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How do the Tories keep winning elections?

The conservatives won a 66 seat majority in 2019, but less than 30 % of the electorate voted for them. They received just 44% of the votes of the two thirds of us who bothered to vote.

This is not unusual. Since 1945, not a single Government in the UK has taken power with a majority of the votes cast, and none has had the votes of more than 40% of the electorate. Ironically the party that came closest was Labour in 1951, when they received the votes of 40 % of the electorate and 49% of those cast- despite which they lost the election to the Conservatives who had a 17 seat majority.

The percentage of the electorate who voted for the winners has been less than 30 % in every election this century. This has happened for two reasons.

Firstly, turnout has fallen from an average of 76% in the 1945-1999 period to just 65% in the current century. The lowest turnout was 2001 when less than 60% of people voted and Tony Blair won a 167 seat majority with the votes of just 24% of the electorate.

The second reason why Governments can win power with a lower share of the vote is that the two main parties no longer command the loyalty of nearly all of the population. Until 1970, the combined share of the vote taken by the conservative and Labour parties averaged over 90%. The rise of the SNP and other nationalist parties and later of UKIP have split the vote. The share of the two main parties fell to 65% in 2010 before recovering to 83% in 2019 as BREXIT and the coalition dimmed the appeal of UKIP and the Liberal Democrats. More fundamentally, the drastic decline in manufacturing jobs and in trade union membership has eroded the class basis of political parties in the UK. The main dividing lines in voting patterns in the UK are no longer social class but are instead age and education- with younger and better educated people more inclined to vote for Labour and other left and centre parties, though unfortunately they have lower turnout. The Tory bias in policy in favour of the elderly is no accident.

The situation would be bad enough if parties only had to gain the support of 30 % of the population, but in practice they need to influence even fewer voters. Over 500 of the 650 seats in parliament were won with majorities of more than 10%, and 68 seats had majorities of more than 45%. This means that the votes of many of us simply don’t matter- the incumbent party is very unlikely to be ousted. It also means that parties can achieve power by appealing to the interests and prejudices of a very narrow group of voters in a fairly small number of relatively marginal constituencies. The scope for unethical and even corrupt practices in order to sway the vote is obvious, and can be seen in the politically biased allocation of levelling up funds, and the dog- whistle policies of scapegoating refugees to name just two policy areas.

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UK Economic Growth Performance since 1960

A 2015 post on this blog looked at economic performance under Labour and Tory Governments and concluded that there wasn’t much difference overall, but that Labour distributed the gains of economic growth more equitably and was a better custodian of public services. This post provides a partial update focusing on economic growth.

I compared UK economic growth with the average of all of the wealthy countries that are members of the OECD using data on the World Bank web site accessed on 11th March 2023. This reveals:-

I. The UK has been falling behind the average of OECD countries for most of the last 60 years. The average OECD country had a GDP that was nearly six times larger in 2021 than in 1960 whereas UK GDP had increased less than fourfold ( OECD average 588% of 1960 level, UK just 388%).

2. The UK economy did keep pace with the average of the OECD countries over the period from 1992-2010, the improvement having started under the Conservatives from about 1993 but being maintained under Labour from 1997-2010, with the financial crisis of 2008 resulting in only a modest dip in relative performance. The performance under Labour is all the more impressive because improvements in economic growth were successfully used to reduce poverty and improve public services.

3. The period of conservative Government since 2010 has seen a return to relative decline. The UK economy was only 10% larger in 2021 than in 2010, whereas the rich countries as a group had grown by 20% – twice as much.

4. As documented in other posts on this blog, the Tory Government has not only performed poorly on economic growth. It has also presided over a collapse in the quality and availability of public services, and a massive increase in poverty and inequality, while it’s BREXIT policies have significantly increased the difficulty and cost of investing in and trading with the UK, reducing our future growth potential.

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Has the Tory Government found a ‘magic money tree?’

