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Corbyn joins Forde’s call for action on Labour racism and Islamophobia. Silence from Starmer

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Keir Starmer: after the Equality and Human Rights Commission lifted its special measures against Labour over the way it investigates anti-Semitism, he claimed Labour would “never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry”. Those words ring hollow now.

Let’s say it straight: Labour leader Keir Starmer has been accused of lying about processes within the Labour Party to tackle racism, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Both Martin Forde KC, whose report on the subject was commissioned and then ignored by Starmer, and Jeremy Corbyn, who has been widely – and falsely – accused of allowing anti-Semitism to run wild in the party while he was leader, have demanded action to implement the Forde Report’s recommendations.

Mr Forde rounded on Starmer’s claim that Labour had “zero tolerance of anti-Semitism, of racism, of discrimination of any kind”.

Speaking to a virtual event organised by Compass on Monday (March 20), he said:

We’ve heard it from various politicians, but you can’t implement zero tolerance unless you’re policing things fairly rigorously and you’ve got transparent systems in place.

It’s not enough to say, ‘I’ve been on a course’, and that means I’m untouchable.

And he criticised Labour’s decision not to introduce an independent directorate that would oversee the party’s disciplinary process.

This is interesting from This Writer’s point of view, because a Labour NEC member is on the record as having said the Forde Report’s recommendations were being followed:

I think part of the reason that factionalism has arisen around this is because there is a perception that different groups are treated differently,” Forde said.

Jeremy Corbyn’s comments were, if anything, more harshly critical of his successor:

I’ll reproduce his statement below – not just for people who can’t read image files, but also to provide commentary:

The Forde Report called out the horrific sexism and racism expressed toward Diane Abbott and others among senior members of Labour Party staff who were factionally opposed to me leadership. Eight months on from the Report’s publication, it is appalling that anti-Black racism and Islamophobia are not treated seriously enough by the Party.

There should never be a hierarchy of racism.

This is a criticism of Starmer, who has been attacked for making it seem that it is more important to tackle anti-Semitism against Jews who are Zionists and supporters of the current Israeli government than any other form of racism.

We must stand up to all forms of discrimination, which is why I called for the swift implementation of the EHRC recommendations to improve the Party’s disciplinary processes for handling antisemitism complaints. Concerns about anti-Black racism and Islamophobia, detailed by Forde, must be treated with equal significance.

The Forde Report also details instances of factionalism that hindered our objectives and undermined the democratic mandate of Party members. Since April 2020, this culture of factionalism has escalated.

April 2020 was when Keir Starmer became Labour Party leader. Mr Corbyn is saying that Starmer has either ignored or supported such factionalism (my personal opinion is that he has encouraged it; some may claim he is even responsible for it).

Across the country, socialist members with grassroots and trade union support have been blocked from standing as Labour candidates, denying Party members the right to fair and democratic selection processes.

The recommendations of the Forde Report must be implemented. That is the bare minimum. But we must go further in fighting for a politics of anti-racism, democracy and solidarity in wider society. That means opposing the government’s assault on refugees, rather than pandering to divisive rhetoric. It means offering bold solutions to the compounding crises facing us all. And it means building a vision of hope, which inspires people to fight for a more equal, sustainable and peaceful world.

The factionalist attacks against left-wing Labour members should certainly be brought to the attention of the wider public – because their impact has the potential to harm the wider public significantly, if a Labour government is elected into office in 2024 or 2025.

The reason for such concern may be summed up with the words of “a senior left-wing Labour MP” who spoke after the Compass event. That person said:

“If you want to know how [a] party will treat you in government, look at how it treats its members.”

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Why is Keir Starmer ignoring racism and Islamophobia exposed by the Forde Report

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Starmer takes the knee for Black Lives Matter: to him it meant nothing more than a photo opportunity. Black lives don’t matter to him – as we discovered when he attacked the organisation shortly after. Now we find he’s turning a blind eye to racism identified in the report by Martin Forde KC.

Anti-black racism and Islamophobia in the Labour Party, raised by Martin Forde KC in his report to that organisation last summer, has been ignored by party leaders including Keir Starmer.

Starmer has not contacted Forde since he published his report confirming that anti-Semitism and other racism had been a battleground between left- and right-wing factionalists within Labour. It seems this was not what the party leader wanted to hear.

