UK Prime Minister Theresa May meets with US President Donald Trump at the White House, January 27, 2017. (Image source: UK Prime Minister’s Office)

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow declared that he would not invite Trump to make a speech before Parliament due to the president’s alleged “sexism” and “racism,” and the British Parliament’s opposition to those stances, as well as, further, due to Trump’s temporary restrictions on immigration until better procedures for vetting applicants can be put in place .

Bercow, however, never adhered to due process: he should first have consulted the Speaker of the House of Lords or the Lord Chamberlain.

If Bercow thought that a ban from addressing Parliament would stop Trump from addressing the British people, he seems to have been wrong. Press reports suggest that Trump is planning massive stadium events. Perhaps that is the repeated failure of Trump’s opposition: to see his appeal to the masses.

Furthermore, where was Bercow when Emir of Kuwait visited? Kuwait has a poor record on women’s rights, and refuses entry to those with Israeli passports. Kuwait Airways and even dropped its flights between New York and London not to “break the law” by possibly carrying Israeli passengers.

How come, then, that Bercow did not think it advisable to oppose the Emir of Kuwait’s visit due to its “sexism” and “immigration ban”? No, Bercow granted the Emir a speech in the Queen’s Robing Room.

Bercow also granted a speech in Westminster Hall to the President of Indonesia — a country that canes women for “standing too close to their boyfriends”; that has applied sharia law and that has put the homosexual community under “unprecedented attack”.

In addition to these seeming slip-ups, Bercow also received a representative of the North Korean regime for afternoon tea in Parliament, and received representatives from the Communist single-party state of Vietnam.

So, it is evidently acceptable to be a representative of some of the world’s most repressive dictatorships, with policies far worse than Trump’s, and yet visit Parliament, but a democratically elected leader in the free world and a key ally, who may hold some views with which Bercow disagrees, makes him unacceptable.

Some MPs have rightly raised concerns that the Speaker is “using the Speaker’s chair to pontificate on international affairs.” The Speaker in Britain’s Parliament is supposed to be impartial; some MPs have alleged that Bercow has “broken his employment contract with members of parliament,” in which he is bound to remain impartial.

Others open to allegations of hypocrisy include Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, who demanded that Donald Trump not to be allowed a state visit or even to enter the UK for his incorrectly-named “Muslim ban” — actually, only a temporary ban on people from seven countries, designated by former President Barack Obama, and over which Congress gave the president the power to restrict people who might be security risks.

On the same day in which Sadiq Khan made these comments, he then hosted a party to which he invited the ambassadors of Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen – all of which ban Israelis, and some of which even ban peopled holding passports stamped by Israel. Where was the outrage then, the mass protests, the marches against Khan for welcoming them?

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, also made it clear that he would not welcome Trump addressing Parliament and that he opposed a state visit. How ironic from someone who has welcomed former members of the IRA to Parliament, shortly after the IRA bombed the Conservative Party conference. He also welcomed Hezbollah and Hamas, and called them his “friends”. Hamas is a genocidal organisation that remains dedicated to killing Jews and destroying Israel, and Hezbollah is dedicated to the obliteration of Israel.

It seems that there is a double standard here: Trump may have previously made tasteless remarks, but are his policies really worse than those of the Iran or North Korea?

As the British author George Orwell is alleged to have said, “Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

What is it that the people trying to keep Trump from speaking are afraid others might hear?

Robbie Travers, a political commentator and consultant, is Executive Director of Agora, former media manager at the Human Security Centre, and a law student at the University of Edinburgh.

The conviction of radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary — the most prominent extremist in Britain — has been widely welcomed in the UK. For years his followers and he have infuriated the vast majority of the British public (including most British Muslims) with their inflammatory and hate-filled rhetoric. They have also provided a constant stream of people willing to follow through the words with actions. More people around Choudary have been convicted of terrorism offences in the UK than any other Islamist group — including al-Qaeda.

But Choudary’s conviction for encouraging people to join ISIS should not be greeted as though that is the end of a matter.

The conviction of radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary (centre) — the most prominent extremist in Britain — has been widely welcomed in the UK.

