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TEHRAN, Feb 20 - Another lawmaker has resigned from the UK’s Labour Party in what is shaping up to become an unprecedented rebellion against opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Joan Ryan, the Member of Parliament for the London constituency of Enfield North and chair of the Labour Friends of Israel, announced her resignation citing what she called “the scourge of anti-Jewish racism” within its ranks.
Ryan became the eighth lawmaker to quit Labour after MPs Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Ann Coffey, Angela Smith, Gavin Shuker, and Mike Gapes announced their decision to split.
Besides accusing Corbyn of ignoring what they called prevalent “anti-Semitism” in labour, the lawmakers also criticized his refusal to effectively confront Tory Prime Minister Theresa May’s push to break the country away from the European Union (EU).
Ryan told BBC: “I could no longer ask people to vote for Jeremy Corbyn to be prime minister of this country because I don’t believe he is fit to be the prime minister of this country.”
Corbyn has yet to address Ryan’s decision to resign.
He said Monday that he was “disappointed” to see lawmakers quit his party at a time that the country needs to stay united as it gets prepared for Brexit.
“I am disappointed that these MPs have felt unable to continue to work together for the Labour policies that inspired millions at the last election and saw us increase our vote by the largest share since 1945,” he wrote on twitter,
He was referring to the party’s performance during last year’s snap General Election, where May felt confident that she could increase her party’s parliamentary majority in an early vote and ultimately minimize the risks of strong opposition against her Brexit deal with the EU.
Her plans missed the mark by a huge margin as Labour, under Corbyn’s leadership, won a considerable number of new seats and took away the Conservative Party’s majority, forcing May to forge an embarrassing alliance with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to stay in power.
“Labour won people over on a program for the many not the few – redistributing wealth and power, taking vital resources into public ownership, investing in every region and nation, and tackling climate change,” Corbyn reminded the resigned members of his party.
“The Tories are bungling Brexit while Labour has set out a unifying and credible alternative plan. When millions face the misery of Universal Credit, rising crime, homelessness and poverty, now more than ever is the time to bring people together to build a better future for us all,” he added.
Corbyn paying price for siding with Palestine
Some analysts argue that the mass split from Labour, which is the biggest in the party’s recent history, more than anything else had to do with Corbyn’s recurrent statements in condemnation of Israel’s crimes against the people of Palestine.
In his party manifesto for last year’s election, Crobyn clearly criticized Israel’s violent crackdown on Palestinians and mentioned ending the occupation of the Palestinian territories as one of the party’s ultimate goals.
This and many other anti-Israeli positions of Corbyn and his allies have drawn strong criticism from the Israel lobby in the UK as well as Prime Minister Theresa May and other members of the ruling Conservative Party.
When asked about his opinion on the anti-Semitism allegations last August, Corbyn doubled down on his previous positions against Israel and said it was wrong to brand anti-Zionists as anti-Semites.
The British media have also joined the attacks against Corbyn, often deriding him and his policies by giving him questionable and biased coverage.
Source: presstv
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