Sugar: PM Corbyn would be ‘the

Some edited extracts from last week’s House of Lords debate on antisemitism

LORD POPAT (CON)

History is full of powerful words and actions but silence can be just as formidable. When we are silent in the face of intolerance, we encourage prejudice. When we are silent in the face of falsehoods, we allow lies to be accepted as truth. When we are silent in the face of hatred, then hate will spread.

In the past couple of years, with antisemitism on the rise in France, Hungary and other parts of Europe, many Jews expressed relief that they were living here and not elsewhere. Even a growth in recorded antisemitic incidents in the UK did not dampen the Jewish community’s feeling that they were fundamentally protected by UK values, laws and institutions.

So when my Jewish friends say that they fear for their children’s safety in schools, synagogues and universities; when they are afraid of openly identifying as Jewish, and when they start to question their future in this country, the rest of us have a duty first to listen LORD POPAT (CON) and then to ask: “How has it come to this? Why has it come to this?” And, most importantly, “What are we going to do about it?”

LORD MENDELSOHN (LAB)

In 1984, an anti-Zionist Jew, Steve Cohen, wrote a book calling out the far left for its antisemitism, That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Anti-Semitic. It is as relevant today as it was then.

Far too few of the non-Labour Party left were prepared to accept it but it illustrates a direct line, the politics of which have entered the Labour Party en masse and are now causing this current crisis.

It astounds me that it is a revelation no longer worthy of questioning that I, too, believe that the leader of my party, Jeremy Corbyn, has been a perpetrator of antisemitism.

How to solve this? It is hard to be positive. This is not an organisational problem but a political one and the approach of the party since the shame- LORD MENDELSOHN (LAB) ful Chakrabarti report and up to today will not be enough. Do not blame the victim. It hampers our party because it is a problem of our party.

LORD SACKS (CB)

The greatest danger any civilisation faces is when it suffers collective amnesia. We forget how small beginnings lead to truly terrible endings. A thousand years of Jewish history in Europe added certain words to the human vocabulary: forced conversion, inquisition, expulsion, ghetto, pogrom, Holocaust. They happened because hate went unchecked. No one said ‘stop’.

One of the enduring facts of history is that most antisemites do not think of themselves as antisemites. “We don’t hate Jews”, they said in the Middle Ages, “just their religion”. “We don’t hate Jews”, they said in the 19th century, “just their race”. “We don’t hate Jews”, they say now, “just their nation state”.

Antisemitism is the hardest of all hatreds to defeat because, like a virus, LORD SACKS (CB) it mutates. But one thing stays the same. Jews, whether as a religion or a race or as the state of Israel, are made the scapegoat for problems for which all sides are responsible. That is how the road to tragedy begins.

Antisemitism, or any hate, becomes dangerous when three things happen. First, when it moves from the fringes of politics to a mainstream party and its leadership. Secondly, when the party sees that its popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby. Thirdly, when those who stand up and protest are vilified and abused for doing so. All three factors exist in Britain now. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. That is why I cannot stay silent. For it is not only Jews who are at risk — so, too, is our humanity.

LORD SUGAR (CB)

The Labour leader allowed the issue of alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party to ramble on for months. What kind of leader is he not to take his party LORD SUGAR (CB) by the scruff of the neck, making it see sense and kill the matter off once and for all?

Frankly, he does not give two hoots about what Jews in the UK think. He simply does not care. Of some 250,000 Jews in the UK, let us say 220,000 may be eligible to vote. If it comes to an election, 220,000 votes are a drop in the ocean. We mean nothing to him.

My request to the UK government is to use all efforts to ensure that Jeremy Corbyn does not become the leader of our country. That would be the day Britain died.

BARONESS HAYMAN (CB)

Nearly 50 years ago, I was sitting as the most junior member around the board table of a children’s charity. Discussing a problem that had arisen, a more senior member remarked that we should have known better than to employ “a scheming little Jewess”.

Shocked, I said that, as a Jewish woman, I found that remark unacceptable.