Tag: UK Elections

  • The Jewish vote really does count

    The Jewish vote really does count

    History suggests British Jewish leaders are wrong to shy away from the notion of distinctive voting patterns among Jews

    aldermanGeoffrey Alderman

    In the early 1970s, as I researched a textbook on the British electoral system, I became aware of a very significant gap in the then existing literature on voting habits among the British electorate. A great deal of material existed, naturally, on socio-economic class and its electoral impact. There was some material – not as much as there might have been – on the relationship between religion and voting. And some research had been carried out into the Irish vote – research that was principally an offshoot of the much greater body of research into “the Irish question”. But on the relationship between ethnicity and voting there was very little indeed. I was determined to repair this omission, and began polling Jewish voting intentions in selected London constituencies.

    A phone call reached me from an organisation calling itself the Board of Deputies of British Jews. I was invited to lunch with its so-called defence department. And at that lunch I was ordered – repeat ordered – to cease forthwith my investigation of Jewish voting habits. Jews, I was told, voted just like everyone else. To poll a sample of Jews was to poll a sample of “ordinary” voters – no more and no less. So what was the point of my efforts? Besides, my hosts added, to ask how Jews were going to vote, or had voted, was to plant in the minds of the non-Jewish community, among whom we British Jews lived, the idea that Jews were not fully integrated into British society. I was told that Jews, in fact, were fully integrated. There was, therefore, no “Jewish dimension” to an election, and to suggest otherwise was to place the entirety of British Jewry in some (ill-defined) jeopardy.

    I did not pay attention to these strictures. Or rather, I did pay attention to them, but only as evidence that could help me answer the question why the Jewish vote in British politics had been so poorly researched. Within British Jewry, image is everything. And the fact was that for generations, the fathers of the community had decreed that there must be no hint of a special, distinctive “Jewish” vote in the British body politic.

    History, however, tells a different story. The votes of Jewish electors played a pivotal role in the epic struggle of Lionel de Rothschild (1847-58) to enter the House of Commons as a professing Jew, because the constituency for which he repeatedly stood – the City of London – contained several hundred Jewish businessmen who qualified for the property-related franchise. The parliamentary career of Samuel Montagu, a Yiddish speaking banker, was built on his relationship with his Jewish electors in that most Jewish of constituencies, Whitechapel, for which he sat as Liberal MP 1885-1900. The near-defeat of the Labour candidate at the Whitechapel by-election of November-December 1930 was a major factor in the decision of Ramsay Macdonald’s minority Labour government to ditch its anti-Zionist policy in Palestine.

    The Jewish vote was pivotal to the 1945 victory of Britain’s last Communist MP, Phil Piratin, at Stepney, but it was equally pivotal to the defeat of Maurice Orbach (a self-proclaimed Labour Zionist who had conspicuously failed to support Israel during the Suez crisis) at East Willesden in 1959. In February 1974, his Jewish electors saved John Gorst, a gentile Zionist, from defeat at Hendon North. Four years later, on the other side of London, the Jews gave the Conservative candidate a resounding victory at a dramatic by-election at Ilford North, where Sir Keith Joseph had openly – and most successfully – campaigned for his Jewish brethren to support Thatcherite economic and immigration policies.

    What of the present electoral contest? Jews, however defined, form no more than half of one percent of the UK population, but they are heavily concentrated in London and Manchester. Of the constituencies in which Jews account for at least 10% of the population, seven are Labour held. One of these – Finchley & Golders Green – is so highly marginal that it seems bound to be lost to the Conservatives irrespective of any special Jewish factor.

    But in another, the adjacent Hendon seat, which could fall to the Tories on a swing of about 3.8%, there is an ongoing battle for the Jewish vote.Andrew Dismore, who has held the seat for Labour since 1997, has impeccable Zionist credentials (he would not otherwise have become MP for Hendon), but his constituency standing has been undermined by the Labour’s government’s failure to amend the “universal jurisdiction” law, which currently permits private citizens to apply for the arrest of prominent Israeli politicians who set foot on British soil, and by David Miliband’s recent condemnation of Israel over the use of fake British passports in the Dubai assassination of a senior Hamas terrorist. To add to Dismore’s woes, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee is encouraging its supporters in Hendon to vote for anyone but him. So a curious combination of Jewish votes and Muslim votes for Matthew Offord, his Conservative challenger, could hand the seat to the Tories.

    But in a nationwide political contest as knife-edge as the present one appears to be, it isn’t only in recognisably “Jewish” constituencies that Jewish votes count. Jewish voters might prove critical to outcomes in seats as far apart as “Jewish” Bury South (where Ivan Lewis, Miliband’s second-in-command, is facing a very strong challenge from Michelle Wiseman, chief executive of Manchester Jewish Community Care) and East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, in which the comparatively tiny Jewish community may be persuaded to save Jim Murphy, the Scottish secretary, who is, naturally, a leading light in Labour Friends of Israel.