Introduction

This note tries to answer a question raised by some non-economist friends: to what extent can Government pay for it’s expenditure by just printing the money? Is there a ‘magic money tree’, and what are the pitfalls and limitations on using it? I have simplified the argument in places, for ease of exposition to a non-technical audience. I have also included some speculation about the political implications. The emphasis is on the concepts – I haven’t done any analysis of the UK data, so the speculation is no more than that.

How does Government finance it’s spending?

Government has three options for financing an increase in spending. It can tax more, it can borrow more, or it can ask the Bank of England to create the money it needs – which sounds like having a ‘magic money tree’.

Government spending financed by taxes is fairly simple to understand. Government takes money from taxpayers and spends it instead – hopefully on purposes that most taxpayers agree are worthwhile.

 If Government finances it’s extra spending by borrowing, the Bank of England sells Government bonds, which takes money out of the economy when those who purchase them reduce their bank balances in order to make payment. When Government spends the money it has borrowed, the situation reverses, as the bank balances of those providing those goods and services increase. There is no overall increase in money supply.

If Government spends without taxing or borrowing to pay for it, what happens is that the Bank of England increases the money supply by raising net credit to Government, with no offsetting reduction in bank deposits held by the private sector: overall money supply has increased. When Government spends the extra money, Government bank balances fall back to their initial level, but private sector bank balances increase as those providing goods and services to Government bank the proceeds. If it is easier to visualise, the effects of this process are exactly the same as if the B of E physically prints extra bank notes for Government to spend.

The Demand and Supply of Money

The Bank of England can create as much money for Government as it wishes. The interesting question is what happens as a result. The answer depends on the relationship of the money supply to real output and the price level.

The money supply consists of commercial bank deposits, plus net credit from the banking sector to Government, plus net foreign assets (foreign exchange reserves held by Bank of England and the banks). Commercial banks are also able to create money:- every time they extend a loan, they create a deposit in the name of the person receiving the loan. The limitation on their ability to create money in this way is that they must keep sufficient reserves to be able to meet the demand from depositors wishing to withdraw their funds. Reserves are normally a tiny percentage of their total assets, most of which are in the form of longer term loans and investments. If customers suddenly wish to withdraw more funds than the bank has provided for, the Bank of England steps in to advance funds to the banks, albeit at a punitive interest rate to discourage the banks from taking unreasonable risks. This happened on a massive scale after the 2008 financial crisis, when banks experienced a high level of withdrawals by customers no longer confident that their money was safe.

An important task of central banks like the Bank of England is to manage the money market in such a way that the commercial banks supply sufficient funding to support economic growth and allow the economy to operate at close to full capacity. If too little money is created, interest rates are pushed up, and investment and economic growth stalls; if too much is created, inflation may ensue, as a result of ‘too much money chasing too few goods.’ The Bank seeks to manage the growth of the money supply by changing the interest rate at which it will lend to the banks, and by buying and selling Government debt in order to either supply more funds to the market, or absorb surplus cash.

We have discussed the supply of money, but what determines the demand for it?

Economists like to decompose national output into real output Q and the price level p. You can think of Q as the physical bundle of goods and services actually produced in a given year, and p as a vector or list of the prices at which they were sold. Every time a good or service is sold, money is transferred from buyer to seller. It is true by definition that the total money supply (M) in a given period equals total output (p times Q)  divided by the number of times each £1 is used, a number that economists call the velocity of circulation of money, or v. This is simply true by definition:

Mv=pQ.

The monetarist economists turned it into a theory by assuming that v is broadly constant in the short term. The assumption that the number of times each £ is used in a year is broadly constant is quite a strong one  -especially in a pandemic when everyone’s ability to spend is quite constrained. It continues to be debated to what extent v is stable, but the key insight is that there is a relationship between the demand for money and the monetary value of national output. The more we produce, the more money we need in order to finance the buying and selling of goods and services. This means that the Government (or, more accurately, the Bank of |England on behalf of Government) can indeed use the ‘magic money tree’ to increase the money supply as demand for money increases.