Fortunately for him, very few mainstream media journalists had been interestest either:

Yes – odd, that. Mainstream hacks had been able to doorstep Jeremy Corbyn at the drop of a hat, but Starmer seems uncontactable.

Worse, Starmer seems to have ignored concerns raised by black and minority ethnic figures within his own Parliamentary party:

Here’s some evidence to back up the assertion:

Strange how anti-Semitism against pro-Israel Zionists can be such a vital issue for Starmer, but racism against non-Zionist left-wing Jews, black people and Muslims gets a free pass.

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On This Date 2020: Is EHRC too busy scrabbling for anti-Semitism in Labour to bother with obvious Tory Islamophobia?

Islamophobia: the creator of this image thought it was bad enough in the Tories under Theresa May. Now, with racist Boris Johnson in charge, who knows how far the rot has gone?

How long has the Equalities and Human Rights Commission been looking for anti-Semitism in the Labour Party now? A year?

Either it is very well hidden – which would be odd, considering the number of (admittedly mostly false) claims made against the party – or the EHRC is determined not to stop until it has managed to concoct a convincing case.

It doesn’t fill one with confidence in that organisation.

And now we see that the EHRC is trying to squirm out of handling 300 documented cases of Islamophobia – in the Conservative Party.

Does anybody else smell a rat?

According to the Mirror, the dossier handed to the EHRC – by the Muslim Council of Britain – contains information about 16 Conservative MPs, one MEP, nine election candidates and 183 party members.

That’s 209 people, so presumably some are multiple offenders. I wonder if Boris Johnson is listed among them?

The allegations include:

  • A former councillor calling for “unconditional surrender” by Muslims, who they label “brutes who beat, kill and maim young women”;

  • A local party association chair who called for Muslims to be banned;

  • A member who called for Muslims to be thrown from bridges;

  • Another member who called for the forcible sterilisation of Muslims.

The MCB also condemns the Conservative Party’s failure to suspend MP Daniel Kawczynski after he spoke at an event alongside far-right leaders, and for failing to take action on MP Karl McCartney, who shared Islamophobic and anti-Semitic social media content by Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins.

Secretary General Harun Khan said the EHRC had failed to give any response to the MCB’s first formal complaint in May 2019, and says it was ‘extraordinary’ that the watchdog had taken no action in the 10 months since.

“There is no doubt that the Conservative party has an Islamophobia crisis: it is institutional, systemic and widespread” he said,

“The party’s response has been one of denial, dismissal and deceit – this results in clear discrimination against Muslims because of their religion”

The EHRC says it is waiting for information about a promised internal inquiry by the Conservative Party, which it is claiming will be “independent” even though it is to be carried out within the party structure.

This Writer can only wish them good luck with that. We’re all also awaiting publication of the report on Russian influence on the Conservative government, and on Boris Johnson’s relationship with Jennifer Arcuri.

Wise heads think it won’t just be a cold day in Hell, but their subjects may actually have taken up residence there before these reports are published.

Former Tory-supporting columnist Peter Oborne thinks – well, see for yourself:

In his article, he wrote:

The problem stretches from the lowest ranks of the Tory party to the very top. There is a massive problem with Islamophobic bigotry among Tory grassroots, where the MCB has provided a list of more than 100 cases.

Party members, councillors and officials have repeatedly made disgusting statements about Muslims, calling for them to leave the country, making provocative insults about the Prophet Muhammad and peddling malicious lies.

This should not come as any surprise to anyone, since poll results published by the anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate last year showed that more than half of Conservative members thought Islam was “generally a threat to the British way of life”.

I’ve written before about Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, who shared an anti-Muslim post by Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League; hosted the anti-Muslim Tapan Ghosh, the right-wing Hindu nationalist; and shared far-right and Islamophobic content on Facebook.

Anti-Muslim bigotry is not a barrier to promotion. Nadine Dorries, who also shared a tweet by Robinson, is now a health minister. This is no surprise, given that Johnson himself has a long record of making anti-Muslim remarks.

Tellingly, Johnson is surrounded by Islamophobes. Dominic Cummings, his most senior advisor, reportedly had overall responsibility for The Spectator website in 2006, according to Stuart Reid, the magazine’s acting editor at the time, when a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban was posted on the site.

