Margaret Hodge’s fantasy will damage the fight against anti-Semitism
Vile: Margaret Hodge.
It seems Margaret Hodge has lost her grip on reality.
First the Labour MP shouted abuse at her party leader in public, then she claimed astonishment at the possibility that she would face disciplinary proceedings for such an obviously objectionable act, then when Labour dropped its action because she had expressed contrition she denied it, saying the whole thing had been cooked up to divert attention from the debate over Labour’s adoption of the full examples attached to the IHRA working definition of anti-Semitism.
What a load of baloney!
This dame was caught bringing the Labour Party into disrepute and the only reason the action against her was halted is that it would have caused more damage to the Party to continue with it after she kicked up such a fuss with – shall we be honest, or charitable? Let’s be charitable – her fantasy.
And what did she do next? Did she shut up, disproving the now-widely-held belief that if Labour lets false accusations of anti-Semitism go unpunished, it will only encourage the liars to lie again?
No – she did exactly as predicted, proving us right.
I would present arguments against what Dame Margaret said – but I don’t have to. Thomas Clark, of Another Angry Voice, has already done it, so I’ll leave it to him. You can read his full article here.
Let’s start with her comments to Sky News:
A Jewish Labour MP has said the moment she found out she faced investigation for confronting Jeremy Corbyn over anti-Semitism made her think about “what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s”.
Former minister Margaret Hodge, who faced disciplinary action for calling the Labour leader an anti-Semite, told Sky News “it felt almost as if they were coming for me”.
“It’s rather difficult to define but there’s that fear and it reminded me of what my dad used to say,” Ms Hodge said in her first major interview since the investigation was dropped.
“He always said to me as a child: ‘You’ve got to keep a packed suitcase at the door Margaret, in case you ever have got to leave in a hurry.’
“And when I heard about the disciplinary, my emotional response resonated with that feeling of fear, that clearly was at the heart of what my father felt when he came to Britain.”
Mr Clark responded: “Just try to imagine the absolute tower of self-righteous delusion a person would have to be sitting upon in order to imagine that trivialising the horrors of the Holocaust in order to pose as the poor victim of a flawed softball disciplinary process that let her off scot free for an offence that would have had any normal person in a normal job rightly expecting the sack.
“By trivialising the Holocaust in this way Hodge has demonstrated that she’s massively over-privileged and extremely disconnected from reality.”
I also found this, in The Independent:
She accused her party leader of being on “the wrong side” of the line between being pro-Palestinian and antisemitic and suggested “the cult of Corbynism” had allowed this to happen.
Mr Clark had this to say in response: “This is blatantly untrue. One involves having a bit of basic human decency and expressing solidarity towards the victims of decades of brutal Israeli repression. The other involves being a disgusting bigot who hates Jewish people for no reason other than that they’re Jews.
“There is no “fine line” between decency and indecency, and this effort by Margaret Hodge to claim that there is, is nothing but a cynical effort to intimidate decent people out of expressing solidarity with the Palestinians for fear of being labelled a racist bigot for having done so.”
He goes on to point out that this person had no concerns about right-wing Party apparatchiks purging it of thousands of perfectly decent members, just because they might vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the second Corbyn leadership election: “Basically Hodge believes she should be allowed to do whatever she likes to bring the party into disrepute, because disciplinary processes, punishments, and expulsions are only for the little people.”
Let’s not forget that there are plenty of Labour members accused of anti-Semitism now – some of us falsely. I am crowdfunding in order to launch a legal action against those who have told damaging lies about myself, and you can contribute by visiting my JustGiving page.
The Independent article also has Dame Margaret referring to the “cult of Corbyism”, about which Mr Clark had this to say:
“The reality is that a lot of people are drawn to Corbyn because of his principles and policies (stuff like renationalising the railways, sticking up for workers, combating tax-dodging, stopping arms sales to despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia) but wish he was a bit better at forcing the point home.