Last week we noted here how, after the murder of an Ahmadiyya Muslim in the UK at the hands of another Muslim, some Muslims are “more Muslim than others” and that those outside a particular theological group can be killed is not an idea held only by the murderer. It is an idea with a significant following in the UK Muslim community, as well as among Muslims worldwide. A recent test of this issue was the execution in January this year in Pakistan of Mumtaz Qadri. This was the man who murdered Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab province in Pakistan. Taseer had opposed the strict blasphemy laws which operate in his country. In Qadri’s eyes, Taseer was an apostate for even thinking of watering down the blasphemy laws that jihadists and Islamists such as the Taliban wish to preserve. And so Qadri killed the governor.

Of course one would like to think that everyone could unite in condemning the actions of a man such as Mumtaz Qadri. What is striking is how many people fail to do so, and how many Muslim clerics and religious leaders — even in the West — not only fail to do so but have been open in their praise of Qadri and their condemnation of Pakistan for putting him to death. Prominent among the latter group is the imam of the largest mosque in Scotland — the Glasgow central mosque.

This past month, however, an even more significant event occurred. In July, two Pakistani clerics started a tour of the UK. Their seven-week expedition, called “Sacred Journey,” goes on until September 4, and includes appearances in Oldham, Rochdale, Rotherham and the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Maidenhead. One of the first things that Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman did when they arrived in the UK was to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop welcomed them in Lambeth Palace and claimed that the meeting would strengthen “interfaith relations,” as well as address “the narrative of extremism and terrorism.” One wonders how far the Archbishop got in this task?

If there is a “narrative of extremism and terrorism,” Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman can take some serious credit for the fact. Both men took an enthusiastic stand in Pakistan in support of Mumtaz Qadri. That is, they supported the murderer of a progressive Pakistani official. Listen here, for instance, to Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman delivering a hysterical speech in support of Mumtaz Qadri while his fellow cleric, Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman, looks on approvingly from the platform.

Here is Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman whipping up the vast crowd of mourners after the funeral of Mumtaz Qadri in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. During his speech he repeatedly refers to Qadri as a shaheed [martyr]. Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral, and afterwards rioted, chanting slogans such as “Qadri, your blood will bring the revolution” and “the punishment for a blasphemer is beheading.”

After Qadri’s execution, Haseeb ur Rehman said on social media “Every person who loves Islam and Prophet is in grief for the martyrdom of Mumtaz Qadri.”

So what are two clerics who approve of murdering reformers and mourn the death of fanatics and assassins doing touring the UK? Shahbaz Taseer, the son of the Salman Taseer, is among those who has criticised the UK authorities for allowing the two men into the country. “These people teach murder and hate,” he has said.

“For me personally I find it sad that a country like England would allow cowards like these men in. It’s countries like the UK and the US that claim they are leading the way in the war against terror [and] setting a standard. Why are they allowing people [in] that give fuel to the fire they are fighting against?”

“They have got hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK,” the imam of the Madina Mosque and Islamic Centre in Oldham, Zahoor Chishti, said of the two clerics. Chishti denied that the event was organised by his mosque and said that he was not aware of the views of the speakers. “When I found out I was upset. I think it was really upsetting and wrong. They come to the UK every year and give messages of love, so that’s why they’re booked on that basis.’

Elsewhere, the “Sacred Journey” tour has already thrown up another interesting connection. Mohammed Shafiq runs a one-man outfit called the “Ramadan Foundation” in the UK, and is regularly called upon by the British media. He appears to be viewed as a “moderate” Muslim because he has been outspoken in opposition to the mass rape of children by gangs of Muslim men. Despite this heroism, his own liberal credentials (not least as a member of the Liberal Democrat party) have often come into question. Several years ago, for instance, when the Liberal Democrat candidate and genuine anti-extremism campaigner Maajid Nawaz re-Tweeted an innocuous cartoon from the “Jesus and Mo” series, Shafiq was among those who tried to get up a lynch-mob against Nawaz. Shafiq wrote on social media that Nawaz was a “Ghustaki Rasool,” Urdu for “defamer of the prophet.” He warned that he would “notify Islamic countries.” Shafiq angrily denied that these and other messages constituted incitement against Nawaz.

