Much has been made of the apparently perplexing decision by the former Tory education minister Robert Jackson to denounce his party and declare that he will vote Labour at the forthcoming general election. Perplexing because since he has already announced that he is to stand down as an MP, it is unclear why he wishes to make such a song and dance about his change of allegiance. And even more perplexing is that while he denounces Michael Howard for being ultra right-wing, particularly over Europe, Jackson nevertheless seemed to find no difficulty in holding office under Margaret Thatcher, who will hardly go down in history for her One Nation or Europhile views. Moreover, although he says the thing that really got him going was the Tories’ opposition to tuition fees, he nevertheless appears to have become infatuated with a Labour government that has taken the already crippled British education system and subjected it to the rack, garrotting and ritual disembowelment.

So how to explain? Well, one factor about Jackson has been totally overlooked so far. In an Economist debate last year (see Observer article, February 22 2004), he proposed the disgusting motion that those who were opposed to antisemitism were the new McCarthyites. Decoded, that meant that the Jews were the architects of the rise in prejudice against them, itself one of the oldest anti-Jewish smears in the canon. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he also accused British Jews of dual loyalty in account of their presumed support for Israel, and said their Britishness was conditional on their explicit repudiation of the policies of Ariel Sharon. In other words, the British identity of the deeply patriotic British Jews was conditional on the views they held about a foreign country -- an attack on their civic identity that would not be made on any other group.

It turned out that Jackson happened to be a member of the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding. Since he holds such views about British Jews, what might he therefore feel about the fact that his party is currently led by one? And would he not certainly feel much more at home in the party of Labour minister Mike O’Brien, whose view of Michael Howard (see posts below) would appear to chime most harmoniously with the views Jackson expressed in that Economist debate?

Posted by melanie at January 16, 2005