Finger-pointing over Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to Tunis has now spread to the Tory party. Yet all it does is provoke division
Calls this week for the Conservative peer Lord Sheikh to be expelled from his party, for attending the same Palestinian rights conference as the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2014, are the signs of a row that has spiralled out of control.
Like Corbyn, Mohamed Sheikh was at the conference at the invitation of the Tunisian president – though he did not lay a wreath. His attendance has prompted the Tory MPs Zac Goldsmith and Robert Halfon to claim the peer breached the party’s code of conduct. Goldsmith tweeted: “If this man is not immediately expelled from the Conservative Party, the Party hierarchy’s complaints about Corbyn will look entirely cynical.” This is an unfortunate arrangement of words, since such complaints look pretty cynical whether or not the man is expelled.
Related: The ‘ultimate deal’? For Israel, maybe. We Palestinians will never accept it | Hanan Ashrawi
Related: Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations – review
Continue reading...