Labour MP Margaret Hodge spoke to Sky News yesterday about the experience of being told that she faced a disciplinary investigation for swearing at and insulting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – and compared it to being Jewish in the 1930s and fleeing Nazi Germany:
The comparison – of receiving a disciplinary letter and being hounded out of a country in fear of one’s life – has outraged many Jewish people:
When we talk about Corbyn’s foes cheapening meaning of anti-Semitism in their smears of him, this is what we’re taking about: https://t.co/RWvAVecXSG
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 16, 2018
Norman Finkelstein, a well-known left-wing commentator, put out a video in excoriating response:
NEW VIDEO: Please watch and share.
Margaret Hodge likened receiving a letter from the Disciplinary Committee to Nazi persecution. Norman Finkelstein, a leading American Jewish scholar and son of Holocaust survivors, responds: pic.twitter.com/f0yxLFayqV
— EL4C (@EL4JC) August 17, 2018
The anger was not only from Jewish people supportive of Corbyn – Corbyn critic, comedian David Baddiel, was among them:
Others pointed out the innate danger and racism of Hodge’s comments closely equating the Palestinian cause and antisemitism:
Comment:
Margaret Hodge’s comments – and her behaviour in general – have been abominable. But if nothing else they serve to expose the politicisation of an important issue and highlight that there is little ‘moderate’ about so-called ‘moderates’. Her comments last night were a serious miscalculation and many Jewish people are rightly appalled.
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She is unable to reach the basic level of intelligence as defined by Socrates: the ability to tell the difference between one thing and another thing.
Oh, SHE knows the difference alright, but the thinking of the saboteurs is that their outrage – their phony and contrived outrage – will convince Joe/Jo Public that there are parallels. That she should use her Jewish identity for political purposes AND to (attempt to) dupe millions of people AND, in so doing, subvert democracy, is beneath contempt. But then the sociopaths have no qualms whatsoever about doing such things, because apart from anything else, ALL sociopaths/psychopaths are inherently fascist.
She is just playing her part – acting out her roll – in the co-ordinated and orchestrated black propaganda op to (try to) sabotage JC’s leadership and demonise the Left, and she is of course not only a traitor to the LP AND the many, but also a traitor to democracy itself.
“…what distinguished the Third Reich from all previous dictatorships was its use of all the means of communication to sustain itself and to deprive its objects of the power of independent thought.”
Albert Speer
Well after her expressing regret privately to dodge getting kicked out then denying it in public surely Jennie Formby has GOT to throw her out this time?
What’s Hodge going to do “express regret” again then back out of it?
She disgusts me. Likening being disciplined for abusive behaviour to being persecuted by the nazis is the pits.
The lady can sling accusations at others, but she does not like it if they challenge her on it. She has not learned any lesson. She deserves to have the book thrown at her.
What ‘lady’??
Er…. sorry, what “lady”?
This travesty of a human being is disgusting beyond measure. Jews in Nazi Germany were rounded up and put in death camps for no reason other than their religion and/or ethnicity. This atrocity will be a stain on human history forever.
Being disciplined for misconduct by the Labour Party holds few terrors. No one is exiled; no one dies. The worst that can happen is that the accused individual will be expelled from the LP and be unable to re-join for five years.
Hodge is vile and is a running sore on the body of the Labour Party. She should go. NOW!
She’s unhinged by her hatred of Corbyn. Won’t be long before she oversteps the mark in her sense of self righteousness.
You don’t think that’s already happened?
Though a disgusting comment – I’m glad she made it because it exposed the utter nonsense behind all these smears. It has nothing to do with A/S but more to do with getting Corbyn at any cost, even at the expense of the Jewish community in the UK.
Shameful.
I think she needs medical help. She seems to really believe what she’s saying.
Hodge…Just another name for ‘tripe’ isn’t it?
And even if it isn’t, Christ knows she spouts enough of it.
‘Hodge’ originated as a pet form of ‘roger’.
You need to draw your own conclusions, I couldn’t possibly comment.
And tragically, Labour’s disciplinary system should have prevented all this by chucking this woman out of the party she hates with such venom.
Correct. hodge and many, MANY others have got away with too much for FAR too long.
Time to knock it on the head.
I imagine that her best move would be to leave the party. For this lady, desperately afraid of the leadership and some of the membership, personal safety must be paramount. My admiration goes to all members who remain party members in such a frightening and hostile atmosphere and seldom use the police to help in the incarceration of hate criminals. Such fortitude and single mindedness is to be applauded. Perhaps the awarding of medals of valour would be appropriate and these could be given out at conferences? Best wishes.