    Whatever the present Anglo-Jewish leadership may wish, the Jewish vote, in other words, is very much alive and well.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/19/jewish-vote-really-does-count, 19 April 2010

  • Fighting talk from Brown as he rallies the party faithful in Hendon

    Fighting talk from Brown as he rallies the party faithful in Hendon

    Brown and Dismore
    Gordon Brown campaigning in north London yesterday

    Fighting talk from Brown as he rallies the party faithful in Kirkcaldy and Hendon

    Martin Fletcher

    The words were almost Churchillian. “We will fight for every vote in every seat every hour between now and the close of polls,” Gordon Brown promised the party faithful in his Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath constituency on Friday.

    “We fight with strength in our soul and confidence in our cause because we are the people’s party — not simply a party in Britain but the party of Britain.

    It gave the impression that the Prime Minister would be barnstorming around the country. Aides reinforced that idea: “We are going to win this campaign people to people, door to door, street to street,” said one. The reality is more prosaic. Mr Brown may be the underdog, but his campaign to date has been distinctly low key. He does not have a campaign bus. He has yet to address a meeting open to the general public.

    On Saturday he made several appearances, but all except one were in his own constituency, where he has a rock-solid 18,216 majority and is sure of a warm reception.

    His campaign event yesterday was in Hendon, northwest London, where he met precisely six voters, at least three of whom were Labour supporters. Mr Brown arrived just before 3pm, his Jaguar coming face to face with an unsuspecting learner driver as it entered Fortune Avenue.

    He joined a young couple named Richard Belle and Cheryl Revill — both Labour supporters — in their flat on the fourth floor of a new block. The four other guests included Ms Revill’s father, a Labour Party member, and were chosen with the help of Andrew Dismore, the local Labour MP. The group of three men and three women included three from ethnic minorities — a model of political correctness.

    Mr Brown chatted for 20 minutes about how Labour’s affordable housing policies had helped Mr Belle and Ms Revill to buy their first home. He spoke about schooling, Bollywood and citizenship. He cracked jokes, mentioned his children and poked fun at his inability to use a mouse.

    Then he returned to Downing Street to work on today’s manifesto speech and, doubtless, catch up on the fortunes of his beloved Raith Rovers in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

    Aides say that these intimate meetings help him to highlight specific Labour policies and “create a buzz” in marginal constituencies.

    The big prize, however, is the television news clip of a Prime Minister not known for his common touch, listening to “ordinary people” in their homes. And as long as the audience is sympathetic, Mr Brown is very good at it.

    He is not alone in resorting to tightly controlled events. All the party leaders do it. Today’s elections are won on television, the internet and Twitter.

    Not all of Fortune Avenue was won over yesterday. Darshna Yagnik, 38, a university lecturer, said: “It’s all to make himself look like a people’s person but he’s not.”

    , April 12, 2010

  • Big guns set their sights on Hendon

    Big guns set their sights on Hendon

    Anti TurkishZionistMPAndrewDismore
    Few MPs have worked as tirelessly on Israel causes as Andrew Dismore

    By Marcus Dysch

    In recent weeks voters in Hendon have been preoccupied more with matzah prices than turnout forecasts and swing percentages.

    But they are now likely to find themselves at the forefront of fevered election activity.

    Labour’s Andrew Dismore, who has held the seat since 1997, faces a critical challenge from Tory Matthew Offord and the Liberal Democrats’ Matthew Harris, who is Jewish.

    Although the constituency is ranked 73rd on the Tories’ list of targets, analysts put it in the top four of the essential 80 seats the party must win to topple Gordon Brown.

    David Cameron’s troops must gain 116 seats for an overall Commons majority. Hendon, requiring just a four per cent swing away from Labour, is very much up for grabs.

    Senior politicians have already visited; Foreign Secretary David Miliband popped in to a school last month, days after former Tory leader William Hague spoke to local members of Conservative Friends of Israel.

    While Hendon voters are concerned over local matters such as hospitals and transport, candidates are likely to face tougher questioning on Jewish doorsteps over their handling of wider issues concerning Israel.

    Few MPs have worked as tirelessly on these causes as Mr Dismore. He has frequently urged Parliament to take action on looted art restitution, led calls for a national Holocaust Memorial Day and regularly defended Israel.

    He may just escape the potential fall-out from Labour’s handling of the universal jurisdiction fiasco thanks to his (unsuccessful) Private Member’s Bill.

    Mr Offord, former deputy leader of Barnet Council, is also a long-standing friend of Israel.

    In recent weeks I have spotted him regularly pounding the streets, chatting to residents. Five years ago, he was the Tories’ election agent in Hendon, overseeing Mr Dismore’s majority being slashed by 5,000. That work could now prove crucial in aiding his own attempt to secure a seat. Mr Harris, vice-chairman of Lib Dem Friends of Israel, faces an uphill struggle. Despite his history as a dedicated local campaigner, he will suffer as a result of the party’s recent catastrophic track record on Israel.

    He has valiantly attempted to defend his party, despite Baroness Tonge’s outbursts, calls to suspend arms sales to Israel, and the leadership of Nick Clegg, a man who failed to realise that Israel is a Jewish state.

    For the next month, political eyes will be firmly fixed on this distinctly Jewish corner of north-west London. If Mr Offord is successful, Mr Cameron is likely to find himself at Number 10.

    , April 8, 2010