But now, on the visit of two clerics to the UK who applaud and mourn Mumtaz Qadri, where is Mohammed Shafiq to be found? Why, warmly greeting the cleric who praises the murderers of reformers and glad-handing with the terrorist-apologists and blasphemy lynch-mob, of course.

Almost everyone in Britain is pleased that the loudmouth Anjem Choudary has gone to jail. Like the hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza before him, Choudary was — as a case — almost too easy. He was the most visible part of the problem. But he was not the greatest or deepest problem in this area. That problem is shown when two extremist clerics with pre-medieval views come to Britain, they are welcomed by an ignorant British establishment. The problem is shown when they tour mosques, they do so to packed houses because they have “hundreds of thousands” of followers of Pakistani origin in the UK. The problem is shown when you scratch the surface of one of the self-proclaimed “moderates” like Mohammed Shafiq and discover that he is happy to pal around with the people who threaten reformers and praise murderers.

That is the problem for British Islam in a nutshell. And that is a problem we still remain woefully unable to confront.

Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England.

During the course of a hot summer Britain’s Labour party is in meltdown on a range of issues. But among the worst parts of its meltdown are those to do with its continuing effort to cover up the party’s serious anti-Semitism problem.

As we have pointed out here before, the party’s leader — Jeremy Corbyn — has such a long history of association and sympathy with some of the world’s most extreme anti-Semites that it is hard to see how the party’s problems could not trickle down as well as up. Now two developments suggest that the Labour body politic has become so wracked by this problem that it is unlikely to recover.

The first demonstration was the confirmation that one of this year’s two “inquiries” into anti-Semitism in the party had been hobbled before it even began. Anyone closely observing this review (ordered by Jeremy Corbyn, after a string of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments by Labour MPs, Councillors and members of the party’s National Executive Committee were exposed) knew that it was unlikely to be anything other than a whitewash. The person in charge of this review — veteran left-wing campaigner Shami Chakrabarti — had already demonstrated it was unlikely that her review would seriously probe the party’s problem; she talked of the problem of anti-Semitism only by also highlighting “Islamophobia and other forms of racism’. This circumlocution — beloved of Jeremy Corbyn himself — avoids tackling the specific problem of anti-Semitism and clearly aspires to dilute the problem in a sea of other challenges.

That the launch of Chakrabarti’s thin and shallow report itself included two anti-Semitic incidents made it look as though Labour’s low could get no worse. But since then, Chakrabarti was interviewed on a new television station in the UK (JTV) and was probed on precisely what she was offered in order to come up with the bland and unremarkable whitewash she had. Chakrabarti had already received criticism for becoming a signed-up member of the Labour party on the day that she was asked to write her “inquiry” into the party. But during her interview she was specifically asked about whether she had been offered the upgrade of a seat in the House of Lords (a peerage) before writing her report, Chakrabarti looked unusually uncomfortable and shuffled around before saying, “I don’t think I want to talk about my future ambitions at this point’. Pressed on the question, she played around with a glass of water before saying “You can ask the question, and I’m going to evade it at this point.”

Within days of this news emerging, the matter of the Labour party’s other anti-Semitism inquiry in the year also returned. Earlier this year, and before the Chakrabarti report, the Labour party commissioned somebody who had already gotten their peerage — Baroness Royall — to investigate accusations of anti-Semitism in the Oxford University Labour Club. Unlike the Chakrabarti whitewash, the Royall report was never published. A brief summary of conclusions released by the Labour party presented the findings as suggesting that there was in essence no particular problem. Now someone — presumably the report’s author herself — has “leaked” the full report. And it makes clear that the Labour party clearly attempted to cover up the negative findings of an inquiry that they themselves had commissioned.

The Royall report shows that students at the Oxford University Labour club who were Jewish were subjected to frequent anti-Semitism. It revealed that “There have been some incidents of anti-Semitic behaviour” and also that “some Jewish members do not feel comfortable attending the [OULC] meetings, let alone participating.” Although the Labour party had decided that there needed to be no action taken after their suppression of the Royall report, the report itself says as a consequence of what has been found, “It is appropriate for the disciplinary procedures of our Party to be invoked.”

