Rory Stewart: Boris, bagels and being (a bit) Jewish
RORY STEWART faced a crunch question early in the now ex-Tory’s bid to be London Mayor — and faced jibes after he said he preferred Pret A Manger over a beer in the pub.
He was not, he admitted, a big drinker but suggested that his main message — that with two very young children it was difficult to go to the pub — had been lost.
And on Monday during his walking tour of the city he wants to run, Mr Stewart opted for Carmelli’s bakery in Golders Green.
“I had a very nice bagel, a predictable bagel — smoke salmon and cream cheese,” he tells the JC in an interview conducted at Zest at JW3. “I’ve also purchased two amazing ginger bread men for my children.”
Mr Stewart speaks of his “special connection” to the Jewish community only days after quitting Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party to stand as an independent candidate for London Mayor.
The former International Development Secretary reveals details of his own family background that he says he is determined to “re-explore” as he campaigns to topple Sadiq Khan in next year’s poll.
Mr Stewart, who was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, says that his mother’s father was “a Jewish doctor in Wimbledon” while his American wife Shoshanah’s mother was also Jewish.
“We celebrate Jewish festivals but also Christian festivals,” he says of family life, with his two children aged four and two. “We are a little bit eclectic — so my boys celebrate Chanukah and Christmas as well.”
Mr Stewart says of his tour of Golders Green: “One of the lovely things about today is about exploring my own heritage... I feel a very, very strong link.”
Looking ahead to his campaign up until the May 2020 election — at which he will also be running against Tory hopeful Shaun Bailey — he adds: “For me, a lot of the next few months is just about listening, walking and learning.
“In Golders Green just now I was pushing people to take me down side streets, take me into shops, show me synagogues. I want to hear people talk about their own lives and their families to develop as rich a picture as I can of life and variety.
“One of the things that is obviously true is that the Jewish community has many divisions and differences within it.
“I can’t assume just because my mother comes from a Jewish family that her experience is the same as everybody else’s.”
Mr Stewart had spent Monday morning visiting Golders Green, chatting to locals and also visiting the Headroom Cafe, where he spoke with Jami Chief Executive Laurie Rackind and Chair Adam Dawson about mental health issues facing the Jewish community.
The tour, which had been arranged by the Jewish Leadership Council before Mr Stewart decided to quit the Tories and announce he was standing for London Mayor, also saw him meet Union of Jewish Students representatives at JW3.
Speaking to the JC afterwards, Mr Stewart, who was elected as the MP for Penrith and the Border in May 2010, says his great-grandfather and great-grandmother were both Jews from “what is now Romania” in the 1870s.
“We still have in our house Hebrew texts that they would have brought over with them.
“They had moved to New York and then moved to London in 1900. From a photograph, my greatgrandfather has the look of a very traditional Ashkenazi man of the time.” Having been born in Hong Kong, and then lived in the “not very Jewish area” of South Kensington, Mr Stewart says he will relish the opportunity of delving further into his Jewish past that the forthcoming months of mayoral campaigning would allow.
Mr Stewart is quick to reject suggestions that, by standing against the current Labour Mayor Mr Khan, he is seeking to split the centrist, progressive vote in the capital.
“What you want to do is choose a good mayor,” he says.
““The lovely thing about democracy is that you really do get to choose, one person, one vote, on who you think is going to make this city better in five or ten years’ time.
“Who is going to really address crime, build houses rather than talk about building houses? I’m very confident the mayor himself would not want to feel as though he was getting special treatment — either because of his political party associations or because of his ethnicity.
“He’d want to be judged on his performance.”
Mr Stewart said it must be recognised that while religious and ethnic background are “one aspect” of a person’s life — issues such as mental health, poverty and wealth and air pollution are universal issues.
He also explains his decision to leave the Conservatives — and his open differences and criticism of the path now chosen for the party by Mr Johnson.
A Remain supporter in the 2016 referendum, he backed then Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal deal.
Responding to the suggestion that Mr Johnson is very different as prime minister to the socially liberal version who was London Mayor until 2016, Mr Stewart is quick to agree.
“What’s changed?” he opines. “It’s difficult to know what is going on in his head. I really don’t understand that and I wouldn’t presume to judge it.
“But you are right — he has clearly… decided to crank the Conservatives round to the right. I think once you’ve done that it’s difficult to come back.
“He’s going after these votes. His strategy seems to be to pick up votes in the north east of England from traditional Labour voters who might have voted Labour but are actually very right wing in their social attitudes.
“I think once you’ve done that it’s difficult to come back. He keeps suggesting, ‘Oh it will be fine, once I’ve got Brexit done I’ll come back to the centre ground again.’ I don’t think you can. Once you’ve picked up 60 constituencies of that sort you are taken hostage.”
Mr Stewart also says he has “profound differences” with the “way Jeremy Corbyn would take things.
“Populism has a terrible, vicious momentum of its own.”
One of the lovely things about today is exploring my own jewish heritage'