The Labour party is no longer a place for a Jew

As I’m writing this, I can’t stop thinking about my sixteen year old self: a naïve, optimistic teenager who had just joined the Labour party, sure that Ed Miliband was going to put the country to rights, and that being one of the party members who would help him do that was an honour and a duty. How times have changed. In the wake of Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal, I’ve now left the party. Here’s why. I should start by saying I’m Jewish. When I was growing up, I thought that that meant that I belonged to the religion of Judaism, and that I couldn’t eat bacon. More recently, I’ve learned that it actually means I can eat as much bacon as I want, but also that I’m automatically suspected by some to be complicit in smearing left-wing politicians, endorsing the murder of Palestinians, and God knows what else. So swings and roundabouts, really.