisemitism. Are you saying you do not think Labour’s new anti semitism training, new anti semitism complaints procedures and other measures drawn up in the action plan in response to the The Equality and Human Rights Commission report on antisemitism in the Labour Party report has any value?

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Labour-Party-EHRC-Action-Plan.pdf

I think the way they have gone about it @Crispedia has egged on left wing antisemitism. I think they have almost been complicit in creating the idea of a secret plot of Jews to overthrow Jeremy Corbyn.

I am frankly terrified by the left in this country right now. A big chunk of them are so utterly full of hate to Jews it makes me feel ill to be honest. There are people here who have been bullying me for days because I have spoken up. They are fixated!

To be fair, I don't think there is anything anyone can do about those people in terms of re-education. They don't trust the Labour leadership, they have barely concealed disdain for Starmer to the point where if Labour somehow manage to throw the election away, I have no doubt they woukd celebrate mire than the Tories. There is no way on earth they would listen to anything he had to say. All Labour can do is put procedures in place and enforce and implement them.

Just to offer support. It’s been a tough watch over last week or so

@LemonyTicket I’m sorry to hear that, thanks for your reply.

Briefly (sorry illness prevents me writing much), when you say Left are you meaning far Left? Thanks.

Disclosure- I count myself as Left.

Hamas don't want peace and justice. They want to kill Jews and ensure Islamic dominance. That is where the left stumble - in seeing the cold hard truth of some things.

@LemonyTicket , I fully agree that about Hamas. Impossible to deal with when they wish Israel not to exist. I believe Israel has the right to exist and defend itself. I think Netanyahu and his right wing governments since 2009 not interested in restarting any peace process and working towards a Palestinian state which to be fair is impossible with Hamas in Gaza. Whether Netanyahu would be if Fatah (I know corrupt but recognise Israel) governed both Gaza and areas of West Bank I am not so sure. The increase in Jewish West Bank settlements are v problematic.

I count myself as left too. I'm not really sure what far left means, but the die hard socialist crowd used to include me and my family and all four of us have left and feel completely unable to participate because the antisemitism is quite bad.

The more centre left don't seem to share these sorts of ideas. But we found my son had to leave his university socialist society for example as they're all sort of transfixed with this bizarre notion of evil zionists.

We did try talking to them, and got abuse hurled at us. So now we've just left

I think Netanyahu is a right wing lunatic....

When I studied politics a million years ago, the spectrum was Far Left ( Stalin/Mao), Hard Left ( British Socialists eg Militant, Momentum, SWP etc) Centre Left, (probably the current Labour Party) Centre right( probably Camerons Cons), hard Right ( braverman etc) and Far Right (Obviously fascists, Britain First etc. Its more a circle than a line, so centrist have some things in common, but at the other end the Far Right and the Far Left are just as murderous. The brackets are my guesses so just my opinion. Ironically Islamists are pretty far Right but get supported by the Hard/Far Left.

If we are delving into political theory, then both left and right place the needs of the state above the needs of the individual. It matters not a bit if a million people need to die, if it makes the state (cf. "the Fatherland") stronger.

I do think that Starmer has mended a lot of fences and I certainly couldn't countenance the idea of voting Tory - I am in a majority Labour area anyway though and I do have an MP who I admire as really making an effort to represent her local area so it's easy for me to be fair. That being said, none of us are entitled to be sole representative of all Jewish people so that's merely my own opinion.

The reality is, the right of the Labour Party are ruthless as fuck and will do anything for power and control of the party. If that means weaponising anti-semitism they'll do it in a heartbeat.

The Tories are also ruthless as fuck which is why for the best part of 50 years the Tories and the Labour Right have run the country.