A Much Rougher Ride

In the words of a comment on a previous post:

Norman Tebbit did eventually recant everything he'd said about Nelson Mandela in the Thatcher years, but yes I remember the people now running the Tory Party in their Hang Mandela T-shirts. Wasn't it you who said David Cameron should have been made to wear his to Mandela's funeral? 

Well done on calling out the Labour Right. The Labour governments of the 60s and 70s were as pro-Pretoria as the Tory governments of the 70s and 80s and the Opposition front bench in the 80s was not much better. You had to be Jeremy Corbyn to demonstrate outside South Africa House, you would never have seen Neil Kinnock there. 

But now Corbyn is the Leader of the Labour Party and set fair to become the next Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu can expect a much rougher ride from Britain than P.W. Botha ever got. 

Indeed. Yes, I did say that Cameron ought to have been made to wear his Hang Mandela T-shirt to Nelson Mandela's funeral. I bet he still has it. 

And yes, the Labour Right does claim a credit for this struggle, incomplete though the struggle still is, that it does not deserve. Opposition to apartheid fell under the catchall label of "Loony Left" at the time.

Let's see if it tries the same trick over Palestine in 20 or 30 years' time. After all, even the Conservative Party sometimes tries it over South Africa these days. Although it never takes long for that particular mask to slip.