10/10 for satire.
Sticking to the facts (always a problem for the Right), maybe the party should leave her – the party has much more to fear from her constant vitriol and lies than she has to fear from a disciplinary system that has allowed her to get away with so much for so long.
This ‘professional victim’ has long been on the list of most hostile MPs towards socialism. She abuses the elected leader of the Labour Party using the ‘f’ word and thus attacks all of those who elected Corbyn, and gets away with it! The decision to stop the investigation supported by Jon Lansman and most of the NEC with John McDonnell’s encouragement, will not work to shut her up and she will always get the Murdoch owning news to air her vitriol. So expect more of the same until the MSM get tired of her and move onto the next fake wreath story, and until she is deselected for false representation and bringing the Party into disrepute. She has no kind heart but wears the coronet of corrosive Blairism. Horror of a politician. whose abuse of Jewish history to serve her own political aims has acted as an attack on the poor in this country, you and me and the hundreds of thousands of active members of the Party reinvigorated since 2015. We are not anti Semitic, supporters of terrorism or anything like it. We want socialist policies and support the poorest and most vulnerable, and that certainly does not describe Margaret Hodge.
I think it’s delicious irony that the original Champagne Socialist and Blair’s babe who ran Islington council like a Stalinist enclave should now be thanking “middle England” for their support and kind words.
The Labour party should have kept the disciplinary procedure going until Hodge publicly apologised for falsely calling the Labour leader an anti-Semite.
But in the first place the party bottled it by making the disciplinary process about the swearing rather than the false accusation of anti-Semitism, and then they bottled it again by letting her get away with a partial apology in private, which she now denies making.
The way the party has dealt with the incident has made the situation worse. Now Hodge feels free to repeat the worst bit of her rant – the false accusation that Corbyn is an anti-Semite.
Making false accusations against a party member should specifically be against the rules.
Spouts that shite and expects us to swallow it – Yet when she was told about nonces in islington she more or less laughed it off and allowed them carte-blanche to continue harming children.
It even dismissed (Libelled IIRC) the victims: ‘Seriously disturbed’.
And it became children’s minister under b.liar? Talk about ‘chutzpah’ ffs.
Should’ve been JAILED*, nevermind whinging overdramatically about being ‘disciplined’. The exact opposite of f**k-all happened to the arl bag over Islington – less happened with her ‘f**king antisemite’ outburst.
The utter f**king disgrace.
*Still should be, in my humble opinion.
What an obnoxious woman Hodge is. Her phony indignation is nauseating. She is consumed with hatred for Jeremy Corbyn and has NO place in the the Labour Party.
If Jeremy Corbyn is even contemplating including ANY of the IHRA examples, especially after listening to Hodge he is crazy and so are any of his ‘advisers’ who advocate anything similar. Can’t they see it will do NOTHING to change the mentality of the sociopaths like Hodge and the others. They have only ONE goal and they are going to die, metaphorically, to achieve it. Let’s hope it is the former, the day can’t come soon enough.
Hodge is a liability full stop. I dread to think what her next public claim will be.
I had to go elsewhere to hear the Finkelstein statement. Agree with him completely.
LP must not bow to calls to embrace full IHRA and examples. If it does then the code will no longer be the “gold standard” but a stick to beat Corbyn, majority of members, democratising LP and the manifesto.
I am not a subscriber to the view of agreeing to the full adoption of IHRA in the hope of enacting more Socialist British public interest policies at home. That would be at the expense of Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories and the millions of others abroad under British bombs and imperial Capitalist political, financial and military subversion. To me that is a form of British exceptionalism no matter who on the left calls for it.
I do not agree this assault on Corbyn is just about protecting Israel’s neo-colonial actions, it is also about maintaining the neoliberal/neocon pro establishment/’ruling class’ political status quo in UK domestic sphere as well.
The poor woman has clearly lost the plot. I thought that her engagement of a solicitor to deal with a disciplinary for swearing was odd. I thought that her denial that she had subsequently apologised for her swearing and thereby implying that the General Secretary of the Labour Party and its Chief Whip were liars was even odder. She now apparently genuinely believes that to be asked to apologies for her vulgarity was comparable to Nazi persecution. Let me tell you that I have met a number of people during my life who survived Nazi persecution both Jew and non Jew and I can assure Hodge that the form of persecution that they endured didn’t involve being asked to apologise.
Poor woman? She’s a millionnaire!