So this is the tale of two inquiries. One inquiry, which found the Labour party to have an anti-Semitism problem, was suppressed by the Labour party. The other, which found the Labour party did not have an anti-Semitism problem, was released. The author of the suppressed report had to leak the report to the press herself. And the author of the whitewash report? Well, on Thursday of this week, in the least surprising news of the year, it was announced that the one person put forward for a peerage by the Labour party in the latest honours list is… Shami Chakrabarti.

Shami Chakrabarti, who wrote a report last month whitewashing the problem of anti-Semitism in the UK Labour party, was this week put forward by the Labour party for a seat in the House of Lords (a peerage). (Image source: Southbank Centre/Flickr)

When people wonder whether this problem will go away, here is the reason it will not: A party that suppresses the truth and elevates lies is not going to remedy its problems any time soon. A party that tries to silence those who identify anti-Semitism and rewards those who cover it up is a party where moral as well as political corruption is not an aberration, but systemic.

Douglas Murray, a British author, news analyst and commentator, is based in London, England.

The Co-operative Group is the only major British retailer to boycott Israeli goods. It is the fifth-largest retail grocery chain in the UK, with thousands of Co-op minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom. The Co-operative Group (formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society) is closely linked to — and a major funder of — the Co-operative Party, which has an electoral pact with the Labour Party, the UK’s official opposition. The Co-operative Party has, like the Labour Party itself, been infiltrated by a strong anti-Israel faction.

The Co-operative Group is the fifth-largest retail grocery chain in the UK, with thousands of Co-op minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom. Right: The Co-operative Group head office in Manchester. (Image source: Co-operative Group/Wikimedia commons)

The “co-operative movement” in England began in 1844 when a group of people in Rochdale, Lancashire decided that local stores were charging too much for food, and decided to set up a co-operative retail outlet. From there, the movement mushroomed until, at one time, it even had a flagship department store in London’s premier shopping street, Oxford Street, as well as farms, pharmacies and funeral services, to say nothing of the Co-operative Bank, its most lucrative enterprise.

The co-operative movement is also linked to the Co-operative Party, a political party with close links to the British Labour Party, a relationship that dates back to the Co-operative Congress held in 1917, which eventually led to an agreement between the Co-operative Party and the Labour Party to elect joint “Labour Co-operative” candidates. At the last general election in 2015, 21 members of parliament were elected on the Labour and Co-operative ticket.

In 2013, a scandal hit the Co-operative Bank, when it was discovered that there was a massive shortfall in funds due to corruption and mismanagement at the top. The Co-operative Group suffered a terrible financial blow, losing many millions of pounds. This resulted in an entire re-organization of the Co-operative Group, including the sale of the pharmacies and most of the Co-operative Bank (the Co-operative Group still has a 20% share but the bank has demutualized, meaning it is now mainly owned by a hedge fund and is no longer a mutual fund owned by the members).

The Co-operative Group is finally on the road to recovery thanks to new management and the policy of opening minimarkets throughout the United Kingdom, backed up by a massive TV advertising campaign. However, the boycott of Israeli produce remains.

A certain pressure group within the co-operative movement, formed in 2008, caused the Co-operative Group to boycott Israeli agricultural produce exported by the four major Israeli produce exporters. The Co-op Group has refused to stock products from Jewish communities on the West Bank since 2009, but in 2014 its board extended the boycott to the four main exporters of Israeli fresh produce — Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin — because they do not distinguish between produce from Israel within the 1949 armistice lines borders and (Arab- and Jewish-grown) produce from beyond it. This assumes that those advocating the boycott know exactly where the new borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state will be, despite that they are yet to be determined through negotiation. Ironically, most of the produce from Jewish settlements currently beyond the Green Line (the 1949 armistice lines between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) is produced by kibbutzim that were there before 1948, when the West Bank was lost in Israel’s War of Independence.

