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The way the far left cut the Corbyn brothers so much slack over antisemitism seems to me to reveal not only their tolerance and blind spot for this pernicious racism but also the inherent classism that still exists in this country, on both the left and the right.
Imagine,if you will, getting in a taxi & within a couple off minutes the driver starts to speak in a broad working class accent. It could be cockney, brummie, geordie, scouse, whatever and, over the course of the journey, he expresses the same views as Piers & Jeremy Corbyn.
He starts off by saying “here, I had this geezer round my house the other day, he reckons Jews drink the blood of gentile children. He’s a lovely bloke, very honourable man. And I’ve just read this book that claims the Jews funded all the world wars,
& my bruvver, he reckons all this Covid stuff is bollocks. So Guess what he did? This’ll make you laugh. He posted a flyer aroundJewish areas with the image of the Auschwitz gates on’em. But instead of “Arbeit macht frei”he put “Vaccines are safe path to freedom.” He’s hilarious
Now how many people, be they far left , or Corbyn supporting actors, artists and journalists, would question whether this working class man was anti Semitic? None of them. They hear those words, in that accent and say “stop the cab, I want to get out!”
But two brothers middle class, privately educated, posh & articulate are seen at worst as slightly eccentric but well meaning. They couldn’t possibly be as bad as the working class man who, who crudely expresses the same views and behaves in the same way.
It’s the same with Boris Johnson, several children by three different women, in his younger days part of a gang that used to smash up restaurants but because of his class, he’s a lovable rogue. If he’d come from a WC background, he’d be seen as part of a problem family
Prejudice and inequality is prevalent in this country. So many of us know what it’s like to be judged on our race, religion, gender, sexuality or class . And political tribalism and affiliation stop us from addressing it with courage and honesty.