If we start from a situation where the supply and demand for money are in balance, then an increase in Government spending financed by increasing the money supply will be balanced by an increase in money demand, as Government seeks to buy more goods and services. If there is ample spare capacity in the economy, then real output will expand to meet the increased Government demand. Problems arise if the economy is at or near full employment, and firms are unable to increase their output to meet the extra Government orders.

If there is no spare capacity, then Government will only succeed in obtaining the extra goods and services it needs for it’s expanded expenditure programme if the private sector consumes less. This could happen through a reduction in v – perhaps the private sector saves more, or has to wait because of shortages of critical labour or goods and services. However, a large part of the gap between demand and supply is likely to be met through suppliers increasing prices as they realise that the extra Government demand gives them more bargaining power.

To summarise: if there is no spare capacity, the extra quantity of goods and services that Government wishes to buy can only be supplied if the private sector consumes less. Price increases are the mechanism by which the amount that can be purchased is brought into balance with what is available. Government is only able to secure the increased quantity of goods and services it has planned to purchase by reducing the supply available to businesses and households, just as would have happened if it had financed the spending through taxation. Everyone, including the Government itself, will find that, because of increased prices, planned levels of spending will buy less than expected, and the objectives of the spending will not  be fully achieved.

In a trading economy of course, part of the excess demand can be met by imports. Introducing the external sector to the analysis adds some complications but does not fundamentally alter the picture. If goods and services can be purchased from abroad, there is no capacity constraint. If Government increases it’s spending beyond the ability of the domestic economy to supply, then money will flow out of the country as imports increase and less is available to export.

The country will have to buy more foreign currency in order to buy the extra imports. This will reduce the excess money supply, as £s flow out of the country to foreign suppliers. The increased demand for Euros will change the exchange rate, raising the £ cost of buying a Euro. The excess demand for foreign goods and services will eventually be self-correcting as the depreciation of the exchange rate reduces demand for foreign goods and services, in the same way that inflation frustrates demand for domestically produced output. If domestic demand continues to exceed the capacity of the domestic economy, then foreign holders of UK currency will eventually become wary. Interest rates charged by foreign creditors will increase to reflect the expected rate of decline in the value of the currency. Contracts will be denominated in Euros rather than £s. If continued for too long, the combination of a collapsing exchange rate and public and private debt denominated in foreign currency can eventually lead to unsustainable debt problems as African and Latin American countries found in the 1980s. I am not suggesting that this is a serious risk for the UK, but there is a need to manage domestic demand to be broadly consistent with a sustainable balance of payments position in the medium term.

Economists and central bankers generally discourage Governments from making too much use of money creation to finance their spending. The danger if Government continues to have recourse to the printing press to finance it’s expenditure is that a vicious circle can develop. Firms and households expect prices to continue to rise, and therefore seek to protect themselves by holding tangible assets rather than money, and seeking to adjust their prices and wages to the rate of inflation, building more excess demand into the system. In the jargon, the velocity of circulation can become very high. If not checked, the result can be hyper-inflation, banking collapse, and a retreat into a barter economy. This is not just fanciful theory, there have been plenty of real world examples from Germany in the 1920s to Zimbabwe more recently.

COVID 19 and the Magical Money Tree

The circumstances of the current pandemic in the UK make the risks of financing Government spending through borrowing or through money creation relatively modest, at least in the short term. To understand why, a short explanation of the national accounts will be helpful.

The key concept is that every good or service produced in the UK or any other national economy generates an exactly equivalent income for someone. Labour and capital are combined through a production process to produce outputs that are sold to produce income that is shared between the workers and the owners of the capital. Output consists of investment plus consumption goods, and equals income that consists of consumption plus savings. The output of consumption goods equals consumption expenditure by definition -because consumption goods that are not sold in the period are defined as an investment in stocks . This means that the condition for the supply and demand of goods and services to be in balance is that savings should equal investment. This is true by definition after the event.

