Kaufman’s Allegations
A proper post *will* come tonight, but I had to say something about this.
Gerald Kaufman, my local MP, alleged in the Commons yesterday that Qassim Afzal, our parliamentary candidate in Manchester Gorton, for whom I voted and campaigned, went around personally telling Muslim voters not to vote for Kaufman because he’s Jewish.
Those allegations were made under Parliamentary Privilege, which means Sir Gerald does not have to worry about normal slander laws, and given the source I am disinclined to believe them. I do not consider Sir Gerald a trustworthy source.
However, they are *extraordinarily* serious allegations, and I just want to make clear that I never heard a *single word* about this during the election campaign. Had I heard of such behaviour I would have confronted Qas about it, and were I to have *believed* that such behaviour was happening I would have refused to campaign at all in that constituency, and would have voted for one of the small protest parties, while still remaining a member of the Liberal Democrats.
I am *ABSOLUTELY* against anti-Semitism in all its manifestations, and do not want any of the readers of this blog to believe that I went along with such behaviour. Qas is innocent until proven guilty of this, and I would be very surprised if Sir Gerald has any evidentiary basis for his claims. But I just wanted readers of this blog to be aware that I never even heard a whisper of such claims during the campaign itself. I am also certain that nor did any of our Council candidates, many of whom are active anti-discrimination campaigners.
Its worth pointing out to people that dont know him that Kauffman is not taken seriously by most commentators, the only reason he survives as an MP is because hes in a safe seat with a moribund local party.
This allegation has to be taken on very quickly, Kauffman should be nagged till he comes up with some evidence or apologises.
Absolutely agreed. It’s too serious an allegation – whether true *or* false – to make without evidence. And Kaufman is a useless MP (second-worst in Greater Manchester IMO after Graham Stringer) and I wouldn’t trust him if he said that it was raining in Manchester or that Tories are bastards, let alone something like this…
So Hazel Blears is only the third-worst MP in Greater Manchester? Not convinced on that score.
Good point. I tend to be biased against MPs whose constituencies I’ve been unlucky enough to live in…
Kaufman is unbelievable; while making terrible accusations like this i was there when he accused right wing millionaire Jews of controlling one part of the Conservative party while Lord Ashcroft owns the other part. That said the Liberal Democrats are also terrible in the way they manipulate religion in their electioneering, it has to be said.
What do you mean? I’ve never known the Lib Dems to use religion much in their election campaigns…
I’ve also never heard Kaufman make any comments about ‘right wing millionaire Jews’ and that doesn’t sound at all like his style of speech. When was it he said this?
This is the meeting at which he said it:
http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/free-palestine-vote-labour/
and this is about the Liberal Democrats and their electioneering:
http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/mezuzah-wars-commence/
I don’t see that ‘electioneering’ as being particularly bad – clearly one candidate supports Israel and the other doesn’t, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict being an issue which splits the party. It also makes sense that if you have a pro-Israel candidate in an area with lots of Jewish people, and a pro-Palestine one in an area with lots of Muslims, that they will mention those issues in their leaflets. No-one’s being ‘passed over’ – we don’t have the resources to specifically target people of different races or religions. Certainly in my experience every leaflet goes to every address with someone on the electoral roll.
(Also, Nick Clegg doesn’t make the decisions for the Lib Dems – we’re a democratic party, unlike the other major parties).
Well to me that is a compete sell-out of all principles, looking at the religion of your local electorate and deciding your foreign policy based on their religion. My dad was going to vote for Jo Shaw as he got nice, polite letters from her. He didn’t get to see the anti-Israel literature she sent round to other flats until i showed him. I wonder why. And then there is jenny tonge. Don’t start me on her. And Chris Davies, David Steele, Menzies Cambell and Nick “stop arming Israel” Clegg, himself.
That’s not what’s happening though – those candidates *already* have different views on Israel and Palestine, which they talk about in their leaflets. Were those candidates to swap constituencies, they wouldn’t suddenly swap opinions, just be less likely to use those opinions in their leaflets.
Well, you are being kind I feel. The Lib Dems is a party littered with anti-Israel polemicists, except when it comes to highly Jewish concentrated areas. And why did my dad not get any of the anti-Israel literature that was so ubiquitous in Jo Shaw’s campaign in Kings Cross and St. Pancras?
Then what about Jenny Tonge. Are you comfortable with having her in your party?
I don’t know why your dad didn’t get that literature, but my knowledge of Lib Dem campaigns suggests it’s more likely they don’t have a deliverer in his area, or that the deliverer dumped the leaflets, than that they were targeted by religion. I’ve been in the party many years and never yet seen a single piece of literature targetted by *anything* other than geographical area – we don’t have the resources to do that kind of thing. The process is very simple – print off thousands of leaflets as quickly as you can, print off a list of every house with someone on the electoral roll, get some poor sod to deliver said thousands of leaflets according to the list. We deliver even to *opposing candidates*.
And as it happens I’m perfectly happy having Jenny Tonge in my party. I think her remarks about Israel recently were ill-advised, and ignorant of historical context regarding blood libel, but not actually evidence of anti-semitism on her part. If I didn’t want to be in a party with people who said anything stupid, or ill-advised, or that I disagree with, I’d be in a party on my own, for about five minutes until I changed my mind on something and fell out with me…
(Just to correct something I said earlier – we do target some literature to groups like known supporters, as we get closer to election dates. I don’t believe that we have any data by which we could target by religion or ethnicity, any more than I believe the nonsense about Labour targetting cancer patients during the election.)
Andrew, one doesn’t need data to target by religion, you just have to look up at the doorpost of a Jewish house. The presence or absence of a mezuzah there is all the data needed. What about Clegg calling for banning the supply of weapons to Israel, which is fighting Islamic extremism like we are in Afghanistan? He is a hypocrite.
Logically one of these two statements must be more beyond parody than the other.
Buggered if I can tell which, though…
Wow. Both are ‘Islamic Extremism’? I think, sir, it might be you who is libeling a religion. Both the Palestinians and the Taliban are essentially nationalist forces who oppose occupation. They, for the main, are not doing it for religious reasons. To lump together a variety of extremist groups into the same phenomenon is extremely reductionist, shows a poor understanding of the localised dynamics driving the separate conflicts and shows a worrying inability to think through the fact that one can be pro-Israeli without being pro-occupation, or for that matter, pro arming the Netanyahu government. Peter Beinart in the NY Review of Books was excellent on this recently.
Ref Qas and kaufman. If it is untrue that Afzal made the remarks why has he received a purple card ?
I’m sorry, I have absolutely no idea what a purple card is, nor did I know until now that Qas had received one, and I still don’t know what the relevance of receiving one is to the allegations…
I have also been *VERY* careful not to say it didn’t happen – I only saw Qas on three occasions during the campaign, on none of those occasions for very long. For all I know he could have spent every second he wasn’t in my presence spouting anti-semitic obscenities. What I *HAVE* said though is that if he did so, I never heard anything about it either directly or indirectly, not even from people I know who dislike him personally – and many of the people I know are very active in anti-racist/anti-fascist movements, and would have let me know had *they* heard anything.
Couple that with my personal opinion that Sir Gerald is far from trustworthy, and with the principle of innocence until proven guilty, and *right now* my assumption is that Qas didn’t say those things. But if there’s any evidence that he did (and you can be sure this will come up at the local party meeting this week), then I promise, categorically, that I will do everything in my power to make sure he’s never selected for a seat anywhere again, and will write a personal apology to Sir Gerald for campaigning for him.
But given that nobody has seen any evidence, I don’t think there’s even a case to answer…