Does the Labour Party still have an anti-Semitism problem?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Keir Starmer has gone out of his way to break with his party's antisemitic past and to reshape the Labour parliamentary party.
But this weekend, shadow ministers found themselves in the unenviable position of having to defend the Labour candidate for Rochdale for 'mistakenly believing a conspiracy theory' instead of calling him out for his antisemitic remarks about whether Israel had turned a blind eye to the Hamas atrocities as 'a green light for a full on Gaza invasion'.
Azhar Ali is standing against George Galloway which is perhaps why Labour is nervous. What should happen to all those other MPs suspended by the party leader for antisemitic remarks?
And where does this leave Keir Starmer on his Middle East foreign policy more widely?
Also, Trump has encouraged Russia to invade NATO countries that dont pay their bills. Well of course he has. Why is Europe surprised? And has it figured out America under Trump is not going to care about our security? We discuss why we've been so slow to listen to what he's saying.
**This episode was recorded before Labour withdrew their support for Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali**
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Producer: Laura FitzPatrick
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.9 | Today I make you a number of further promises. |
| 0:16.9 | Firstly, that under my leadership, there will be zero tolerance of anti-Semitism, |
| 0:21.6 | of racism, of discrimination of any kind. |
| 0:26.2 | And secondly, that every day... |
| 0:28.0 | That was the Labour leader, Kirstama, exactly a year ago this week, |
| 0:33.2 | with his full-throated condemnation of the anti-Semitism |
| 0:37.1 | that has driven his party for the last few years. |
| 0:41.9 | Yet over the weekend, he was forced to defend a parliamentary candidate in the seat of Rochdale |
| 0:48.9 | who said words that many in his party and further afield will find unforgivable. |
| 0:57.0 | As our Ali was recorded in the autumn telling a meeting of the Lancashire Labour Party |
| 1:02.0 | that the Israeli government may have stood back and allowed the terrible massacre of October |
| 1:08.0 | the 7th to happen in order to affect retribution on Gaza and Hamas. |
| 1:14.5 | Labour says he was simply a victim of an online conspiracy theory. |
| 1:18.9 | How does this tally with anything that Stama has said about anti-Semitism in the past? |
| 1:24.2 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:29.2 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:31.4 | It's Emily. It's Lewis. And the Soaple one is still down under, sending us copious voicemails |
| 1:37.2 | and the hope that we might indeed give him a broadcasting platform from Australia. |
| 1:41.7 | A job. A job even. Back with us this time next week. |
| 1:45.2 | Can't wait. But we start with the Labour travails of the weekend, which present a real headache, |
... |
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