Mick Hartley

Well then….Senior rabbi takes unprecedented step of writing to urge congregants to vote tactically against Labour:

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain has taken the unprecedented step of writing to his congregation urging them to vote for whatever political party stands the best chance of beating Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour candidates in the forthcoming general election.

The Maidenhead synagogue minister revealed he had sent the letter to 823 families who are members of the Berkshire shul across 16 different constituencies suggesting that “a Corbyn-led government would pose a danger to Jewish life as we know it.”

Rabbi Romain – author of The Jews of England and former chair of the Movement for Reform Judaism –said he had decided to send out the letter on Wednesday evening despite receiving a negative reaction from rabbinic colleagues who had said he should not be party political. […]

In his letter, Rabbi Romain wrote: “I should stress that the problem is not the Labour Party itself, which has a long record of fighting discrimination and prejudice, but the problem is Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn-led Labour, has at best, let antisemitism arise within its ranks, or at worst, has encouraged it. 

“This has never happened under any previous Labour leader, whether under Tony Blair on the right, Neil Kinnock in the centre or Michael Foot on the left, so the finger of responsibility really does seem to point to Jeremy Corbyn.

 “I am therefore suggesting we should each put aside all other considerations and vote for whichever party is most likely to defeat Labour in whatever constituency we are in – even if we would never normally vote for that party.”

Update: the Rabbi has a column in the Times today (£):

There has long been a golden rule that religion and politics do not mix, and that clergy in particular should not be engaged in politics.  […]

This needs to change for the coming election. The antisemitism that has come to the fore within the Labour Party during the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn means that normal considerations are superseded. It is astonishing that a mainstream party should have such associations, and that the evidence of it is serious enough for Labour to be investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

The immediate effect may be on Jews but it has a corrosive effect on politics in general and the country at large. Racism against Jews is invariably followed by discrimination against others. I shall therefore be advising my congregants, and anyone else who cares to ask, to vote for whichever party in their constituency is most likely to stop Labour from winning that seat, even if they would never normally support that party.

This is not a stance against Labour in perpetuity but against Corbyn-led Labour and will be abandoned the moment he is no longer at the helm. Religion should not be party-political. This, however, is a moment to take a stand against a party that has a noble history of fighting prejudice but has lost its way and needs to be resoundingly defeated until it regains its principles.