I wonder if Keir Starmer put Christian Wakeford up to this.

In the House of Commons last Thursday, he lied to his fellow MPs as follows:

“Roger Waters is due to play at the AO Arena in Manchester next month. Mr Waters performed in Berlin this week and used the name of Anne Frank to stoke division, performed while dressed as an SS soldier and used the star of David on a giant pig to insinuate that Jewish people run the world, forcing the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester to issue a statement condemning his divisive actions. Will the Leader of the House agree that such concerts have no place in our society and should not go ahead? Will she agree to a debate in Government time on the record levels of anti-Jewish hatred in this country?”

None of what Wakeford said about Roger Waters’s performance was true. Not a single word.

This Site has already addressed the mention of Anne Frank, whose name was mentioned in connection with that of murdered Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. I’ll repeat it here, for anybody coming late to this scandal:

The claim is that this is anti-Semitic because it links Israel with Nazism (Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli military forces and Anne Frank died in a Nazi concentration camp).

it seems far more likely that the musician was linking Jewish people with Palestinians by pointing out that both races have suffered oppression – the former historically and the latter currently.

In both cases, their only crime (according to the on-screen verbiage) was belonging to a race that a foreign political regime had chosen to oppress, and in both cases the result was the same: death.

As for the pig… Here’s Alex Nunns:

He’s mistaken on that last point; we need to engage with that stupidity in order to shut it down. Fortunately, Twitter itself has been on hand to set the false claim right:

https://twitter.com/AdamMilstein/status/1661836449023504385

The material Roger Waters is performing has been a part of popular culture for nearly half a century and has not been questioned before. There’s a very easy answer to the question, “Why now?”

Roger Waters himself has made the following statement:

The statement reads:

“My recent performance in Berlin has attracted bad faith attacks from those who want to smear and silence me because they disagree with my political views and moral principles.

“The elements of my performance that have been questioned are quite clearly a statement in opposition to fascism, injustice, and bigotry in all its forms. Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated. The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” in 1980.

“I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression wherever I see it. When I was a child after the war, the name of Anne Frank was often spoken in our house, she became a permanent reminder of what happens when fascism is left unchecked. My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price.

“Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.”

So there you have it. No Star of David on the pig, no anti-Semitism in the show. Just a lot of hatred stirred up against a man whose father died fighting the Nazis, and all of it politically-motivated.

All of it could have been disproved by broadcasters (and, indeed, political party leaderships), simply by watching video of the show. Here, I’ll show you how easy it is:

https://youtu.be/gY80B-iDotQ

And that brings us back to Christian Wakeford.

There is no excuse for him to have brought these lies about one of the UK’s pop music – indeed, pop culture – legends to Parliament. The facts were available to him before he spoke in the House of Commons.

So either he was ignorant of the facts, which makes him too stupid to be a member of Parliament because he did not do his research properly, and he should make a statement to the Commons, correcting the record…

Or he was deliberately lying, in which case the Speaker should launch proceedings against him for contempt of Parliament and an investigation should take place with possible expulsion as the most extreme sanction against him.

And in the background, I wonder if somebody else put him up to it. Labour leader Keir Starmer is known to be influenced by those lobbyists who scream “anti-Semitism!” at every opportunity.

What’s his role in this? Did he authorise Wakeford to make his statement? Did he ask him to?

And what’s the best thing we can say about Starmer, Wakeford and their party, in the context of this controversy?

Is it that they are just another brick in the wall?

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