One of Johnson’s up-and-coming advisors is Chloe Westley. She praised Anne Marie Waters, leader of the anti-Islam party For Britain, as a “hero”, even though Waters has called Islam “evil” and also has links to Robinson.

But he made a very important point: the UK’s mass media are ignoring this story:

I could find nothing at all about the MCB report in the Financial Times or Daily Telegraph. There were seven paragraphs on page 16 of the Times and 11 paragraphs on page 7 of the Guardian. Nothing in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, or the Sun.

Most British newspapers are as Islamophobic as the Conservative Party itself, and in some cases, more so. This means they are effectively giving Johnson and his senior advisers and ministers a free pass to reshape the Tory party as a far-right, populist organisation of the type we already know too well on continental Europe.

It shows how the media have been manipulating your opinions and – by proxy – the actions of organisations like the EHRC.

The papers kicked up a huge fuss about the imaginary crisis of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (where I doubt if even 200 genuine cases have been found among a membership of more than half a million in the past four years).

But their silence over 300 evidenced cases of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, which is much smaller than Labour, means few people know about it and any outcry is therefore minimised.

So the EHRC can say there’s no real demand for it to investigate, despite the fact that, in real terms, it is a bigger issue.

Source: EHRC Condemned For ‘Failure’ To Act On Tory Islamophobia

Comparison of #Ukraine with #Palestine exposes ugly prejudices

“There is no such place called Palestine,” says ‘Elli’. It is true that Palestine is disappearing – but only due to the genocidal aggression of people like ‘Elli’ him/herself.

This Site welcomes the warm reception given to the article comparing Keir Starmer’s attitude to the Russian occupation of Ukraine with his policy on the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

I note with pleasure the proliferation of posts on the social media pointing out the discrepancy between his behaviours towards the two countries. Here are a few examples.

However, it seems some are less pleased to have their racism questioned. Here’s a commenter to This Site who wishes to hide behind the pseudonym “Elli” rather than be revealed for the bigot they are. Brace yourself because this is shocking:

“There is no such place called Palestine, or a race of people. Muslims have no rights to Jewish lands. Jews are on their own lands. So are not ‘occupiers’, as you so ignorantly call them.”

I make no reference to Jews in the matter of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. But Israel’s borders were very clearly set out before that country came into being by consent of the United Nations in 1949, as were those of Palestine.

Compare the 1949 borders with the situation today and we can see very clearly the extent of Elli’s lie. There is a state called Palestine – but it has been hugely eroded by Israeli occupation and aggression.

This person’s words are racist, Islamophobic and – at least on the face of it – genocidal. They also attempt to deny the Palestinian people the right to self-determination that is so often claimed by Israel on behalf of Jews – despite the fact that there are Jewish people living all over the world.

I look forward to receiving messages rejecting them – particularly from supporters of Israel like (for example) Keir Starmer.

But I fear I may have a long wait.

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Labour launches assault on Islamophobia – conveniently ignoring it is a serial offender

Labour Islamophobia: Lewisham Islamic Centre held a meeting with local Labour representatives after the Labour Muslim Network report on Islamophobia was released. Now Labour is trying to claim a moral advantage on the subject.

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is trying to tell us it is serious about tackling Islamophobia – but we’re not having it.

The reason is clear: that party’s shockingly Islamophobic performance at the Batley and Spen by-election is too recent, and the people responsible for it are still in control.

So reactions like this are entirely justified:

It is shocking that 45 per cent of all hate crimes last year were aimed at Muslims.

One has to ask, though, how many of those crimes were experienced by members of the Labour Party – from fellow party members?

A Labour Muslim Network survey last year found that fully one-third of Muslims respondents said they had suffered Islamophobia from fellow members.

Worse, 44 per cent said they do not believe the party takes Islamophobia seriously and 48 per cent have lost confidence in the party’s complaints structures, according to the Labour Muslim Network investigation.

And worst of all, 59 per cent of Muslims surveyed said they did not feel well represented by the party.

(Further information is here.)

So it seems more than a little hypocritical for Labour to be trying to take the moral high ground.