She clearly cares little about Jeremy’s feelings, calling him a “F***ing Racist and AntiSemite” in a public place, like some member of the SS.
Can someone kindly remind me on why Galloway, Livingstone, and Wadsworth were expelled from the Labour Party?
Hodge did not simply, back in 2006, boost the BNP in an interview, she also admitted to doing it on the doorstep:
She said: “When I knock on doors I say to people, ‘Are you tempted to vote BNP?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hodge-blamed-for-increase-in-far-rights-support-6103122.html
She’s a tax avoiding, careerist hypocrite.
There’s something sickening about the Holocaust being used to score points.
Right Delta, particularly when it’s a Jew doing it!
I just find it so sad that people like Dan Hodg s and Richard Angell(who described her comments as brave) have rushed to defend a statement that is so obviously misguided. They cannot possibly think what Ms Hodge has said is acceptable and by defending her ridiculous rhetoric simply undermine any arguments they put forward in the future.
Dan Hodge would defend Hitler if it would get at Corbyn, and Angell is cut from the same cloth.
So let me try to understand the blairites and the other lunatics here. We can’t compare Israel apartheid and racist regim to nazi’s behaviour without facing a shitstorm of bullies but we can compare the JC labour party to the nazis with no trouble whatsoever… How long are the Labour leadership going to put up with that shit? True labour supporters clearly know what to do, just listen.
Although I am a staunch supporter of Corbyn, I was dismayed to hear him say, regarding his attendance at the event “Never Again For Anyone” in 2010, that he was “not in agreement” with statements made by “some of the speakers”.
The main speaker at the meeting was the now-deceased Hajo Meyer, a Jewish Holocaust survivor who stated that Israel is a Nazi state. If Labour caves in and adopts the full IHRA definition of anti-semitism, with all its accompanying examples, this courageous man would be facing a charge of anti-semitism and almost certain explusion if he were alive today and a Labour Party member. His truth, deriving from a childhood and youth spent terrifyingly close to the Nazi death machine, would be one that dare not speak its name. This cannot be right.
Nor can it be right that in the Labour Party today the easiest way to be suspended and expelled from its ranks is to be an anti-Zionist Jew. Clearly the testimony of such an individual is one that must be silenced at all costs according to the Bergers, Smeeths and Hodges. Not to mention the (non-Jewish) craven opportunists like Streeting and Umunna who are only too happy to get on the ‘anti-semitism’ bandwagon in order to advance their shameless Blairite agenda against the many and for the few.
Let’s make a good start by throwing the disreputable Hodge out on her ear!
Trust SKY to give her a platform to air her ridiculous views. I have just watched the SKY commentator who interviewed her, badly may I say, as she was never challenged on her ridiculous analogy, state wrongly that there was a rise in anti semitism in the Labour, why are commentators never challenged on where they get their facts from, is it directly from Murdoch?It is time we fought back against the biased media in this country, including the BBC
Yes. Arguably the worst aspect of this.
But hardly unique. A supporter of nuclear weapons rarely faces any probing of their arguments.
Good post. If I were to mention Mr Potato Regardshead, would I be understood.
For anyone to make such an insulting comparison (assuming this is correct) then you have to question whether or not this woman is actually asking to be expelled.
We might soon be finding out how much longer she can hide behind her “Tier 1” lawyers Mishcon de Raya in the belief she’s untouchable…
Very good point. A martyr is just what a new party would need. Anti-anti-Semites need look no further for a new, fresh, pro-austerity, war and arms selling, Euro purist and identitarian, working class loathing, The Me Me centre party. Lovely jubbly
Can’t help feeling she is pushing to be expelled so she can with others display a false self righteous scream of look at labour look at what they have done to me. Then go on to firm a centrist party. Trying to show how crual a party labour are. I say let her stew and resign not expell Let her true reasons show through. Meanwhile let’s turn our attention to the positive manifesto and tweet like there is no tomorrow. Let people see the difference between good and bad including her.
I am generalizing here and I don’t have any individuals in my mind but it would take a great deal of psychological ability to make people change from their former wonderful selves into a foul mouthed, raging harridans. Answers on a postcard please. Best wishes.
As a Jew in the Party I hope that members will not just express their horror and outrage but will complain to the Party nationally about her.
There are at least three disciplinary issues arising from Hodge’s conduct, and I hope members will write to the General Secretary to demand an investigation. The relevant rule book provision is 2018 Rule Book, chapter 2, clause 1, paragraph 8: ‘No member shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial…or grossly detrimental to the Party’.