“Hodge really doesn’t seem to realise that the vast majority of British people have absolutely had it with self-serving political elites flogging off our national assets to their mates on the cheap, gutting our local communities, trashing our wages and working conditions, and imposing ruinous austerity dogma on the nation in order to make the poor and ordinary shoulder the entire cost of the bankers’ bailouts, lavishing handouts and tax breaks on corporations and the mega-rich, and fiddling their expenses all the while to maximise their own personal gains.
“The reality is that it’s the Westminster establishment club and their lackeys in the mainstream media who are living in a cult, but because they have little or no concern for ordinary people.”
Damn straight. Look forward to the next instalment of this saga from that other cult member, Ian Austin.
Labour has responded to the inflammatory comments by the errant MP, as follows: “Jeremy is determined to tackle antisemitism in the Labour Party, so Jewish people feel it is a warm and welcoming home.
“The comparison of the Labour Party’s disciplinary process with Nazi Germany is so extreme and disconnected from reality, it diminishes the seriousness of the issue of antisemitism.
“We all need to work together to build support and confidence in the Labour Party among Jewish communities in Britain.”
That is the nub of the matter. False accusations – especially by Jewish people – diminish the seriousness of anti-Semitism. They blur the lines between fake accusations and genuine acts of hatred to the point at which bystanders no longer care.
We know, now, that these false accusations against Jeremy Corbyn are supported by the Israeli government – in fact, they may be instigated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration (and I’m being extremely kind to that government in describing the situation in that way).
Anyone supporting that agenda is a danger to democracy in the UK. Margaret Hodge should be dumped from the Labour Party like a sack of raw sewage.
Visit our JustGiving page to help Vox Political’s Mike Sivier fight anti-Semitism libels in court
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spot on they just greedy people
I set this letter ‘template’ (sort of) last night for sending complaints to the Labour compliance unit, and it’s gone viral.
http://thegreatcritique.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/suspend-margaret-hodge-from-the-labour-party-at-once/
I got a reply from them overnight saying they were struggling with the weight of e-mails they were receiving and so I would have to wait a while for a full response, which hints that it’s working.
I received the same automatic response, when I wrote to complain, on Monday.
i am sick and tired of these Blairites causing trouble within the Labour party – i hope her constituency will see through her actions and do the right thing and deselect her.
I wrote to £abour’s Complaints Team, firstly expressing my disgust at the lack of communication that I receive from £abour, whenever I write to them to ask for help, or clarification with an issue; I said that it doesn’t do much for ones sense of worth, or value to the Party, save for my subscriptions. Next, I mentioned this saga in the context of the anti-Semitism row, as a whole, my personal experience, that of my Jewish friends and expressed my horror and deep concern at what the consequences of adopting all of the examples from the I.H.R.A. “working definition” of anti-Semitism might be and quoted Kenneth Stern, as well as providing links to his communications. I asked if those who were calling for £abour to adopt said examples had heard the words and warnings of other prominent Jews, among them, Holocaust survivors and their children. I also expressed dismay at Dame Margaret Hodge’s treatment and asked why it should be that we have a code of conduct, if it appears that when people make enough noise, their behaviour can be excused. I mentioned Jews who have been accused of anti-Semitism, the fact that there is no monolithic Jewish community and that £abour needs to do what is RIGHT for ALL of its members. £astly, I said that £abour needs to focus on the Tories but also to put a stop to Media conflation, which is ripping this country apart, muddying the waters, destroying debate and entrenching within our society stigma and labelling, for having independent thought. It was a mightily long e.mail.
I suggest that we all complain to £abour about the inconsistencies in the disciplinary procedure, the apparent lack of focus on the matters at hand, caused by the distraction of the anti-Semitism saga and how dangerous that is for all of us and cite Kenneth Stern’s words and communications. He said that the “working definition” was “written for European data collectors to have a guideline for what to include and what to exclude in reports” and “it was not drafted to label anyone an antisemite” so, why is it so important that those examples are adopted?
I don’t know if it will do any good but if we don’t, we can be sure that nothing will happen, nothing good, anyway. If I were Kenneth Stern, I would be furious to know that my work was being misused in this way.