Michael Rubin has been campaigning for right-wing Israel fanatic in North Durham, while Labour officers and councillors quit and BICOM employee joins campaign full time
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) director Michael Rubin has been campaigning for Luke Akehurst in North Durham. Rubin, who is based in London, featured prominently in Al Jazeera’s 2017 exposé of Israeli government interference in UK politics, ‘The Lobby’. He told an Al Jazeera undercover journalist posing as an Israel activist that he worked:
with the ambassador and embassy quite a lot…
…we work really closely with them, but a lot of it is behind the scenes.
Rubin had been recommended to the undercover journalist by now-expelled Israeli embassy agent Shai Masot. Rubin said of the ‘Young LFI’ group they wanted to set up:
I think we just have to be careful that not to be seen as ‘young Israeli embassy’ … We do work really closely together, it’s just publicly we just try to keep LFI as a separate identity to the embassy of course. Being LFI allows us to reach out to people who wouldn’t want to get involved with the embassy. Ultimately we want the same end goal of getting more people to be pro-Israel
Akehurst published a picture of Rubin (circled in blue) out campaigning with him, along with Ralph Ali (circled in yellow), also London-based, who works for Akehurst’s ‘Labour to win’ right-wing pressure group. At least four of the others in the image are Labour councillors required to campaign:
As Skwawkbox exclusively revealed earlier this month, local support in Durham for Akehurst’s campaign is so low that Oxford-based Kira Lewis, Akehurst’s colleague at pro-Israel lobbying group BICOM, has been in Durham to help with the campaign. Skwawkbox understands from local sources that she is now working full-time on it, although it is unclear whether BICOM is still paying her or she has taken unpaid leave.
The drafting in of outside help comes as locals say numerous members, officers and even elected representatives have quit the party because they say they cannot vote for Akehurst, let alone campaign for him – including at least two Durham county councillors.
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