Actually, it all began under Ed…
JVL Introduction
Well, well, well.
This article from 2014 shows clearly that many Jews were deserting Labour long before Jeremy Corbyn became leader.
It all began under Ed Miliband. There was no claim that antisemitism was a problem then. The issue was clear: it was Miliband’s “toxic” anti-Israeli stance over Gaza and Palestine that caused the offence.
Why aren’t we surprised?
This article was originally published by The Independent on Sun 9 Nov 2014. Read the original here.
History (of wide-ranging and crucial Tel Aviv intervention in UK politics) did repeat itself in 2017/19 (RB)
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Labour funding crisis: Jewish donors drop 'toxic' Ed Miliband
The leader’s ‘principled’ stance on Palestine deters backers, forcing party ‘to go to unions with begging bowl’
The Labour party is facing desertion by Jewish donors and supporters because of Ed Miliband’s “toxic” anti-Israeli stance over Gaza and Palestine. In a fresh headache for the Labour leader, it is understood that Mr Miliband has been warned that Jewish backers are deserting the party in droves over what community leaders perceive to be a new, aggressive pro-Palestine policy at the expense of Israeli interests.
One prominent Jewish financial backer, a lifelong Labour supporter, said he no longer wanted to “see Mr Miliband in Downing Street or Douglas Alexander as Foreign Secretary”.
A senior Labour MP warned that Mr Miliband now had a “huge if not insurmountable challenge” to maintain support from parts of the Jewish community that had both backed and helped fund Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s election campaigns.
At the same time, a former cabinet minister privately admitted that Labour’s fundraising efforts were in disarray. The former minister said the party would struggle to raise anywhere near the £19m a party is entitled to spend under electoral law in the run-up to next May’s poll. “We will have to pass the begging bowl round to the unions,” they said. “That would send a bad signal. In return, they [the unions] would demand to call the shots on policy.”
Donations from the Jewish community have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to the Labour Party. Several previous donors told The Independent on Sunday that they and others are now very unlikely to support the party. They spoke on condition of anonymity.
“There aren’t that many donors to the Labour Party these days, and certainly not the same number of Jewish donors. There is a lot of worry,” said one. “I have been a Labour supporter all my life and I would like to see a Labour government, but, on the other hand, I’m not entirely sure I want to see Ed Miliband in Downing Street or Douglas Alexander in the Foreign Office.”
A Labour source insisted that Ed Miliband had taken a “principled stance” on both Gaza and Palestine and had always been clear that Israel had a right to defend itself. They added that it showed that Mr Miliband was prepared to take decisions he believed to be right and would never allow political donations to influence party policy.
But Jewish supporters say that the previous Labour policy on Israel was principled – and that it is Mr Miliband’s changes which are affecting Jewish support.
Another previous donor said they had been asked by the party to arrange a fundraising dinner for Jewish Labour supporters but had found no takers. “Miliband won’t get that [money], I can tell you that now,” he said. “I was going to do a couple of dinners and invite prominent members of the community, who are quite wealthy, to raise funds. They just wouldn’t touch it. It was too toxic for them to even consider. There is a lot of reluctance to support Miliband financially, unfortunately.”
Last week, the actress Maureen Lipman announced that she was ending five decades of support for the Labour Party over its new foreign policy. [See Maureen Lipman says ‘she can’t vote Labour while Ed Miliband is leader’ – ‘The Chuka Harman Burnham Hunt Balls brigade? I can’t, in all seriousness, go into a booth and put my mark on any one of them’, Ms Lipman wrote of the shadow cabinet]
Several other Jewish supporters, who have given substantial sums to Labour, are understood to be reconsidering their relationship. “When I supported them, this hadn’t happened,” said one. “I’m deeply concerned. I’m not at all sure what I’ll do.”
Another said: “I speak to people. I know what’s going on in the party. And they are finding it tough going. Look at their reports on what’s raised and look at what they’re getting from the unions. They are finding it very difficult raising money.”
Prominent Jewish supporters say problems started in the summer with Mr Miliband’s aggressive condemnation of Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza last August, which he described as “wrong and unjustifiable”. He accused David Cameron of being wrong not to have condemned the land operation and claimed that Israel was “losing friends in the international community day by day”. This was followed by a decision to whip a vote calling on the Government to unilaterally recognise Palestine – against long-standing British and Labour policy that recognition should only be part of a negotiated two-state settlement. That decision was opposed by a number of senior Labour MPs – including at least two shadow cabinet ministers – who warned it would haemorrhage Jewish support.
One said yesterday: “There were no phone calls, no meetings, no discussions, nothing. Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander simply decided to abandon the even-handed, bi-partisan approach we followed for 13 years in government. Electorally, that will be significant in a few seats but, much more importantly, it sends a signal that Miliband is prepared to play politics with an issue where he should be even-handed and fair.”
A number of Jewish former Labour supporters also compared Mr Miliband’s stance on Gaza unfavourably with David Cameron’s, which, they suggested, had been calibrated to ensure that prominent Tory Jewish supporters stayed on board.
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