FIRST, there is the question of her casting doubt in the minds of the general public of the suitability of the Party leader to serve as Prime Minister given her allegation of anti-Semitism towards him. She thereby called into question the merits of electing a Labour government.
SECONDLY, there is the question of her casting doubt in the minds of the general public as to the legitimacy of the Party’s disciplinary procedures.
THIRDLY there is the need for an investigation under the Party’s Code on Anti-Semitism on the grounds of trivialisation of the terrible events of 1930s Germany.
All these matters need to be thoroughly investigated and this time seen through to a conclusion; and I hope members, Jewish and non-Jewish, will press for that to happen.
Can somebody in the alternative or mainstream media get an attributable quote from hodge about Israeli ‘Defense’ snipers targeting children?
To whom it may concern:- Many of my gentile family fought & died in WW2, fighting for freedom of speech & democracy against the Nazis & did so willingly, because they were persecuting Jews. Please don’t now tell us, as members of the Labour Party, what we can or can’t define & how we must do it.
Well said.
Oh Dear, words seem to fail me.
Ok you don’t want Jeremy although the vast majority of members voted for him (twice) and we are the largest political party in Europe and thanks to Jeremy all Labour’s debts were paid off!
But most importantly the idea that you can’t win with left wing democratic socialist ideas was SMASHE; your theory was CRUSHED but all you really had to do was to come up with counter IDEAS to those on the Left.
Adopting other tactics is actually a sign of intellectual weakness and day by day you seem to be getting more and more desperate; where are your IDEAS?
Where is your humanity and will history ever know that you existed?
The latest line is that left wing democratic socialists are a “JC cult” but you fail again to understand; we are, as Rosa Luxemberg recommended, independent, left wing, critical thinkers, and we support JC because he agrees with US!
So step out of the gutter, you are acting like children who can’t get there way but like the rich and powerful as Wolfgang Streekt argued “Haven’t a clue what to do!”
So come up with counter ideas, or just go.
Diverse working people here (and in the World) are being hammered by Right Wing Neo-Liberalism and we are being DISTRACTED when if we could win we could transform the World WITH them.
And to the Left, don’t despise the “Little People” who claim to be on our side, they know no better, they have practised a lifetime of bourgeois politics, wheeling and dealing, vote for me and I’ll vote for you on that crap etc. perhaps saying what people want to hear rather than saying what people NEED TO HEAR (what Rosa Luxemberg called “Parliamentary Cretinism”) whilst left wing democratic socialists say and stand for what they believe in!
Time to draw a line in the sand and take on the rich and powerful Right Wing Neo-Liberals – the True Little People of the Planet!
Especially as the Right Wing Barbarian rich plan to pour millions into the Far Right Barbarians around the World (including groups and individuals Barbarians here).
Diverse Working People of the World Unite!
INTERREGUM
“The old order (Neo-Liberalsm) is dying.
But the new cannot yet be born.
Perhaps we are all being tested.
And only the stars will ride the storm!”
Solidarity!
Lock the Blairites in a room and don’t feed them until they can come up with an explanation of and a cure for the failure of trickle-down theory – the historic and only possible moral justification of free market Capitalism.
Electric shocks for recycling the usual puerile whine that ‘nothing else works’.
Make them explain why we’re all getting poorer while the rich get richer faster than ever – and what policy ideas they have to fix that.
There’s not the least doubt that Capitalism has created more poverty and death worldwide than health and wealth.
Genuine, tangible benefit for the many has come only from technology and from the Left’s social policy – either directly or forced upon the right by their fear of our numbers.
The many gain nothing from free markets, nothing from the entrepreneurs, investors, bankers and rentiers who claim sole credit for growth while pocketing the fruits of our labour and punishing us for their recessions.
Time to chain and tame the market and its dogs – I know I’m not the only one who’s sick of feeding them.
Surprise, surprise! Following Hodge’s appalling and embarrassing comments to a Sky news nodding airhead, the BBC and Ch4 news have studiously avoided any comment. They’re more interested in promoting e-cigarettes on behalf of lobbyists and their MP servants today.
AS I STOOD BY MY WONDERFUL TRUE JEWISH FRIEND
AS WE FACED UP TO BILLIONAIRE FUNDED FAR RIGHT
AS THEY BEAT AND BATTERED AND PILLIORED US
PRAYED I HER LAST WORDS TO ME WOULD NOT BE:
“ANTI-SEMITE!”