The problem occurs when investment plans and savings plans differ. If firms plan to invest more than households plan to save, the physical capacity of the economy to supply the necessary goods and services will be exceeded. The banking system may create the money to finance the investment, but physical supply limits will push up prices and interest rates as firms compete for the available labour and capital equipment, reducing the profitability of investment. Conversely, if savings exceed investment, there will be insufficient demand to fully employ the available labour and equipment. The interest rate may fall, reducing the incentive to save and making investment more profitable. However, there is no guarantee that any positive interest rate exists at which the two can be brought into balance. The key insight of Keynesian economics was that, if the private sector is unwilling to invest the available savings, then Government can step in and restore full employment by spending more, increasing the Government deficit. This was the basis of economic policy from the end of the second world war until the rise of monetarist economics in the 1980s.

The lockdowns and the restrictions that have accompanied the COVI|D 19 pandemic caused a reduction in output in the UK economy, and therefore a reduction in people’s incomes. Government tried to limit the reduction in people’s incomes by measures such as the furlough scheme. Other things being equal, one might have expected the population to try to maintain their expenditure by drawing down their savings and borrowing more. This, combined with increased Government spending, might have resulted in total demand exceeding total output, with inflation the result. That was my expectation, in an earlier blog post. In practice, this did not happen.

Somewhat surprisingly, the lockdown has seen a big increase in household savings. Those towards the bottom of the income distribution have struggled, as have many in the hospitality sector and many self employed. However, those who are retired or remain employed have increased their savings, partly a precautionary response to a less certain future, but mainly the result of frustrated consumption as holidays and recreation plans were prevented by lockdown.  This increase in savings has been accompanied by a reduction in investment. Banks and other financial institutions are reluctant to lend in uncertain times where the viability of firms is unclear. The combination of increased savings and reduced investment came at a time when interest rates were already close to zero.

This puts Government at present in a very strong position to finance a massive Government deficit. The Government stock of debt has reached about 100% of GDP, which is high but by no means unprecedented in our post-war history, while the cost of servicing that debt is very low, due to near zero interest rates. With such uncertainty over the viability of private sector investment, Government looks by far the safest place to invest savings, which means the Government can borrow as much as it likes for next to nothing.

The interesting question is what happens when the current unusual situation begins to unwind. Savings are likely to fall quite substantially as it becomes possible to spend on all of the things that have been denied us during lockdown. Investment will revive as easing restrictions removes the uncertainties that prompted delays to investment plans . The banks are very liquid at present, which means that they are well placed to expand their lending very rapidly if credit-worthy customers come forward. With investment likely to increase and savings likely to fall, it is likely that the economy will experience significantly higher interest rates and some inflationary pressures. This is manageable, but will require the Government to reduce the stimulus to demand represented by it’s greatly expanded deficit. This will partly happen automatically as the need for pandemic support eases and higher output brings in more taxes. However, the pandemic revealed the need to spend a great deal more to rectify long standing problems of insufficient spending on major areas including the health service, social care, and local Government, while the cost of servicing the debt will increase. The danger is that an irresponsible Tory Government intent on winning an election may be unwilling to raise the necessary taxes, and may indeed want to reduce them. With similar problems across the globe, there is a potential risk of a return to relatively high inflation and interest rates that could make debt management more difficult, but it seems a remote possibility at present.

As the economy revives, the demand for money will increase, and Government can in normal circumstances make increased use of money creation to finance it’s spending, without causing inflation. This also has the advantage of limiting the increase in Government debt stock and debt servicing costs. A significant caveat is that this depends on what happens in the commercial banks. If revived confidence leads the banks to greatly expand their lending, something they are well placed to do at present, then the Bank of England will become concerned about excessive money supply growth and inflation. In that situation, the Bank may need to reverse the Government contribution to money supply growth to make room for increased private sector demand . The Bof E will need to sell more Government debt than is required to finance the deficit – turning the public sector money creation into reverse, raising interest rates, and raising the cost of financing the Government deficit.

Political Implications

These strange economic times may also partly explain why a Government that appears to many of us to be hopelessly incompetent has nevertheless maintained a lead in the polls. The massive increase in domestic savings has enabled the Government to spend staggeringly enormous sums without raising taxes, and without causing inflation. Many in the country have improved their financial situation; many others have benefitted from generous support via the furlough schemes, enabling them to survive the pandemic with lower costs than they might have expected.

