Anti-Israel, ‘hard-Left’ views prevail in UK Labour Party despite drubbing under Corbyn

“I have and always will support Palestinian rights. That’s why I oppose Trump’s ‘plan,'” said Labour leadership candidate Lisa Nandy.

By David Jablinowitz, World Israel News  

Despite the thumping at the ballot box suffered by the British Labour Party in December’s general election, outgoing party chairman Jeremy Corbyn’s policies seem to be maintaining popularity among apparently undaunted Labour colleagues.

“I have and always will support Palestinian rights. That’s why I oppose Trump’s ‘plan,’ have campaigned against British business profiting from the OPTs [‘occupied Palestinian territories’ – Judea and Samaria] and support any embargo on arms deals which violates human rights,” Lisa Nandy, campaigning for the Labour leadership, tweeted on Saturday.

The essence of her tweet means that she supports such moves as the release by the UN Human Rights Council of a blacklist of companies conducting business in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The blacklist was condemned by the U.S. and Israel.

The Trump peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians, made public on January 28, acknowledges the Jewish people’s historic connection to those territories, captured by the IDF in the 1967 war after Arab armies had amassed on Israel’s borders.

The upcoming Labour internal election was triggered by the disastrous defeat in the bid for the national leadership in December.

However, Nandy is perpetuating Corbyn’s strong anti-Israel stand. Her statement supporting an arms embargo against Israel on the grounds that the Jewish State “violates human rights” is even more emphatic than the call by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, competing for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency, to cut American aid to Israel and relay the finances instead to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Nandy has “endorsed a series of pledges issued by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on the Israel/Palestine conflict, including refugees’ ‘right of return,'” reports The Jewish Chronicle (JC).

The so-called right of return to Israel of Palestinian refugees (from the 1948 and 1967 wars) has been rejected by a broad range of Israeli governments in negotiations with the Palestinian leadership. A limited number of individuals would be allowed to take up residence, not in Israel-proper, but in the areas given to the Palestinians for a state. Compensation would be offered to other refugees not permitted to return.

Nandy chairs the Labour Friends of Palestine group. Ironically, her tweet was posted “a day after the Jewish Labour Movement nominated her to be party leader,” the JC noted.

Meanwhile, two other “hard-Left candidates running to lead Labour say they want Jeremy Corbyn to stay in frontline politics – after he led the party to its worst election result since 1935,” reports Mail Online.

Labour politician Rebecca Long-Bailey said she would give Corbyn a top job because she “loves” him, said the British online newspaper, adding that Richard Burgon, who wants to be  Long-Bailey’s deputy, has said that Corbyn has a “valuable role” to play, perhaps even as Shadow Foreign Secretary.