X
Professor Norman Finklestein has just been on Talk Radio commenting on the smearing of Jeremy Corbyn.
He said what’s happening is “Jeremy Corbyn is being attacked by Jewish thugs using maffia tactics”. He is being blackmailed into giving up the leadership despite the many olive branches he has offered.
Finklestein said any further concessions would do nothing to change the situation because the only thing they want is Corbyn’s crucifixion.
Finkelstein, as fearless, forthright and uncompromising as ever. I listened in just to hear him and was mortified he was cut off due to time constraints.
I hope he does a video expanding on what he said.
Yes Maria, in many ways Finkelstein has, because of his refusal to accept the myths and double standard of Israel and it’s Zionist founders, been vilified to a similar extent to Jeremy Corbyn. He has never been shaken in his resolve to stand up to the bullying and intimidation of his attackers.
Jeremy should take great heart from having the support and good will from someone with such integrity and fortitude as Norman Finkelstein
“Jeremy should take great heart from having the support and good will from someone with such integrity and fortitude as Norman Finkelstein”
Indeed he should. Corbyn has already shown he has the strength of character to stand up to whatever is thrown at him and I hope public support from Finkelstein will be a welcome boost and shine a light on the bigger picture for listeners.
Corbyn has stuck to his principle of not personally abusing or insulting people despite this being the primary weapon used against him including by some of his own shameless MPs!
I have a lot of time and respect for Norman Finkelstein. He always manages to hit the nail right on the head when commenting on the ludicrous situation in the Labour Party, despite being an American based in he States, and therefore at some distance from events as they unfold.
I’m sure that the irony of the situation will not be lost on many people reading comments to the article. it is certainly not lost on me. Namely that, as with Hajo Meyer, if Norman Finkelstein were reisdent in the UK and a member of the Labour Party, he would soon face suspension and disciplinary proceedings for alleged ‘anti-semitism’. How can we be so sure? By looking at how so many anti-Zionist British Jews in the Labour Party have faced the absurd accusation of anti-semitism and been suspended and/or expelled. I cannot think of anything more genuinely anti-semitic than labelling someone a ‘self-hating Jew’.
Jackie Walker is the next to face a show-trial. Let’s all get behind her and expose the true motives of her accusers!
Redveg, you make an excellent point which is not highlighted enough i.e. it is Jews such as Jackie Walker, Moshe Machover, Tony Greenstein and Glyn Secker, who was recently attacked, who do not place Zionism at the heart of their religion, who receive the most appalling treatment from the avowedly Zionist side.
These fellow comrades, because of the vituperation directed at them from Zionists, whether they be Jews or not, have been portrayed as outcasts in their own community for their support of universal human rights.
When the Blairite regime controlled the party, as many of them wish to do now, they had people such as Iain McNicol ensconced in positions where they could wield power and control to such an extent that if anyone spoke out against the LFI or the JLM, they were candidates for the chop. Blair, who admitted being a Zionist, cultivated that side of the party, hence the disproportional number of Zionist MPs we still have, to try and attract funds to the Party, which obviously didn’t work because we ran into debt.
Since Jeremy Corbyn became leader, because our membership including Union affiliates, is now over 800,000, the Party is more than solvent and in an excellent financial condition. Hopefully, with a new GS in position our disciplinary procedures can also be improved and democratised and we will see an end to the kangaroo courts which shamed us.
There’s only one song for Jeremy now:
“Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart.
And you’ll never walk alone, you’ll never walk alone!”
Solidarity!
Bazza, I certainly hope that is true!
Some of his ‘friends’ are already falling by the wayside and encouraging him to make even more concessions. If they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen because it is going to get much much worse, particularly if there is anymore appeasement.
I can understand why Blairite union leaders like Dave Prentis would urge adoption of the full IHRA with examples.
But Len McCluskey? Oh, dear!!
Jews used to respect their many intellectuals and take well-justified pride in their disproportionately high number of Nobel Prizes.
It’s hideous to see them now following rabble-rousers greedy for land and power instead.
One day they’ll wake to a reinvigorated fascist horde breaking their windows if they continue to obey Israel’s (possibly fatally) misguided exhortations instead of joining us to fight the far right.
There was news just today of despicable Nazi-inspired cults gaining fresh followers.
Sent: Fri, 17 Aug 2018 at 16:04
Subject: RE: Margaret Hodge
Dear Chris,
Thank you for your email.
We are aware of the comments you refer to and the matter has been referred to the Chief Whip.
Many thanks,
Complaints Team
The Labour Party