One such area is the Etzion Bloc of four kibbutzim, for which the land was purchased from its previous owners long before the British withdrew from Palestine. The Etzion Bloc will, in fact, almost certainly become part of Israel after a final settlement.

A substantial proportion of the produce marketed by Israel’s four agricultural exporters is produced by Arab farmers, operating both inside and outside the pre-1967 borders, as Israel does not discriminate between them. According to The Guardian, in April 2012, the Co-Operative Group said in a statement that it had decided to stop buying products from companies known to source from Jewish “settlements.” The decision affects contracts valued at £350,000 (about $500,000) — a practice apparently begun in 2009. Presumably it had still been doing business with Israeli pharmaceutical products; if not, according to one Co-operative Group board member, “the shelves of the pharmacy would have been bare.” Unfortunately, the Co-operative pharmacies had to be sold when the Co-op Group faced virtual ruin due to the mismanagement of the Co-op Bank’s directors.

There is, of course, no proof that the Israeli companies with which the Co-op continues to do business do not source any products from Jewish “settlements” because many Israeli businesses in the West Bank are mainly involved in manufacturing. These enterprises employ many local Arab workers, whose livelihoods are endangered by the boycott.

Although the Co-operative Group also claims to reject exports from the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara, also alleged to be an illegal occupation, in practice the boycott only affects Israel, because the Western Sahara boycott is applicable only to a few tins of sardines. The Co-op Group continues to refer to Israel’s “illegal settlements” as if these and those in the Western Sahara (included “for balance” no doubt) were the only disputed territories in the world. There is no boycott, of course, of major exporting countries with appalling human rights records, such as China (invasion of Tibet), Russia (invasion of the Ukraine) and other countries whose occupation of other areas is not recognized internationally, such as Nagorno-Karabakh or Northern Cyprus. It should be remembered that in none of the above cases were the occupying countries threatened; the aggression came purely from one side, the side that was victorious This is the exact opposite of what happened in the case of Israel, but with a bloc of 58 Muslim countries in the United Nations, supported by most of the members of the European Union, might proves to be right in this case.

To set the record straight, the so-called “occupation” of the West Bank by Israel is not an occupation at all, since the territory was taken from Mandate Palestine, after it had been abandoned by the British and was occupied by the Kingdom of Jordan (then known as Transjordan), in its attempt to destroy the new State of Israel in 1948-49. Between 1948 and 1967, the West Bank was occupied by Jordan, an occupation that could indeed be said to be illegal, being recognized only by the United Kingdom (which had colluded therein) and Pakistan. This former “no man’s land” was taken by Israel during the Six-Day War against it in 1967. The massive Muslim bloc in the United Nations has ruthlessly pursued the concept of an “occupation” to divert attention from the appalling human rights abuses that their dictatorships continue to maintain in their own countries.

By no means everyone running the Co-operative Group is in favour of the boycott in fact; ironically, some of the newer members of the Group’s management even seem to be unaware of it. A recent statement made by a new member of the Members’ Board at a members’ meeting in London implied that whether or not one bought Israeli goods (presumably from the Co-op) was a mere matter of preference. As usual, of all the countries in the world, Israel is being singled out. For the boycotters of the Co-op Group, Israel is the usual soft target.

Myra Carr is based in the United Kingdom.

The UK Labour Party, which once stood proudly in solidarity with the victims of terrorism, now, under the would-be leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, seems to have become a haven for anti-Semites, Islamists and their apologists.

It is hard to believe that the party once led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who assisted President Bush in leading the war on terror and fighting expansionist Islamist movements, is now led by a man who voted against banning Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization months after more than 200 people were killed in the 1998 terrorist attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Jeremy Corbyn alleges that he stands on a platform where “There is no place for anti-semitism or any form of racism in the Labour Party, or anywhere in society.” He also says that Labour have taken “decisive action.”