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Does Starmer support Zarah Sultana over Islamophobia – or the Islamophobes who attack her?

Zarah Sultana: she has received huge amounts of Islamophobic abuse since becoming a member of Parliament. What is her party leader, Keir Starmer, doing about it?

It’s a reasonable question.

Keir Starmer’s support for Zionist Jews (but not socialist Jews, note) is monumental; he will pursue well beyond the point of persecution anybody who suggests such people might behave in questionable ways (see this article for documented examples of such behaviour).

We have yet to see him offer such solidarity to Muslims facing discrimination – even those who are MPs in his own party – and questions are being asked:

Apparently not.

He has welcomed an alleged Islamophobe back into the party after a period of suspension instigated while Jeremy Corbyn was party leader. The person in question has close connections to both Starmer and the Labour leader’s current bestie, Peter Mandelson.

But we’ve heard nothing from him in support of his own MP, Zarah Sultana, who has received huge amounts of abuse, as she herself detailed in this speech:

It’s hard to watch, isn’t it?

Perhaps Starmer would prefer to hang out with right-wing chair of Poplar & Limehouse CLP, Chris Worrall, who seems to be obsessed with abusing Ms Sultana but has received no criticism for it. Why has this man not been suspended, pending expulsion for this targeted abuse (examples below)?

The Labour Party leader cannot be selective about the ethnic, religious or racial discrimination he opposes; he either opposes it all, or he is himself a racist.

Keir Starmer seems to think he does not need to hold himself to such standards – even though they are not lofty; they are criteria to which we should all adhere.

So he needs to start showing solidarity – or party members will find ways to make his future very different indeed.

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Reinstatement of Trevor Phillips shows that post-Corbyn Labour has turned TOWARDS racism

Trevor Phillips and Jeremy Corbyn: the contrast between the way Labour has treated these two men says everything about the party’s attitude – which is one of institutional racism under Keir Starmer.

Here’s the message that explains it all:

Ignore the doubletalk coming from Labour HQ; Jeremy Corbyn was removed from the party leadership because he was impeding the party’s descent into racism – not because he was a racist himself.

The reinstatement of Trevor Phillips just confirms it.

Phillips’s Labour Party membership was suspended in March last year, when Jeremy Corbyn was party leader, over comments he made about Muslims:

He also claimed that the centre of gravity of British Muslim opinion was “some distance away from the centre of gravity of everybody else’s” – prompting Labour MP Naz Shah to demand an explanation.

And Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said, “The statements he has made on a number of different things would not be statements that he would make against other communities.”

According to Labour procedures, Phillips’s case should have gone before a committee of the party’s National Executive Committee – but, after a delay of more than a year, that organisation was told last week that the case against him had been summarily dismissed.

Presumably, this means Keir Starmer decided to spit on the rules and made the decision on his own.

Why?

Well… he’s been spending a lot of time around Peter Mandelson lately.

Mandelson was the spin doctor behind Blairism and New Labour, and it could certainly be argued that Islamophobia was behind the decisions to go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq during Tony Blair’s leadership of the UK.

He is also a close friend of Trevor Phillips.

Consider also:

So: close friend of Mandelson; member of the same Labour branch as Starmer. And Mandelson and Starmer are as thick as thieves right now.

It seems Starmer has turned Labour into another old-school-tie network; a club for well-placed people who have personal interconnections. Doesn’t the Conservative Party already operate that kind of elitist, privileged, entitled system?

So much for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, then, and its demand that Labour’s political interference in its disciplinary process be halted. Keir Starmer vowed solemnly that he would follow that advice. Clearly, he lied.

But then, it seems the EHRC has been failing in its duties since it was created. Would you be surprised at this, knowing that its first chairman was… Trevor Phillips?

The links explained by Chris Williamson suggest wide-ranging, institutional corruption.

So-called centrist (in reality, so deeply into the right-wing of politics that they could be Tories) Labour MPs have rushed to defend the decision to reinstate Phillips. But they haven’t done a very good job. In the video below, Jess Phillips (no relation) seems to be suggesting that the Islamophobia accusations were inflated out of proportion in order to gain political advantage. The Prole Star draws an obvious parallel:

Note also that she was making her comments on a platform provided by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which has its own questions to answer about political interference – especially in the case of Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn himself worked tirelessly to disentangle the party from the barrage of false accusations of anti-Semitism that it faced under his leadership. We now know (don’t we?) that he was undermined in these efforts by right-wing party officials who wanted to smear him in order to ensure that the Conservatives would beat him in a general election, forcing him out.

