Next month, for the first time in my adult life, I won’t be voting Labour in a general election, writes Joan Ryan
Earlier this year, with sadness but firm resolve, I left Labour, the party of which I’d been a member for more than 40 years and which I’d proudly served as a councillor, MP and government minister.
Next month, for the first time in my adult life, I won’t be voting Labour in a general election.
My mum and dad had hard lives — they worked manual jobs and, as Irish immigrants living in Lancashire, often faced discrimination.
I learned from them two crucial lessons: the dignity of work, and the evils of racism and prejudice.
Dad was secretary of the local Irish club. People in that community stuck together, helped each other in hard times and treated one another with fairness and decency.
As a school teacher for many years, I encouraged children to stand up for their beliefs and never to give in to bullies.
These experiences led me to give years of my life to Labour.
Yet, back in February, I felt I had no choice but to leave a party overwhelmed by fear and hatred, poisoned by prejudice against Jewish people, and a vicious bully of its internal critics.
At the heart of the problem is Jeremy Corbyn.
I disagree strongly with Boris Johnson on Brexit, but I also know that Corbyn is utterly unfit to be Prime Minister.
His record as leader offers a frightening preview of the kind of government he would lead.
First, he has tolerated racism against Jewish people. From ex-BNP leader Nick Griffin and the former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke, to an assorted bunch of Holocaust-deniers, terrorist-sympathisers and Jew-haters, Corbyn attracts supporters who would disgust and horrify most mainstream party leaders.
When anti-Semites flooded into the party after he became leader in 2015, his reaction was one of denial, indifference and foot-dragging.
Many of my Jewish constituents, friends and former colleagues in Parliament are deeply worried about the prospect of such a man becoming Prime Minister — as am I.
During the Eighties, I spent some time working as a historian at the Imperial War Museum, capturing civilians’ stories from World War II.
At the heart of the problem is Jeremy Corbyn. I disagree strongly with Boris Johnson on Brexit, but I also know that Corbyn is utterly unfit to be Prime Minister
I spoke with many Holocaust survivors, hearing horrific accounts of their time in ghettos, on forced marches and in the Nazis’ extermination camps.
The experience cemented my belief that the evil of anti-Semitism must never again be allowed to poison political discourse in this or any other country.
Yet, in Corbyn’s Labour, that is precisely what has happened.
It is truly shaming that Corbyn and his closest advisers appear to have allowed anti-Semitism to fester unchecked within the party’s ranks.
A vote for Corbyn is a flat rejection of the values of equality and anti-racism that Labour once held dear and which drew me to this once- great party.
Meanwhile, Corbyn has presided over an internal culture of intolerance, abuse and bullying. His hard-Left political machine crushes and silences dissent.
It has repeatedly broken the party’s own rules to further its interests. And it has treated those with whom the leader disagrees as traitors who should be driven from the party.
It is truly shaming that Corbyn and his closest advisers appear to have allowed anti-Semitism to fester unchecked within the party’s ranks
To anyone who has seen Corbyn up close, this is unsurprising: he surrounds himself with a clique of Marxists and Trotskyites who do not believe in parliamentary democracy, pluralism or the rule of law.
The prospect of these individuals getting into Downing Street is truly frightening, and a danger the likes of which this country has not experienced in modern times.
Moreover, a Corbyn government would do irreparable harm to Britain’s social cohesion and the fabric of our society.
His agenda is riddled with a divisive ‘them-and-us’ populism. Many of the hard-Left fanatics it has selected to fight key seats epitomise this.
Among them are people who fantasise about the death of former Prime Ministers and boast about their plans to celebrate such events.
Other individuals maintain social media accounts dripping with misogyny, anti-Semitism and homophobia. There are even prospective MPs who belittle the Holocaust and spread absurd 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Under any previous leader, such people would have been kicked out of the party, not chosen as parliamentary candidates.
It says much about Corbyn’s debased values that he is willing to tolerate, campaign alongside and even see such individuals in Parliament.
Like U.S. President Donald Trump, the Labour leader’s sole test of a person’s morality appears to be their loyalty to him.
Corbyn has been a uniquely divisive and incompetent Labour leader. His MPs tried to unseat him less than a year into his tenure.
His Shadow Cabinet lacks talent and intellect because it is drawn overwhelmingly from a narrow element of the parliamentary party.
And even his own former head of policy says his office is characterised by a ‘lack of professionalism, competence and human decency’.
Corbyn has been a uniquely divisive and incompetent Labour leader. His MPs tried to unseat him less than a year into his tenure
Corbyn has spent much of his political life doing little more than addressing adoring crowds of like-minded Left-wingers.
When he’s actually tried to run something — the Labour Party — he’s shown none of the managerial competence, decision-making abilities or team-building skills that one would expect in a prime minister.
Labour was once a patriotic party, clear-eyed about the threats to Britain’s national security and committed to opposing them at all times.
Corbyn has undermined this completely.
Where great Labour leaders such as Clement Attlee were clear supporters of the United States, Nato and the Western world order, Corbyn has steered the party towards a warped ‘anti-imperialist’ world view.
Witness his deplorable support for ballot-stuffing South American Leftists, or his barely concealed sympathy for the gay-hating, terror-supporting ayatollahs of Tehran.
Most worryingly of all, he has displayed a total failure to recognise the danger posed to Britain and our European allies by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Indeed, when Putin’s henchmen launched a chemical weapons attack on the streets of Salisbury last year, Labour’s first response was to seek to muddy the waters by casting aspersions on the findings of Britain’s peerless intelligence services.
Defending the nation’s security is the first and most important duty of any government.
Corbyn would abandon our allies, appease our enemies and pursue a reckless foreign policy driven by his far-Left prejudices.
He would not act in the national interest.
I had the honour to serve in Tony Blair’s government. I saw for myself the awesome responsibilities that prime ministers carry, and the huge powers at their disposal.
Jeremy Corbyn is incapable of discharging the former and should never be allowed to get his hands on the latter.
- The Rt Hon Joan Ryan is the honorary president of Labour Friends of Israel and the former MP for Enfield North.