Corbyn is a danger only to the working class who deserve better representation than can be provided by the bunch of virtue signalling nutters he has surrounded himself with. The vast majority of Labor councilors and MPs are disgusted with the fanatics and try to sack them where possible. The trouble is that it is becoming more and more difficult to do so precisely because Corbyn is insecure and feels he can't dispense with the crazies.
Consider the testimony of Fiyaz Mughal- a veteran campaigner against Islamophobia- who now openly says that a Corbyn Prime Ministership would be a disaster for the country-
Firstly, Corbyn has been a lightning rod to attract people to Labour whose world view strongly hinges on the Israel and Palestine conflict. That is not a problem, but it has become a problem since some of these activists are openly antisemitic and see all Jews as being "the other"; as the cover-all term, many of these activists liberally use the term ‘Zionists’ to smear British Jews who simply disagree with them.
By drawing in these activists, Corbyn’s leadership has then acted in a snail-like fashion to tackle complaints of antisemitism and, in some instances, his office has actively got involved in the complaints process and influenced decisions. He has called terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah "friends" and then gone on to say that he regretted saying this... how could Corbyn even consider calling such groups "friends", unless he agreed with their anti-Israeli and anti-American ideologies?
Or, take the fact Corbyn has actively made a point of turning up, legitimising and speaking at events held by divisive groups. For instance, he attended an event held by the group MEND, which he spoke at in November 2017.MEND stands for Muslim Engagement and Development which was founded by a wealthy financier named Sufyan Ismail who now claims that Muslims hold the balance of political power in Britain.
This is a group that the former Home Secretary recently said wasn’t “always as intolerant of intolerance as they claim to be.”MEND has money and manpower to turn out the vote. Muslims may only be 5 % of the electorate but if their volunteers have good information, perhaps harvested from Social Media, regarding potential voters with an anti-semitic kink whom they can help get to the polling booth, it may really be the case that, as Sufyan Ismail says, Muslims may decide the outcome of the upcoming election.
The recent excellent report by the Commission for Countering Extremism, headed up by the formidable Sara Khan, said the following of MEND: “Staff from another organisation, MEND, have posted hostile messages on Twitter relating to several politically and socially liberal Muslims, especially those involved in counter extremism work.
One MEND tweet labels some Muslims groups as “Uncle Toms”; and the public messaging of MEND’s founder describes civil society groups involved in counter extremism as “government stooges”.
Furthermore, at the Colin Cramphorn Memorial lecture in February 2018, Sir Mark Rowley, the former Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police said that Muslim bodies such as MEND foster grievances and just earlier this week, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said of MEND that it is, “a highly problematic organisation whose activities risk increasing hostility and suspicion between Muslim and Jewish communities”.
Yet, this is the organisation whose event Corbyn turned up to, thereby legitimising them to many. Neither did Corbyn turn up to question such an organisation. In fact, he seemed very comfortable at the event – so much for being a consistent equalities campaigner…
It may be that people like Fiyaz Mughal and Sara Khan think this would be a disaster for British Muslims. Why? A 'culture of unchecked grievance' hurts only those who nurse the grievance. Everybody else gives the nutters a wide berth.
I cannot stand back and keep quiet when Corbyn turns up to divisive groups who risk increasing hostility between British Muslims and Jews and who build and enhance grievances. As someone who has worked on countering extremism for over two decades, I have seen where unchecked grievances lead to.
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