So far, nobody has had to pay for this generosity. Those who have suffered most are perhaps not Tory voters – and we have seen plenty of gerrymandering efforts to direct more of the available largesse to Tory seats. The incredible wastefulness of the chumocracy has yet to cut through precisely because it appears that nobody has yet been asked to pay for it.

The continuing Tory lead might thus be explained by the goodwill factor of the vaccination drive, and the extraordinary scale of the support to household incomes. This positive view might erode when economic revival puts more pressure on Government finances – but that does not look imminent. For the moment, enough people are positively surprised by the extent to which Government has succeeded in protecting them from a pandemic that the Government is not perceived as having caused. Those who have been paying attention may know that the impact in the UK is far worse than it needs to be, but enough people have had a better pandemic than they were expecting to give Government the benefit of the doubt.

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How Labour Can Win

How Labour Can Return to Power

There is a possible route back to power for Labour, based on three strong policy platforms:-

 

i. Remain in the EU

Be the party for the 48% who wish to remain in the EU, and for the many more who are coming to that view as the lies of the leave campaign and the shambles of the negotiation become increasingly obvious.

ii. Reduce Inequality

But also be the party for those who have been left behind by globalisation, many of whom voted Brexit because they had so little to lose. Labour was always the party of redistribution, taxing those who can afford it in order to help those who need support. We need to focus on the hardships faced by so many and tackle head on the inevitable Daily Mail critique that Labour wants to tax ‘hard working families’ to provide handouts to the workshy. The approach cant be just about taxation and benefits, it also concerns investment in infrastructure to support a more balanced distribution of economic growth, less biased towards the South East. But we also need to say explicitly that economic growth is not the only goal, we have to concern ourselves with how the benefits are shared.

 

iii. Invest in public services – including a commitment to adequately fund health and social care.

We spend far less on health than other richer countries including our European neighbours. Comparison with others suggests we already have the most cost effective health system in the world. Meeting rising demand effectively is only possible with more money, something we should be willing to pay for.

 

There are several good answers to the question ‘how do we pay for all this?’:-

Relax Austerity: As argued in a previous blog (’public expenditure cuts:not needed, but very damaging’, https://mickfoster.wordpress.com/) , there is no pressing case for further austerity, and a higher share of public expenditure in GDP is prudent in current circumstances where debt service remains low by historic standards, and is likely to remain so. Without making the further cuts proposed by the Tories, the debt will fall as a share of GDP simply through economic growth at historic rates, and there is also scope for higher taxes, ending our participation in a race to the bottom.

 Better In than Out: If we do not leave the EU, we will save ourselves considerable costs of adjustment and will benefit from rather higher economic growth. This theoretical result from modelling is already being confirmed by the plunge in the value of the pound at the prospect of a hard Brexit.

Stop Tory Vanity Projects: We could liberate some funds for worthwhile public expenditure by changing our priorities – scrap the dubious Hinkley and HS2 projects, and (ideally) the entirely pointless expenditure on Trident.

 

Can this bring Labour back together?

With the exception of the possibly contentious issue of Trident (though I have never understood why such lunacy has support in the party), I would imagine that a platform based on these three pillars could be attractive to most Labour MPs. There will need to be debate based on research to help forge evidence-based compromises on how far to push issues such as redistribution and a more expansionary fiscal policy. The prospect of a reasonable shot at forming a Government should focus minds.

 

What is the alternative?

I doubt if there is one in the short term. I suspect that there will be an opportunity for a no-confidence vote that might prompt a new general election at some stage in the run up to triggering Article 50. The only hope for Labour to be a relevant political actor in that process –or indeed in 2020 – is if it has something distinct and clear to say on the case for remaining in Europe. That is the only issue where there is a real possibility of attracting enough new voters to evict the Conservatives. When the Tory Government seem set on inflicting enormous and irreversible damage to our economy, our society, and our Union, there is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be the party of the sane alternative, attracting voters who would not perhaps normally vote Labour. We must seize that opportunity.