Despite Corbyn’s protestations that he is an avowed anti-racist who condemns Islamism, and that he continually condemns anti-Semitism, this leadership has tolerated anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic dialogue and has drawn Islamists into the Labour Party. When Corbyn was asked to do more to tackle the rising climate of anti-Semitism, which has seen Labour MP Louise Ellman face anti-Semitic abuse, his brother, Piers Corbyn, tweeted: “ABSURD! All Corbyns are committed Anti Nazi. Zionists can’t cope with anyone supporting rights for Palestine.”

The remark suggests that anti-Semitism is just a recent prejudice, created only to aid Zionists, as response to the pro-Palestinian movement, rather than a movement of a people who have inhabited that area — a sizeable section of which is even called Judea — for nearly 3000 years. Until 1948, Palestinians did not even exist — except as the accepted name of those Christians Arabs and Jews who lived under the British Mandate (1923-1948), after the Ottoman Empire collapsed.

Corbyn’s followers, however, do not seem to be as keen as he claims them to be to condemn the rising culture of anti-Semitic mythology that tends to be propagated by many of his self-proclaimed acolytes.

The party that claims to be the epitome of anti-racism, has, in recent months has, rightly suffered at the hands of UK media exposés for its tolerance of racism — in this instance anti-Semitism. It is a view that often seems to go hand in hand with apologists for extremist Islam and radical Islamic terror.

Labour Party MP Naz Shah (left), was recently suspended from the party for composing and sharing anti-Semitic tropes. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (right), has a tendency to hang around with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic hate-preachers and others of a similar ilk, and is a self-declared “friend” of the terror outfits Hamas and Hezbollah.

John Tummon, for one, repeatedly called, at the Left Unity 2014 Conference, for the restoration of a Caliphate comprising the entirety of the Middle East. He posited that a Caliphate, with the strict imposition of Islamic sharia law, would see that “diversity and autonomy are protected and nurtured and the mass of people can effectively control executive authority.”

What strict implementation of Islamic sharia law usually sees, however, are women’s personal, economic and political rights obliterated. The rights, in fact, of other religious minorities such as Yazidis, Alevis and Baha’i, as well as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community and the Jews, would also suffer extreme persecution, as the latter already has, often with calls for annihilation, such as “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas.”

The idea that a single totalitarian Caliphate would bring increased democracy and stability, let alone civil and political rights, to an increasingly factional, corrupt and unstable Middle East, appears more a childlike, logic-defying fantasy.

Tummon’s motion also condemns secular politics by disparaging notions — such as rights for the religious to worship free of persecution, and the separation of church and state — as a “Eurocentric brand of secularism” which, he claims, forces Middle Eastern people to abandon their religious faith.

Wait, isn’t it usually secular societies that protect the rights of religious minorities, including Muslims, to practice their faith? And that prevent religious extremists from dominating state politics and forcing their beliefs on others? Were the Christians in orange jump suits who had their throats slit by ISIS allowed to practice their faith? Was Asia Bibi, a Christian woman in Pakistan, on death row for having drunk water from the same well as Muslims and then refusing to convert to Islam, allowed to practice her faith?

Is it nations such as Saudi Arabia that Tummon apparently aspires to emulate: those with sharia law that do not allow a single place of worship for those outside Islam?

John Tummon has described the Islamic State (IS) — a terrorist organization trying to convert or wipe out Yezidis, Kurds, and Christians in Syria and Iraq — as an organisation with “progressive potential.”

“Progressive potential”? Why is Tummon not defending LGBT rights instead of defending an organization that throws gays off rooftops?

Why is Tummon not defending women’s rights instead of defending an organization that forces its sex slaves to take contraceptives so they can be raped without consequences? (In Islam, it is forbidden to rape a woman if she is pregnant.)

What sort of person would want to be associated with a party whose members have views such as these?

The headache for Labour does not simply end with Tummon’s support for a Caliphate; he has also said: “and I advocated critical support for the development [of] ISIL.” Is he arguing that that the UK should be providing military support for ISIL — an organization that commits genocide against the religious minorities Tummon claims a caliphate protects?

Consider also the case of Gerry Downing who, until March was a Labour member. In March, live on UK television, Downing refused to condemn the murderers of 2,996 people in the 9/11 attacks, and continued on to say that the 9/11 attacks “must never be condemned.” Does he therefore find some part of 9/11 supportable?

