Here’s a funny thing. Naz Shah was caught out on Monday by Guido Fawkes for sharing and writing various anti-Semitic comments and memes on Twitter and Facebook. Before she became an MP, but not long before she became an MP. And yet, somehow, Naz Shah is one of the very few Labour MPs to have emerged from this week with any credit whatsoever.
Naz Shah is not representative of the Jew hatred that is rife throughout Labour. Her comments about the “Jews rallying” and their forced “transportation” – just think about that word transportation and its connotations for this particular community – were unequivocally anti-Semitic. If you don’t agree with that, I’m afraid you’re probably an anti-Semite too. But Shah had clearly already embarked on a journey – Bradford’s small synagogue, rescued from closure by the city’s Muslim community, tweeted its support for Shah. Her apologies, including an early draft that was not eventually delivered, showed a genuine engagement with the anti-Semitism that has found a happy home on parts of the left, and a desire to stamp it out.
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