Originally Posted by
RonnieBird
Their reasons are almost beside the point Eric. Their fears may or may not be justified, but the effect will be the same either way, which is that lots of people believe labour to be a bunch of anti Semites and will therefore not vote for them.
Now ,right here in this thread we've seen examples. You've been perfectly rational and logical in your defence of labour, but two others have come up with exactly the kind of thing which causes the mistrust , defending anti semitism and adding a bit of their own .
It's reasonable to say that there are so many examples of anti semitism in that party that it's certainly a problem. I'm sure it's one which could be quickly solved if they stopped denying or defending it, but they won't . I'm also sure that 99% of labour voters aren't either anti Semites of nutters, but it's that 1% or less who worry decent people, especially when they're right at the top of the party .
I don't want to start this circular discussion again about whether the Nazis were theoretically socialists, but most Jewish people I know seem to think they were to all practical purposes, and I've heard many hypothesising about how they could quickly transform this subtle anti Jew theme into open hostility just as the Nazis did if they got into power.
They'd certainly bankrupt the country quite quickly with their current mad policies and a return to the days of power cuts, reduced working weeks and real poverty they'd create would be just the environment for trouble - how long before they blamed the Jews for the chaos they'd created ?
Last time they did the real socialist thing, ( which Blair didn't ), Dennis Healey hadn't alienated the USA, so they could go begging to the imf to bail them out, but these nutters would be so openly hostile to the free world that this wouldn't be an option.
Who would be blamed ? Who gets blamed every time a dictator wants a scapegoat , and this one knows he'd have a sympathetic audience amongst his supporters ?
Are these realistic fears ? Who knows, but they're real fears, and so they'll have real effects