New Statesman: Luciana Berger's Diary - Saying goodbye to Labour, outpourings of support and pineapple pitta at Nando's

Parliament debated anti-Semitism on 20 February. In the year since British Jews protested outside parliament against racism in Labour, things have got worse, not better. People with #JC4PM in their bios target Jewish Labour MPs, councillors and active members with the worst kind of images and language. And yet, the party’s leadership has stood idly by.

...

One of our ambitions as independents is to alter our political culture. We want to leave behind the bullying, intimidation and tribalism. The vicious reaction of some Labour MPs proves our point. The air has been filled with words such as “scab”, “traitor” and “betrayal”. The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, talked about crushing us. This kind of old politics really puts people off, and certainly says more about the people shouting the insults than those on the receiving end.
Judging from comments on Chuka Umunna's and Luciana Berger's Facebook pages, there seems to be quite a lot of cynicism about the formation of The Independent Group (and indeed anti-Semitic bullying, e.g. a recent comment from someone with a Labour Party banner amongst his FB page photos telling her to "go to Israhell") but from what I have seen of interviews with them (there are quite a few now on YouTube) they seem genuine to me.

yet the official figures do not support what Berger is saying so she's telling porkies.

Figures are shown here and with nearly 600,000 members it's minimal and can not possibly labeled "institutional".

# Apparently Margaret Hodge made about 200 complaints but only about 6 were actually Labour members.

They have no way of knowing if people on Twitter, Facebook etc are genuine Labour supporters so I reckon this whole thing has almost run it's course.

Since Chuka Umunna etc left I think they actually now come across as a bunch of lightweights and seem destined for obscurity.


www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47203397

What would Luciana Berger's motivation be to lie? She has run a big risk of committing political suicide by leaving the Labour Party.

Shouldn't the Labour Party be dealing with how its MPs are treated by apparent Labour supporters too, like football clubs do with their fans?

(The "go to Israhell" guy had a Labour banner quite far down his list of photos, so it wasn't something he'd added recently.)

Jo wrote:
What would Luciana Berger's motivation be to lie? She has run a big risk of committing political suicide by leaving the Labour Party.

Shouldn't the Labour Party be dealing with how its MPs are treated by apparent Labour supporters too, like football clubs do with their fans?

(The "go to Israhell" guy had a Labour banner quite far down his list of photos, so it wasn't something he'd added recently.)

I have no idea why Berger does what she does but she did make a huge fuss & claimed she was being abused in antisemitic fashion at one Labour event when nothing of the sort happened.

Perhaps she's hypersensitive. Who knows?

Antisemitism is actually very rare in the UK and is basically people saying nasty of ludicrous things about Jews on social media etc,

It's incredibly rare that a physical antisemitic attacks happens and even then it may be one or two people being attacked in the street, not an entire community and London suburbs with huge Jewish communities are probably the safest to walk down.

Look I lived with this all my life with a hand-wringing Jewish mother who believed danger lurked behind every bush yet nothing every happened to her in her entire life but she kept exhorting her children to hide their ethnicity. Why was a bit silly because we were all blonde.

She probably reflected fears imposed on her by her parents who sensibly fled East Europe before WW2 (none of their community survived) yet her 2 sisters and brother had none of her paranoia.

To ask why would Berger make claims if not true really implies that Jews are somehow never dishonest, do not exaggerate, are not mistaken, are not over-sensitive or even just bloody thick.

Bizarrely- they are just like everyone else with all their foibles and imperfections.

And in my 74 years of experience (even more than you Hedda) it's far more often extreme right wingers/Tories who are anti semitic than left wingers.

Thanks for that insightful and thought-provoking reply, hedda.

hedda wrote:
Jo wrote:
What would Luciana Berger's motivation be to lie? She has run a big risk of committing political suicide by leaving the Labour Party.

Shouldn't the Labour Party be dealing with how its MPs are treated by apparent Labour supporters too, like football clubs do with their fans?

(The "go to Israhell" guy had a Labour banner quite far down his list of photos, so it wasn't something he'd added recently.)

I have no idea why Berger does what she does but she did make a huge fuss & claimed she was being abused in antisemitic fashion at one Labour event when nothing of the sort happened.

Perhaps she's hypersensitive. Who knows?