His reward was to be suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party by Starmer so he now has to sit as an Independent MP – and now one of the party’s swivel-eyed right-wingers, Neil Coyle, has accused him of failing to declare financial support he received in order to fight the false claims against him.

So we see a huge dichotomy – a contrast between Labour’s attitude to anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and what it is doing now about Islamophobia under Starmer:

No wonder Muslims abandoned Labour en masse at the Batley & Spen by-election. The rest of us should do the same because of the outrageous mistreatment of Corbyn.

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#LabourIslamophobia is running riot – because Blairites are in charge again?

Starmer: draping himself in a Union Flag is only going to reinforce claims that his Labour is virulently Islamophobic.

It’s a reasonable suggestion – Tony Blair was quick enough to attack Muslim countries, back when he was the UK’s prime minister.

The Labour Party swung back towards a balanced approach to religion under Jeremy Corbyn, meaning he tried to treat people of all denominations equally, in line with traditional Labour values.

And we all know how that turned out, don’t we? Pro-Israeli people and organisations (not pro-Jewish; they were just using that as a false flag) accused Corbyn of anti-Semitism with a series of lies.

Now, Keir Starmer is leader. He’s a right-winger, although This Writer isn’t sure whether he has been named as an out-and-out Blairite, Islamophobia is a serious and growing problem in the Labour Party – and he couldn’t care less.

As Aditya Chakrabortty writes in The Guardian:

This is apparently Labour’s new “red wall” playbook: prejudice from some white voters amounts to “legitimate concerns” to be pandered to; prejudice from some Asian Muslim voters is used to tar an entire community.

Labour claimed to be campaigning in the name of Jo Cox, Leadbeater’s sister, who was shot and stabbed to death in the same constituency during the Brexit referendum by a far-right terrorist intoning “Britain First”. Among the last things the MP had been working on was a report into violence against Muslims, yet five years later senior employees of her party were in the business of blaming Muslims.

The failures we see notched up daily by Starmer’s team aren’t just political: they are moral.

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Labour Islamophobia: is this the reason Starmer will lose Batley & Spen?

Institutionally Islamophobic? Angela Rayner and Keir Starmer were information of serious concerns about Islamophobia in the Labour Party last November and have done nothing about it. Now we are told Labour sources are attacking Muslims (under the false flag of anti-Semitism) to justify the party’s impending loss of Batley & Spen.

This information is from Dan Hodges of the Mail, so I advise you to take it with a pinch of salt.

He says Labour Party representatives are already trying to justify their loss of the Batley & Spen by-election, even though it hasn’t happened yet.

And they’re doing it with rampant Islamophobia:

‘We’re haemorrhaging votes among Muslim voters,’ one senior Labour official tells me, ‘and the reason for that is what Keir has been doing on antisemitism. Nobody really wants to talk about it, but that’s the main factor. He challenged Corbyn on it, and there’s been a backlash among certain sections of the community.’

Remember the old saying that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? By that token, Hodges is saying that his Labour official told him Muslims (or at least those who live in Batley & Spen) are all anti-Semites.

That is a viciously Islamophobic attitude.

Hodges goes further by saying he received a WhatsApp message (he doesn’t name the source) circulating among Muslim groups, listing five reasons not to support Labour’s candidate, Kim Leadbeater. One of them is this:

‘Her party leader Keir Starmer is pro-Israel and pro-Zionist. He needs to get a clear message in Batley and Spen.’

If this is being used as justification for the claim that all Muslims in the constituency are anti-Semites, then it is thin gruel.

Starmer is pro-Israel and pro-Zionist. Neither of those statements are anti-Semitic, for obvious reasons (not all Jews are Israelis; not all Jews are Zionists; and obviously a person can be pro-Israel and pro-Zionist without being Jewish). And just because a message is distributed around some Muslims, that doesn’t mean all Muslims agree with it.

It doesn’t even mean all Muslims who received the message agree with it.

