Labour pains

British politics is not merely febrile at the moment; it is so unpredictable that anyone who suggests they know what will happen over the course of just a week is deluded. So it is entirely possible that the final leader column of 2019 will look back on a year in which Jeremy Corbyn became Prime Minister. Our political editor’s review of 2018 brings home just how appalling a year it has been for our community’s relationship with the Labour Party. We have seen Jeremy Corbyn’s initial attempts to justify his support for a blatantly antisemitic mural; a mass rally in Parliament Square; a meeting with communal leaders in which the Labour leader managed to make things even worse; and his determination not to implement the full IHRA definition of antisemitism. And those are merely a few examples of the depths to which the Labour Party has sunk. No wonder our September poll showed that nearly 40 per cent of British Jews would “seriously consider emigrating” if Jeremy Corbyn became Prime Minister. How damning that a British ethnic minority views the official opposition as being so toxic that it has to discuss whether it is safe to stay here.

This week, we look at another aspect of this: how the prospect of a Corbyn government is prompting preparations for capital flight by some of our leading philanthropists. Whatever the rights and wrongs of such planning — largely to avoid likely swingeing tax rates — the fact is that this would have a huge impact on our charitable sector, where a large proportion of overall donations comes from a relatively small number of people. This is an issue that our community needs — immediately — to understand and to grapple with. Because, while the Corbynites’ antisemitic milieu would be bad enough, this specifc impact of a Corbyn government is also deeply concerning.