Antisemitism is actually very rare in the UK and is basically people saying nasty of ludicrous things about Jews on social media etc,

It's incredibly rare that a physical antisemitic attacks happens and even then it may be one or two people being attacked in the street, not an entire community and London suburbs with huge Jewish communities are probably the safest to walk down.

Look I lived with this all my life with a hand-wringing Jewish mother who believed danger lurked behind every bush yet nothing every happened to her in her entire life but she kept exhorting her children to hide their ethnicity. Why was a bit silly because we were all blonde.

She probably reflected fears imposed on her by her parents who sensibly fled East Europe before WW2 (none of their community survived) yet her 2 sisters and brother had none of her paranoia.

To ask why would Berger make claims if not true really implies that Jews are somehow never dishonest, do not exaggerate, are not mistaken, are not over-sensitive or even just bloody thick.

Bizarrely- they are just like everyone else with all their foibles and imperfections.

I dont know about the truth of her claims, but I found her to be a lady who enjoys the limelight.

JK2006 wrote:
And in my 74 years of experience (even more than you Hedda) it's far more often extreme right wingers/Tories who are anti semitic than left wingers.

Fwiw, I read one of the volumes of Alan Clark's Diaries a few years' back, and he commented in passing that the two least commented upon powerful factions in the Tories in his experience were the anti-semites and the brewers' lobby.

Clark himself was a little fond of Herr Hitler so I wonder if he included himself in the former.

tdf wrote:
JK2006 wrote:
And in my 74 years of experience (even more than you Hedda) it's far more often extreme right wingers/Tories who are anti semitic than left wingers.

Fwiw, I read one of the volumes of Alan Clark's Diaries a few years' back, and he commented in passing that the two least commented upon powerful factions in the Tories in his experience were the anti-semites and the brewers' lobby.

Clark himself was a little fond of Herr Hitler so I wonder if he included himself in the former.

I'm currently reading The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler which contains more information about this madman than I've read before.

He's bizarre hatred, yet complete ignorance about Jews was intense.

But it's really made me think about this thing : CHARISMA.

I've encountered people I've found charismatic.

Now I believe "charisma" may be a quality the person (say me in this case) imposes on someone else they perceive reflects qualities they like.

What stands out in this book is the number of people who :

1. were overawed by Hitler's persona and presence, believing him to be the most charismatic person they had ever or were likely to encounter.

2. The even greater number of people who met Hitler who thought he was a complete nonentity and totally lacked any sort of charisma.

## confirmed by a Gold Medal Olympian I met in 1998 who had received his medal from Hitler at the 36 Berlin Olympics and described him as "not very tall, very pasty complexion, a damp handshake and dreadful halitosis and ordinary blue eyes which others seemed transfixed by yet he emanated nothing special at all"

My understanding is that there are two types of charisma - real and false with "dark charisma" belonging to the later category. Both types have little to do with outer appearances. Real power can only come a loving heart that lies beyond the superficial physical and ego survival levels of existence. Hitler had completely lost the connection to his original source. His false power came from his own stuck emotions which happened to chime with the stuck emotions of a large group of people at the time. He became a mouthpiece for expressing the feelings and beliefs of that group. It's difficult to distinguish real from false when under the influence of powerful stuck emotion.

"The United Kingdom’s House of Commons voted on Tuesday night to ban all wings of Hezbollah due to its destabilizing influence in the Middle East, classing the movement as a terrorist organization.

The UK Labour Party allowed its MPs freedom to vote their conscience stating that there is “not sufficient evidence” that the organization meets proscription criteria and accusing the home secretary of taking the decision based on his “leadership ambitions.”"
www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Labours-Corbyn-te...ezbollah-vote-581832

"A little bird tells me that the Parliamentary Labour Party will not be whipping to support the Ban on Hezbollah today. Labour MPs are being told it is a “free vote”. So Corbyn and co won’t have to vote for it. They are Unfit for government. And a Threat to national security."
twitter.com/MikeGapes/status/1100353772683972608?p=v

"Hezbollah officials have said, on rare occasions, that it is only "anti-Zionist" and not anti-Semitic. However, according to scholars, "these words do not hold up upon closer examination". Among other actions, Hezbollah actively engages in Holocaust denial and spreads anti-Semitic conspiracy theories."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#Attitude...g_Israel_and_Zionism