Latest Corbyn smear story is tired, desperate and has nothing new to offer

Last Updated: August 7, 2016By
Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a rally in Merthyr Tydfil on Friday [Image: Tracey Paddison/Rex/Shutterstock].

Jeremy Corbyn speaking at a rally in Merthyr Tydfil on Friday [Image: Tracey Paddison/Rex/Shutterstock].

There’s nothing in this claim of a donation to Jeremy Corbyn’s 2015 Labour leadership campaign, from a group supporting Palestine, that’s likely to get anybody’s knickers in a knot.

It’s covering old ground – possibly because allegations that Corbyn is lukewarm about supporting Jews are back on the news agenda at the moment.

So Ismail Patel once said something complimentary about Hamas. That doesn’t mean Jeremy Corbyn agrees.

And yes, we all know that Corbyn called members of Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” at a Parliamentary event in 2009. He explained it to Parliament’s Home Affairs Committee last month as follows: “It was about encouraging the meeting to go ahead and encouraging there to be a discussion about a peace process in the Middle East… To bring about a peace process anywhere in the world, you have to reach out.”

We may conclude that Mr Corbyn wants peace in the Middle East and should not be associated with any warm words about warmongers.

Let’s move on to the money itself. Did Mr Corbyn’s campaign fail to declare the donation? This would be illegal as amounts totalling more than £7,500 must be declared to the Electoral Commission.

No, there was no such failure because the Corbyn campaign didn’t receive the money – according to the information published in the Observer.

That’s probably why the donation was never publicised. Why would anybody mention a donation that never happened?

Finally, there’s a comment from John Woodcock, claiming that Mr Corbyn has questions to answer. What questions? An organisation whose affairs are its own business wanted to give money to Jeremy Corbyn but didn’t.

The worst that can be said is that, if claims about this organisation’s loyalties are accurate, it’s just as well that the Corbyn campaign didn’t accept the cash.

We’re all a little tired of this nonsense, by now.

It’s simply more silliness and spin from the anti-Corbyn brigade – and just a little bit desperate, too.

A Palestinian group, whose founder once praised the militant Islamist group Hamas, held a fundraising dinner at which it collected £10,000 for Jeremy Corbyn’s last leadership campaign, documents seen by the Observer reveal.

Friends of Al-Aqsa gave Corbyn’s team a cheque for £10,000 in August 2015, an investigation by [that] newspaper has found, although the gift has never been made public.

Corbyn’s campaign said it did not declare the donation because its bank subsequently rejected the cheque as it was made out to the wrong person. Any donation above £7,500 should be declared to the Electoral Commission.

A spokesman for Corbyn was unable to explain on Saturday what then happened to the cash raised. A spokesman said: “I’m told a second cheque may have been sent but this was not received by the campaign.”

A spokesman for Friends of Al-Aqsa declined to comment.

Source: ‘There’s nothing dodgy’: Questions over Jeremy Corbyn donation | Politics | The Guardian

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6 Comments

  1. mohandeer August 7, 2016 at 12:42 am - Reply

    The Al Aqsa Mosque is one of the most revered places of worship for the Muslims of the world. It is also being defamed, used as a toilet by the IDF and we in Britain who abhor violence against churches, mosques and synagogues could have used that money towards helping to protect the Al Aqsa against Israeli depravity. Perhaps the editor who printed this claptrap might like to condone the abuse of synagogues and churches? If not, he or she is being very disingenuous.

  2. John August 7, 2016 at 1:24 am - Reply

    The only one who has questions to answer is Woodcock. Just what does he think he is doing with all this nonsense? He is helping the enemies of Labour and undermining his own party. He should be disciplined for bringing himself and the Labour Party into disrepute. His local party and union sponsors should be advised to have him urgently replaced as a Labour candidate for parliament.

  3. Elspeth Parris August 7, 2016 at 6:58 am - Reply

    Even if the money had been received, I would have no problem with funding from Friends of Al Aqsa. Since I have, in small amounts, but at least once, donated to that organisation. They support Palestine, that doesn’t make them terrorist!

  4. Jackie Cairns August 7, 2016 at 12:31 pm - Reply

    The chicken coup MP’s seem to think they can do and say what they want. If i was Jeremy Corbyn i’d have them move out of there pretty little offices and take there friends with them, And have there workers who work for them removed from the house of commons. They are not needed now. There pay master has “resigned”.

  5. katythenightowl August 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm - Reply

    And yet another Corbyn-bashing session is attempted!
    It seems as if, once each attack or accussation is proved false about Corbyn, then something else is tried from a different direction.
    The trouble is, with this unrellenting attack on him, especially with the Media and the BBC so much behind it, there are those who will never see the accusations for the lies they are, but iwill nstead think that, if the accussations haven’t stopped, then there must be something behind it all – a real war of attrition! :(
    By the time voting for the Labour Leader actually occurs, I fear more and more people will have begun to listen to the lies, and believe them!
    I’m totally disgusted that so many politicians have reached such an awful low in their morality, that they resort to blackening a man’s name in order to win, rather than doing what’s right, and listening to the people who put them in power in the first place – and if they do win, what a false victory that would be :(

  6. Roy Beiley August 7, 2016 at 10:08 pm - Reply

    People like Woodcock don’t want there to be peace in the Middle East. I wonder why? Quite frankly I don’t want British politics to be dominated by the Palestine/Israel debates. There are more important issues here at home to be dealt with. All this navel gazing over ALLEGED antisemitism in the Labour Party is getting to be overplayed with no real objective other than to keep internal Party disputescon the boilcso that the media has plenty of ammunition to maintain its anti -Corbyn rhetoric going up to September. Why don’t they just bore us to death with endless stories about how many Olympic Medals we might win as compared to the number we won in 2012.

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