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Anti-Semitism Is By No Means an Issue Solely for Jews
(Telegraph-UK) Vernon Bogdanor - Britain has always been the least anti-Semitic of countries. The vast majority of voters neither knew nor cared that Michael Howard, Conservative leader from 2003 to 2005, or Ed Miliband, Labour leader from 2010 to 2015, were Jewish. I doubt if their ethnic origin swung a single vote one way or another. The MPs who have left Labour are right to highlight the overriding importance of anti-Semitism, by no means an issue solely for Jews. Its prevalence undermines the wider values for which not only the Labour Party but Britain as a whole has always stood. The former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, captured it perfectly when he declared that anti-Semites are never just anti-Semites. Hitler and Stalin did not confine their hatred to Jews. Anti-Semitism, he explained, "is the world's most reliable early warning sign of a major threat to freedom, humanity and the dignity of difference." The writer is Professor of Government at King's College, London.