Did a Labour MP just call Jewish Green candidate Jo Bird antisemitic?

Right, so right wing Starmer loyalist, non Jew and recipient of a large wedge of Israel Lobby cash, the MP for Wigan Lisa Nandy has, certainly in my view, made a disgusting insinuation on live TV, BBC Politics North West yesterday, in a program that amounted to not just Nandy frankly, but Tory candidate for Hazel Grove Paul Athans and the BBC Presenter Annabel Tiffin pretty much joined in on what was an assault on Green Party candidate for Birkenhead Jo Bird. Bird, very much Jewish herself, was expelled from the Labour Party, not in relation to antisemitism, but by being affiliated to one of several groups Keir Starmer in his war on the left of his own party, retrospectively proscribed. But that didn’t stop Lisa Nandy making a disgusting attack on Bird and the Green Party over antisemitism, demonstrating that having hammered the left by weaponising racism, the Green Party are now their target and just as we saw before, that will include attacks on Jews and non Jews alike.
Right, so that was Lisa Nandy getting plenty to say for herself uninterrupted by the host, who then finally allowed Jo Bird to respond whilst putting a loaded question to her, herself saying the Green Party had a problem with antisemitism, despite the Green Party candidate in front of her being bloody Jewish! And then she got interrupted and allowed to be talked over by Nandy again! Just prior to this the Tory and Nandy were having a lovely joke together as well:
Aww bless I can’t imagine why Labour candidates and Tories get along so well and Jo Bird was right to point that out, until Tiffin again aimed a sneery question about Green Party policy affordability, all fully costed and affordable because it is amazing what you can do when you are prepared to tax the rich instead of just take donations from them for your own self serving interests!
But let’s come back to the first bit of footage there, because Nandy went straight in with saying that Labour makes no apologies for expelling antisemites, to which Jo Bird asked her are you calling me an antisemite? And the context there is key. Jo Bird had been asked just prior to that, for her views on the impact the situation in Gaza would have on the election, following on from Paul Athans, the Tory guest, saying it wasn’t something coming up on the doorstep for him. Bird then went on to say that people stop her in the street in Birkenhead, asking what the Green Party position on Gaza is, and she spelt it out because it is very simple, the Green Party were the first to call for a bilateral permanent ceasefire, all hostages to be released and ending arms sales to Israel. The first two obviously would be demands as part of negotiations to bring these two things about, of which the UK can play a role, but can’t obviously deliver on it’s own, but the arms sales to Israel ,following that ruling by the International Court of Justice that a plausible case for genocide had been demonstrated, should be enough to suspend arms sales over.
Bird also spoke of her agreement with that Green Party position in light of her own Jewish heritage, her great grandparents who fled fascism in Europe and came to this country, notably, by boat and made it clear that the lessons they had handed down to the next generations of their family were to stand with the oppressed and never with the oppressor and then put that in perspective of Keir Starmer’s war on the left, which has of course targeted a disproportionate number of Jewish members like Bird, Starmer has expelled more Jews from the Labour Party than any other Labour leader and his reasoning for that was in Bird’s words, the expulsion of Jews like her for speaking out against racism and speaking out against what Israel has been doing for decades in Palestine, not just since October 7th, there is clearly something very wrong, very broken in Labour under Starmer and therefore more Greens like her are needed to speak up for international law and for the plight of Palestinians and hold Israel to account, when both main parties are in their thrall.
It was to that, that Lisa Nandy said she and Labour make no apologies for expelling antisemites and in that context, given she is speaking to an expelled former Labour councillor, now a Green councillor and parliamentary candidate, and a Jewish one at that, the inference that she was calling Bird and antisemite herself was there and Bird asked her directly to answer that, which she ignored. It was an outrageous thing to say to any Jewish person in Bird’s position, it was disgusting and it proves her point somewhat that when Labour ignored her experiences of racism in the Labour Party, it was never really about dealing with it, dealing with the very real racism problem that is antisemitism, but merely how to wield it as a political tool and worse, this is the form of racism Labour are seen to be prioritising above all others, when even that appears very much not to be true, not the experience of former Jewish Labour members. Look at how else experiences of racism have been ignored or abused, Islamophobia, the recent example of Faiza Shaheen is an example of this, frankly it seems that whilst Labour under Starmer and people like Lisa Nandy accuse others of having a racism problem, Labour under Starmer is more racist than it has ever been.
Nandy continued, by saying she had been able to stand up for Palestine without being antisemitic and it’s true in a sense, because she was in Friends of Palestine & the Middle East until 2019, but if you look at many of the members that are also in Labour Friends of Israel, so how much is about standing up for Palestine and how much is about ensuring they don’t vocalise anti Israel interests?
Well the fact Nandy has been a recipient of donations from a certain Trevor Chinn, the man who largely bankrolled Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign, has donated heavily to members of Labour Friends of Israel and is involved heavily in Israel Lobbying, whether through BICOM, the British Israel Communications and Research Centre, or through the Jewish Leadership Council, of which he sits on the board. He also funds an outfit called Labour Together, a right wing Labour faction, pro Israel, a director of which just happens to be Starmer’s Chief of Staff and allegedly the brains behind his entire operation, a guy called Morgan McSweeney. Anyway, Nandy has apparently had some £10K off of Chinn, so, so much for her pro Palestine leanings. If she meant them, she wouldn’t take money off Chinn.
Little wonder therefore that she brought up the attack of the night of October 7th and the Iranian air strike, without any trace of context that Gaza exists under brutal occupation and Israel targeted an Iranian embassy!
Where Bird then went on to separate the issue of antisemitism and justifiable criticism of Israel, which are entirely separate, it is not racist to criticise Israel no matter how many time people try and insist otherwise, again Nandy sought to make things about Israel’s right to defend itself. So much for her Palestine sympathies! Even when Jo Bird calmly brought the ICJ’s findings up, still Nandy sought to make it all about Israel’s right to defend itself. 37,000 dead Gazans Lisa, what about their right to live?
Right now the Green Party legitimately can win in Birkenhead, a seat where Labour have offered the seat up to right winger Alison McGovern, after her own seat was abolished in boundary changes, and dumping left wing MP Mick Whitley to do so. If people in Birkenhead vote Green like they did in May’s local elections there this time around as well, Jo Bird will be their MP. We need more Jo Bird’s, we need far fewer Lisa Nandy’s.
Meanwhile that other victim of internal Labour Party racism, her own experiences of it used against her to remove her as a candidate for Labour, Fazia Shaheen has gone independent and nearly 50 members of her local Labour Party have quit, to follow her out of the door. Catch up on that story in this video recommendation here and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.