Diversity Macht Frei
August 15, 2016
For those not following these events closely, let me recapitulate. The Labour party in Britain is going through a leadership election. The incumbent Jeremy Corbyn is being challenged by Owen Smith. Both Corbyn and Smith are hardcore leftists who believe in virtually open-borders immigration. If anything, Smith seems to be even more pro-immigration than Corbyn, I was astonished to discover when watching their hustings events. Jewry is overwhelmingly hostile to Corbyn and, unusually for them, they don’t even attempt to disguise it. It is discussed openly on the pages of the Jewish Chronicle.
We stand six weeks away from Mr Corbyn’s almost-inevitable re-election as leader. He is not going away. And the community will need a comprehensive, thought-out plan for how to deal with him and Labour when that prospect becomes a reality.
Note the casual assumption that everyone in “the community” shares the same point of view. Pointing out this collective hostility, though, is still “antisemitic”, in case you were wondering.
This year many new people joined the Labour party so they challenge or support the Corbyn leadership. It is generally assumed that the new members would tend to be more favourable to Corbyn. When the leadership election was announced, Labour’s National Executive Committee imposed an arbitrary cut-off date, ruling that no one who had joined the party since January would be allowed to vote in the election. This was challenged in the courts as a breach of contract law since the ability to vote in internal party processes is an essential part of what people are buying when they pay to join a political party. Initially, this challenge was successful. But that verdict has now been overturned on appeal. This is considered unfavourable to Corbyn’s prospects of winning, although he is still considered likely to win.
One of the judges who overturned the initial verdict on appeal was Jack Beatson. The Telegraph reported previously (link) that he had “attended a Jewish boarding school, Whittingehame College, in Brighton, East Sussex before reading civil law at Brasenose College, Oxford.”
In a previous case about whether a committed Christian couple who opposed homosexuality could be allowed to become foster carers, this same judge had ruled previously that there was no place for Christianity in British law.
In their ruling yesterday, the judges complained that it was not yet “well understood” that British society was largely secular and that the law has no place for Christianity.
“Although historically this country is part of the Christian West, and although it has an established church which is Christian, there have been enormous changes in the social and religious life of our country over the last century,” they said.
It was a “paradox” that society has become simultaneously both increasingly secular and increasingly diverse in religious affiliation, they said.
“We sit as secular judges serving a multicultural community of many faiths. We are sworn (we quote the judicial oath) to ‘do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will’.”
The judges acknowledged that there was a “tension” in the case of Mr and Mrs Johns between the rights of individuals to maintain their religious beliefs and the rights of homosexual people to live free from discrimination.
However, when fostering regulations were taken into account, “the equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence” over religious rights, they said.
A Jewish speech on “the British disease”: antisemitism in the British Labour party.