Downing was reinstated to Labour after his suspension, even after his comments on various blogs were known to the party. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, challenged Corbyn on Downing’s views in Parliament, Corbyn didn’t reply to the question.

Corbyn not only seems slow to react to issues of anti-Semitism; he also does not seem to stand in solidarity with the victims of terrorism. And that is supposed to be a qualification for a leader of the Labour Party? Was the association of Gerry Downing with the Labour Party desirable or even morally correct?

Another, member of the Labour Party, Vicki Kirby, was originally suspended in 2014 from the party for tweeting that “Hitler was a Zionist God,” and “We invented Israel when saving [the Jews] from Hitler.”

Kirby’s views provide a greater insight into her, and possibly other individuals joining Corbyn’s Labour Party, than into Israel or Jews.

Kirby seems to completely misunderstand the nature of Zionism, which is not to strip Arabs of their rights to land or form an expansionist Israeli state, but rather to protect Jews from being attacked and safeguard their rights. She also argued that “ISIS should attack Israel” — a sentiment less than neighbourly. She also didn’t fail to deploy the cliché that “Jews have big noses,” apparently failing to observe that many Italians, Arabs and other people do too.

By mid-March, it must have been apparent even to Corbyn that Kirby might be a liability. An “investigation” into her remarks is still pending. Kirby is still suspended.

And what is Corbyn’s answer to Beinazir Lasharie, who said that “Many people know about who was behind 9/11 and also who is behind ISIS. I’ve nothing against Jews… just sharing it!” Such remarks — which wrongly attribute Islamist terrorist attacks to Jews — seem intended to marginalize them in Britain; no wonder British Jews might feel at risk.

After being expelled from the Labour Party for her anti-Semitic views, Lasharie was quietly readmitted to the party in December .

Did I forget to mention Tony Greenstein, who, it is alleged, has claimed that Jews supported the Third Reich’s Nuremberg Laws, which restricted Jews in virtually every area — including political involvement, clothing, marriage, employment, and ultimately their existence. How then is it that there are many Arab members of Israel’s Knesset? Greenstein maintains he is not anti-Semitic.

Khadim Hussain, a Labour Councillor and the former Mayor of Bradford, seems another part of the same pattern. He posted an image claiming, “[The UK] school education system only tells you about Anne Frank and the six million Zionists that were killed.”

Not only is he falsely conflating Jews with Zionists; what is at least as worrying is that his remark indicates that the extermination of six million people is, or should be, forgettable. It also implies that the history of young Anne Frank, forced to hide, then herded into a concentration camp where she died for the “crime” of being a member of a religious and ethnic group — a circumstance she did not choose and which occurred in another European country — is not necessary to teach to children.

It is, and remains, absolutely necessary to teach children what people can do to each other when slaughter is officially sanctioned.

If these are the folks who make up Corbyn’s Labour Party — people who defend 9/11, support ISIS, marginalize Jews and liken Israel to Hitler — are we all really supposed to rush out and vote for them?

I used to be a member of the Labour Party, until it was Corbynized. I do not feel like celebrating Hitler, demeaning the Holocaust, spreading racial smears about the Jews — or anyone for that matter — or claiming that Islamism and sharia law are “progressive.”

I am not a Jew, and I have no links to Judaism. But if being a Jew offends anti-Semitic racists, then I am happy to call myself a Jew, and to stand up and be counted with the Jews as a minority facing increased persecution across Europe.

When I was growing up, my grandfather showed me a picture:

A now-famous photograph, in which a man identified as August Landmesser refuses to give the Nazi salute, was taken on 13 June 1936.

“Be like this guy,” he said,” no matter what the personal cost, because you should always do the right thing.” My grandfather was right. I want to be that “guy” in the photograph who is standing up against the anti-Semitism re-emerging then in Europe and saying that enough is enough. I only wish more people in UK Labour were half as impressive and had half his character.

Robbie Travers, a political commentator and consultant, is Executive Director of Agora, former media manager at the Human Security Centre, and a law student at the University of Edinburgh.