Things Heat Up In The UK

The British Parliament has formally been dissolved ahead of next month's elections.  The main issue in those elections is Brexit and how it is handled.  Now, a second issue is coming to the fore.  The question is the fitness of Labour's Jeremy Corbyn to be the Prime Minister.  Just yesterday, a senior adviser to the last Labour prime minister went on the BBC to tell voters to vote for the Tories since Corbyn is "not a patriot", favors the enemies of the UK over the country, and is an anti-Semite who promotes hatred of Jews in the Labour party.  It's the UK and left-wing version of Never-Trumpers except that the criticism is of Corbyn's policies and character, not just of his style and character (as in Trump's case).  Meanwhile, the only large circulation Jewish newspaper in London has put out an edition with a full front page editorial urging the British to please not vote for Labour because of the presence of so many anti-Semites among the leadership.  In the past, this paper has loyally been supportive of the Labour party.

The issue of Labour's anti-Semitism is not a new one.  In the last year, almost 7% of the Labour members of parliament left the party because of it.  Large numbers of Brits have switched from Labour to the Liberal Democrats and one of the reasons often given to pollsters is a distaste for Jeremy Corbyn and/or his anti-Semitism.  Right now, the polls in the UK for the upcoming election show the Tories with roughly a lead over Labour of 40% to 25%.  This means that the Tory Party is not doing as well as in the last election.  It has a large lead, however, because support for Labour has cratered.

It's a good thing to see that the Brits are rejecting hatred.  Let's hope this carries through until the election.