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Some thoughts on why we need to vote Labour in coming local elections in Essex

The Essex County Council election is important to YOU if you:

 

Have elderly relatives in need of support to maintain their dignity and independence

 

Have children in State schools

 

Use the roads and highways that cross our county, and that the ECC is responsible for maintaining

 

Are concerned about the services available to support vulnerable children and adults

 

Use and enjoy the library services and the opportunities for further and adult education

 

All of these services are under threat.

 

In 2016-17:-

 

-The Tory Government is cutting the amount of money it provides to ECC by a third – some £50mn.

 

– But a bigger population and the cost of paying the National Living Wage mean it will cost the council an extra £40mn just to deliver the same services.

 

– Together, this means ECC needs an extra £90mn in 2016-17 just to stand still. It has increased Council Tax by 4% – the maximum it can increase it without calling a referendum – but this will bring in only an extra £22mn.

 

– The council plans to fill the remaining gap in 2016-17 by drawing down reserves to dangerously low levels (just 23 days of expenditure), and by continuing to cut overall expenditure despite the severe pressures from rising demand and increasing costs.

 

– On it’s own website, the Tory run Council admits it does not know how the increasing shortfall can be met after 2017-18.

 

This is happening across the country –indeed, relatively wealthy and fast-growing Essex is better off than most councils.

 

The Tory Government is not putting public finances on a sound footing – it is transferring the problems to local authorities and to health Service Trusts, and building up problems that are becoming increasingly apparent and will be expensive to solve.

 

What difference would a Labour Council make?

We will need a Labour Government to solve the underfunding of the services on which those of us who are not Eton educated millionaires depend.

 

But There are four key reasons to vote Labour in the ECC elections:-

 

To send a message to the Government that you are not happy to see money wasted on tax cuts for the rich while our roads are full of potholes and basic services on which we and our loved ones depend are in risk of collapse.

 

To elect a council that you can trust to prioritise the things that ordinary people want and value.

 

To fight back at local level against extreme Tory policies that undermine your public services, and for which they have no mandate – including the forced academisation of primary schools, and the creeping privatisation of almost every public service.

Vote against Private affluence for the few – but Public Squalor endured by all of us.

 Vote Labour

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What is racist, and what is not? A contribution to the debate in the Labour Party

What does anti-semitism mean?

 

We would all agree that hatred or dislike based on something fundamental that individuals are unable to change is always unacceptable – whether it be skin colour or some form of disability or any other characteristic outside their control. None of the allegations about anti-Semitism in the labour party fall into this category.

 

The problem with religious discrimination is that it involves criticism not of what someone is, but of what they believe – and in the interests of free speech, we need to stress that the right to criticise the beliefs of others is legitimate and should be protected. The alleged cases of anti-Semitism do not take this form either.

 

We are instead dealing with Labour party members expressing views about the policy and conduct of the state of Israel, both within it’s own borders and, more particularly, within the territories that it has illegally occupied since 1967. We are all presumably in agreement that the policies and practices of the Government of Israel must be a legitimate field of debate within a national political party that has to articulate policy positions on all current international and national questions.

 

The accusation of anti-Semitism thus derives from the fact that Israel is the only majority jewish state, and that for many jews the state of Israel as a homeland for jewish people is a core component of their jewish identity. This dual identity inevitably leads to the potential for confusion when the behaviour of the state attracts criticism.

 

The issue then comes down to questions about how individual party members have chosen to prosecute the discussion. There is a spectrum:-

i. Open and civilised debate of the issues is presumably acceptable to all of us, using facts and analysis that are open to challenge.

ii. Deliberate lies and mis-representation are clearly not acceptable, though they are all too typical of the current level of political discourse in the UK. Where facts are contested of course it can be difficult to distinguish case i from case ii.

iii. Social intimidation of those holding different views should never be acceptable. We may dislike what others have to say, but should protect their right to say it.

iv.The more extreme ends of the spectrum of discrimination, involving physical assault or worse have not been alleged, although it could perhaps be argued that a discriminatory environment dangerously lowers the taboos and barriers that protect individuals from the risk of assault.

