Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to apologise for antisemitism proves he is unfit to be prime minister

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The unprecedented intervention by the chief rabbi in Labour’s antisemitism crisis should have sounded long overdue alarm bells within the Labour Party. However, Jeremy Corbyn plunged the Labour Party into further turmoil during his interview with Andrew Neil by refusing to apologise for the evident antisemitism within his party.

Jeremy Corbyn remains a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and such an affiliation can only make his position as leader of the Labour Party completely untenable. There is a memorable line in a famous Peter Gabriel song that “you can’t blow out a fire and once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher”. Watch out for the wind Mr Corbyn, as it is very close.

Christopher Learmont-Hughes
Caldy, Wirral

Scottish conundrum

Introducing the SNP’s election manifesto, Ms Sturgeon has made it clear that a vote for the SNP is a vote for a new separation referendum. No one can now be in any doubt about that. Any talk about Remain voters “lending” the SNP their vote to support SNP opposition to Brexit can be consigned to the dustbin.

If you oppose Scotland leaving the UK, you cannot vote SNP. In each constituency there is a candidate best placed to defeat the SNP candidate. That is the candidate for Remainers in the UK to support.

Jill Stephenson
Edinburgh

Applause for young voters

I read your editorial with interest and agreement and I am gratified that many men and women have now registered to vote, especially our young people.

But of course they have to get out there and actually vote, and in the midst of the usual Christmas hullabaloo this could lose out in the festive pecking order. I sincerely hope not because this is an extraordinary democratic event and so far has not been gifted with much good will.

The new parliament will hopefully be a fair and responsible one, hung or otherwise. Britain deserves better than this whole ghastly shebang of three years and counting. We have become a shameful spectator sport for the world as they see our politicians warring and floundering in the Brexit debacle.

I will have my usual all-night sitting watching the pivotal votes come in from different constituencies, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that 13 December 2019 is not laden with my tears, as it was on 24 June 2016 when this country voted to leave the European Union and David Dimbleby announced that momentous and, for me personally, catastrophic result.

Judith A Daniels
Cobholm, Norfolk

Youth hope

It is refreshing that youth registration to vote in the forthcoming general election has risen to unprecedented levels. Youth are the bedrock of society. They are blighted by societal ills from unemployment to homelessness, knife crimes, homicides, femicides, domestic abuse, sexual harassment, skyrocketing rental prices, jobs, pensions and food insecurity and mental ailments.

They are also the victims of aggressive marketing, poor legislation and corporate interference in the health and social realms where the burden of non-communicable diseases is increasing at an alarming rate. Time for policy coherence, accountability and multi-sectoral and civic responsibility to root out avoidable diseases and social injustices in society.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob
London

Rabbi’s Tory subtext

It is absolutely right that the chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, should call out antisemitism in the Labour Party. Corbyn has most certainly not dealt with this problem well. However, the chief rabbi’s pronouncement at this time seems to have a subtext: vote Tory. Perhaps I have misinterpreted – in which case I apologise. But, in my defence, his comments failed to acknowledge any other discriminations. And there are many.

We have the murder of Jo Cox and the ongoing vile threats to Anna Soubry, Stella Creasy, Jess Phillips and others. We have Islamophobia. We have our shameful treatment of citizens of the Windrush project. We do not take proper care of those with mental health problems or who have social care needs. We fail to protect the privacy of victims of domestic violence. We do not welcome refugees as warmly as we should. We don’t (apparently) value our public services.

And we don’t (apparently) value our European neighbours with whom we joined a union in order to maintain peace in Europe and prevent the horrors of the Second World War happening again.

There are others, and the list is long. And most of this is down to austerity, the cuts to public services and the hostility to immigrants promoted by the Tories.

I would like the chief rabbi and the archbishop of Canterbury to clarify their perfectly justifiable criticism of antisemitism and say whether or not they can include the many other discriminations at large – driven at this time by the right (who must be cock-a-hoop at their comments) and not by Corbyn.

And I wonder, very timidly because this is delicate territory, whether there is some US influence here.

Beryl Wall
London

Corbyn catastrophe

Are we all aware of the horrifying background of Jeremy Corbyn? Labour values are well respected in the UK but the current Labour leader is far removed from anything we have seen in generations. Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous threat to our security and prosperity and would be catastrophic for our country as a prime minister.

Corbyn in no way represents the values of most Labour members, who want a caring, fair government that will stand up for the needy and disadvantaged, not a communistic state-controlled regime that will stifle free enterprise and alienate us from our key allies.

The Labour manifesto is marked by extreme left-wing policies with a clear communist influence, and an obvious hatred of prosperity and enterprise. Frankly, it must be an embarrassment to most traditional labour supporters.

The populist “free everything” for young people, and a lower voting age, shows who he is targeting – the younger population that don’t remember the dark, dark days of the left-wing 1970s when so much damage was done to our country, and so much hardship followed.

Labour voters should think very carefully before voting for this man and his close friends. You may not be a Tory voter, but does this man really represent your true values? We live in critical times, and a vote from the conscience is crucial, even if it means a brief departure from our traditional loyalties, for the sake of our country and our children.

Colin Palmer
Kilmaurs, Ayrshire

A matter of opinion?

One party political leader is deemed to be an antisemite, the other an Islamophobe. The Macpherson principle rules supreme. This assumes that an incident is racist if perceived to be such by the victim. It is considered irrelevant whether or not there is intent on the part of the accused to be racist. This, of course, is a licence to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Is apartheid Israel an apt description or an antisemitic slur? Or is it Islamophobic to claim that Islam has a problem with modernity?

Take the case of Labour MP Chris Williamson. He claimed that the party’s antisemitism problem had been blown out of all proportion. Surely, this was a matter of opinion rather than an antisemitic slur. Yet he was deemed to have committed such a cardinal sin that nothing less than banishment from public life will do. A witch-hunt is not conducive to due process or reasoned debate.

Yugo Kovach
Winterborne Houghton, Dorset