To Bait Fish Withal

The first person whom I ever heard describe Israel as an abused child who had become an abuser was a Conservative MP. That was mainstream stuff in all parties until someone needed a stick with which to beat Jeremy Corbyn over what have in any case turned out to have been fairly ill-founded fears that he might try and make the economy more egalitarian or that he might stand up to the warmongering of the foreign policy Establishment. Until then, there was no Israel Test in British politics.

But now, it is absolute, and enforceable at the mere breath of the embassy of a foreign and not even particularly friendly state, of the thoroughly unrepresentative Board of Deputies, of the astroturfed Jewish Leadership Council, of the fake charity that is the Campaign Against Antisemitism, of the paramilitary and thus arguably illegal Community Security Trust, of the vanity-titled "Chief Rabbi" (of whom, exactly?) and "Senior Rabbi" (of what, exactly?), and of at least one Far Right newspaper with a tiny circulation.

Far Right? Well, The Jewish Chronicle is being praised to the skies on Breitbart News, so yes, it is clearly part of the family. Next to none of its readers would ever have voted Labour under any circumstances. For it to have attacked a Leader of the Labour Party is no more newsworthy than such an attack from the Daily Mail. The same is true of the Jewish Telegraph and of the Jewish News, each of which is read by even fewer people.

But at least those people are Jewish. Ian Austin is not Jewish, and his whole case is now an appeal to working-class Tories, of whom he is so obviously one that his membership of the Labour Party was always a complete mystery, to refrain from voting Labour, which was the last thing that they of all people would ever have done in the first place.

Austin's "defence and national security" line has been picked up by John Woodcock, who like all products of the right-wing Labour mafia in the National Union of Students and in the former National Organisation of Labour Students is simply assumed to be an American and Israeli spook. Perhaps even more to the present point, Woodcock is universally known to be the hired help of Saudi Arabia, which is the principal threat to our defence and national security. That he has been made Special Envoy on Countering Violent Extremism is a very sick joke indeed.

Chippy Woodcock once screamed or hissed at me, it was hard to tell on Twitter, that, "There's that class thing that you get on the Left." I hope that he enjoys "that class thing" now that he has become a Tory. But alas, most Labour MPs are still going to be pretty much like Austin and Woodcock. All of them will have subscribed to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, deviation from which is now expulsionable from the Labour Party. And such deviation is judged by the above, to whom every critique of self-appointed "community leaders" applies.

Yet Shylock is a literary character. A person who does not know that he is Jewish is not qualified to be a Member of Parliament. But if someone, Jewish or otherwise, resembles him, then the comparison is perfectly valid. For example, I have repeatedly compared Simon Henig and the Crown Prosecution Service to Shylock as they continue to demand their pound of my flesh.

I look forward to doing so on the floor of the House of Commons. Another hung Parliament is coming, and we need our people to hold the balance of power in it. I am standing for Parliament here at North West Durham. The crowdfunding page is here, and buy the book here. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.