 

If we apply this framework to the three cases that have recently attracted most attention, they seem to fall into the category of legitimate discussion of the policies of the Israeli state.

 

In the case of Naz Shah, there are two separate facebook allegations, neither of them in my view straying outside the bounds of legitimate political debate.

 

The post which was the proximate cause of her resignation showed a picture of Israel superimposed over the United States, with the comment: “Problem solved and save you bank charges for the £3bn you transfer yearly.” In comments below, Shah said she would tweet Barack Obama and David Cameron with the suggestion and said it would “save them some pocket money”.

It is obvious that this was not intended as a serious political suggestion. It was a satirical comment on the close US-Israel relationship, and the financial support that enables Israel to continue to be militarily dominant in the region. Critics of Israel would argue that it is US financial support that has enabled Israel to ignore all pressure to negotiate a settlement. It is not necessary to agree with this view to accept that it is legitimate to hold it. The original post that Shah was re-tweeting did not come from some jew hating extremist site, but from Professor Norman Finkelstein. He is described in Wikipedia as “an American political scientist, activist, professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who were Jewish Holocaust survivors.”

 

It may be a poor joke, but it is hardly anti-semitic, and nobody was harmed by her comments. Had it been a serious suggestion to forcibly transport the inhabitants of Israel to the US it would of course have been offensive, but it was clearly no such thing.

 

Other re-posts and comments by Naz Shah make the following points:-

 

  1. “The reality is that through its historical and current colonial project the Zionist apparatus in Tel Aviv and globally continues to enact policies and practices that are deeply inhumane, that are unequal and have created physical realities that have left the mantra of Tony Blair precisely what it was meant to be an ‘(un)viable two state solution’.”
  2. During the Gaza conflict, Ms Shah posted a link on Facebook to a newspaper poll asking whether Israel had committed war crimes. She wrote: “The Jews are rallying to the poll.” And then called on people to vote “yes”.

iii. Naz Shah claimed that no Israeli children had been killed by stone throwing Palestinians.

 

The first point is certainly well within the realms of legitimate political debate. There is widespread agreement in the academic literature that the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements has resulted in a reality on the ground that makes a two state solution now unviable.

 

The argument that Israel committed war crimes is also hardly controversial. During the Second Intifada, the UN Commission on Human Rights reported “widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights perpetrated by the Israeli occupying power, in particular mass killings and collective punishments, such as demolition of houses and closure of the Palestinian territories, measures which constitute war crimes, flagrant violations of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity.”[138] In 2014 Amnesty released a report with similar findings, criticizing Israel for excessive and reckless use of force for which Israeli soldiers are not held accountable. Amnesty said characteristics of the violence suggested it was employed as a matter of policy, and that there was evidence some killings amounted to war crimes.[171]

 

The third point could be argued to be a case of mis-representation by Ms Shah, as there does appear to have been one such case. However, even if true, the critical point (as Ken Livingstone pointed out) is the enormous disparity in the body count with far more Palestinians killed than Israelis.

 

Were any of her tweets or comments anti-semitic?

 

I would say they are not. It was perhaps careless to refer to ‘the jews’ voting in support of Israel rather than more precisely suggesting that Israeli supporters were highly motivated to vote. However, all of the comments are concerned with the conduct of the Israeli state, and have nothing to do with personal hatred of jews. If anyone is guilty of deliberate mis-representation it is those who are making the accusations of anti-semitism.

 

The deliberate identification of an opposition to the Zionist project with anti-semitism is made explicit in comments by Joan Ryan, Labour Friends of Israel chair, who said: “This incident underlines yet again the need for the Labour Party to take urgent action to combat antisemitism and anti-Zionism in all its forms.” The two are however clearly quite different things. Zionism was a political movement to establish a homeland for the jewish people. It was a legitimate aim, but aspects of the way in which it was in practice carried out, with expulsions of Arabs without compensation or right of return, continue to be problematic, as does the continued expansion of illegal settlements.