In fact, Muslims in the constituency have many problems with current Labour policies but it seems the party doesn’t want to engage with those. Why should it, when it can simply tar all local Muslims as anti-Semites?

In doing so, of course, Labour would be taking a leaf out of the Israeli government’s handbook – where every criticism is attacked as anti-Semitic, no matter what it is.

Labour’s own institutional Islamophobia is discussed in a useful Skwawkbox article that states:

Labour’s contempt for Muslim voters and the Islamophobia deeply ingrained in the party’s right have long been obvious – and were condemned last year by a Labour Muslim Network (LMN) report.

Long before that, the party reacted to a recording of vile Islamophobic abuse against a left-wing Muslim member – by protecting the perpetrator and suspending the victim. For more than three years, with the process of expelling him ongoing.

And just after the publication of the LMN report, the party suspended a member of its National Executive Committee (NEC) of Moroccan Muslim heritage – for a statement of solidarity with Palestinians.

Acting general secretary David Evans claimed the party would implement the report’s recommendations in full – but … that has been exposed as nothing but lip service.

The LMN report was damning. As This Site reported last November, it found a whopping one-third of people of their ethnicity have witnessed Islamophobia within the party.

Worse, 44 per cent said they do not believe the party takes Islamophobia seriously and 48 per cent have lost confidence in the party’s complaints structures, according to the Labour Muslim Network investigation.

And worst of all, 59 per cent of Muslims surveyed said they did not feel well represented by the party.

In response, I wrote, “the party leadership that ignores the persecution of Palestine has made a perfunctory comment, promising to implement the report’s recommendations in a not-very-sincere way.

“The wording is cut-and-pasted from press releases about anti-Semitism and both Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner come across as not having thought about this as a serious issue at all.”

Their promise to implement the report’s recommendations appears to have been nothing but hot air.

There is a very clear conclusion to draw from all this.

While the words of Dan Hodges may be questionable, his article has highlighted institutional Islamophobia in the Labour Party.

Both Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner were made aware of it and rather than take action they have sat on their thumbs.

If Labour loses Batley & Spen because the Muslim vote moves elsewhere, they will only have themselves to blame.

Source: DAN HODGES: Who’s spreading the poison that could put the final nail in Keir Starmer’s coffin? | Daily Mail Online

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Johnson hosts Orban visit: they’re all anti-Semites together

Boris Johnson and Victor Orban: they’re all in it together – if “it” is anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Boris Johnson is currently hosting a visit by the rabidly anti-Semite prime minister of Hungary, Victor Orban. Next week he’ll be welcoming Rowdy, Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan!

He might as well.

Orban has been accused of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, based on his behaviour in office. Johnson has been accused of those prejudices, based on his behaviour both in Parliament and away from it (as anyone who’s read his novel 72 Virgins must know.

What’s the message here? That it is okay to be anti-Semitic as long as you’re supplying millions of pounds worth of arms to Israel so it can bomb Muslims?

Even the BBC’s report has mentioned that the visit has been met with widespread condemnation.

Here’s how some of it looks:

This commenter highlighted a decision by The Guardian (amongst others?) to describe Orban as “populist”:

Then there’s this:

Well yes. The Jewish Chronicle spent years campaigning against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, on the grounds that this veteran peace campaigner, who never wished harm upon anybody, was somehow a raving anti-Semite.

In fact, of course…

Now, in fairness, the Jewish Chronicle has published an article in which some Jewish voices have called on Johnson to raise the issue of anti-Semitism with Orban. No more than that.

But it does indicate that Mr Monehan’s sentiment in this tweet is accurate:

The real reason for the meeting is obvious: trade.

Having led the UK out of the excellent trading circumstances it enjoyed as a member of the European Union, Johnson is now reduced to grubbing around among the lowest of the low, desperately searching for someone who will take our products.

Even if he wasn’t an anti-Semite and Islamophobe himself, those considerations would trump his own personal feelings.

If he gets to do a deal, he would happily tell anybody complaining that it is only business.

And his ministers, tasked with ensuring that a good trading relationship is created with this anti-Semitic, Islamophobic government, would give us the classic Nuremberg defence – that they are “only following orders”.

Source: Viktor Orban in talks with Boris Johnson amid condemnation – BBC News

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