 

The second case relates to Oxford University Labour Club. A decision by the club to support Israeli Apartheid Week, which seeks to highlight Israel’s “ongoing settler-colonial project and apartheid policies over the Palestinian people”, has angered some Labour MPs, who have called for the party to dissociate itself from OULC. Louise Ellman, vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, said: “I am deeply disturbed by the news that Oxford University Labour Club has decided to support Israeli Apartheid Week and by the revelations from Alex Chalmers about the troubling tone of the discourse in which this debate appears to have been conducted.” She said comparisons between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa were “a grotesque smear and the Labour party should dissociate itself from them”.

 

The allegedly ‘grotesque smear’ has a prestigious pedigree.Israeli treatment of non-Israelis in territories occupied by Israel for nearly fifty years, has been compared to South Africa’s treatment of non-whites during the apartheid era by the Congress of South African Trade Unions,[148], by former US President Jimmy Carter,[149], by archbishop Desmond Tutu and by Michael Ben-Yair, attorney-general of Israel.[150] In 2009, South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council released a 300-page study that concluded that Israel practiced colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.[151]The accusation of anti-semitism appears to be unfounded unless all of these prestigious individuals and bodies are also guilty of it.

 

The final case is that of Ken Livingstone. The most annoying thing about his intervention is that it kept a damaging debate going and escalated it at a time when efforts should have been focused on the coming elections. However, for what it is worth, he appears to be factually largely correct in what he says, and again it is difficult to see how his comments can be taken as evidence of anti-semitism. He said that Hitler initially wanted to expel the jews because he hated them and that his officials held discussions with the Zionists to that end. He did not suggest that the Zionists supported Hitler, nor did he suggest that Hitler was anything but repugnant in his attitude to the jews. His comments were in answer to a question, and were largely irrelevant to the debate on anti-semitism.

 

His other points were to draw attention to Israeli brutality towards Palestinians including the gross disparity in the body count, and the tendency of the pro-Israel lobby to label anyone criticising Israel as anti semitic. All of which is fair comment.

 

My conclusion is that there may have been some unguarded language used at times, but the cases that have received such publicity and had dire consequences for the individuals were of startling triviality and were not evidence of anti-semitism. They are explained perhaps by common cause among those wishing to damage Jeremy Corbyn, and those wishing to deflect all criticism of Israel.

 

The startling thing is that the ‘Labour Friends of Israel’ receive so little criticism for their support of a regime that has been repeatedly accused of war crimes and of imposing unacceptable levels of suffering on the inhabitants of the occupied territories. As a labour party member, I am hurt and offended by labour party members appearing to defend the indefensible, and bringing my party into disrepute by associating it with a regime that has a long history of oppressing the rights of the Palestinian people. That is the real issue. A little mild upset or irritation experienced by some party members because of strongly worded criticism of the conduct of a foreign power seems utterly trivial in comparison with the lethal and discriminatory behaviour by Israel that her critics seek to highlight.. The accusations of anti-Semitism seem to be contrived in my view to stifle a debate that needs to be brought into the open. There are indeed examples of unacceptable bullying within the labour party, but they are not coming from those now accused of anti-Semitism, but from those who are making the accusations to silence necessary debate.

Posted on by mickfoster

Mick Foster: economist, drummer, and would-be author

Thanks for visiting my site. I am an economist with more years of experience than I care to admit to, most of it in overseas development, though I have also worked as Chief Economist in the UK Home Office, and had a brief stint in the Cabinet Office. The site contains:-

i. My research and consultancy work on economic development – most of this is available on researchgate.net, but not everyone has access to that.

ii. Discussion of policy issues that interest me, trying to push back against the avalanche of lies and distortions that seem increasingly to taint our politics and our media coverage.

iii. Some of my fiction writing while I figure out how best to get it either published or self-published. Short stories under the heading ‘Lives in Development’ can be seen here https://mickfoster.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/lives-in-development.pdf

iv.  I will also have a theme for the various bands and music events I am involved in, with a few links to where our music can be heard.