The current home secretary, Priti Patel, was forced to resign from her previous (lesser) role as Minister for International Development for secretly (and thus illegally) meeting with Israeli diplomats.
Every British government has been an ally of Israel. You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade for nothing if you have any sense.
> You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade
Well, that's certainly one angle.
The other angle is, let's face it, Israel is good at playing the Jewish card and portraying that if you're not pro-Israel you must be some sort of antisemite.
There are all sorts of political ties along those lines, e.g. "Conservative Friends of Israel"[1]
UK bilateral trade with Russia was ~$17 billion in 2021 (i assume that's imports plus exports right?).
Russia was a very close friend twenty years ago, Iraq was a very close ally in the 1980s. I'm sure Israel realises how quickly the west can turn on friends and allies when it suits us and that this is why they spend tens of millions a year wooing US and UK politicians.
Russia became a pariah over night and the moment it becomes politically convenient to diplomatically recognise Israel as an apartheid state the trade won't count for anything (not least because most of it is the direct consequence of billions in annual US subsidies)
Russia's been a pain in the arse continuously. 20 years ago they were up to their eyeballs in the Iranian nuclear programme, carpet bombing Chechnya, blowing up their own apartment blocks and blaming it on terrorists, destabilising Georgia and goodness knows what else. That's all just from memory. But they have a lot of oil and gas so we let it all slide. More fool us.
Most European governments look at the simultaneous invasion of Israel by three Arab states in 1948, and statements made about the aims of that invasion, and think "what would we be prepared to do to defend against such determined, implacable hostility?". They look at what Israel does to defend itself and think, yeah, pretty much we'd do that.
They look at Israel and see a democratic, technologically advanced state with a liberal economy much like their own. They look at the repressive, autocratic extraction economies in the Arab world and recoil in horror.
I'm not making any judgement on this, or whether they're right or wrong, but that's just how many Europeans see the situation.
The sad reality is that we've not really had truly independent foreign policy since WW2. The US military never left our soil, and we've been in lock step with Washington on everything serious since then.
We're a vassal state, there's no Brexit on the special relationship.
We threw away billions in trade with the EU over not really that much, why would not throw away a far smaller sum when it comes to another country that was spying on us?
How much the UK and EU are allies remains to be seen too
>Face it, Corbyn and the Labour Party do have a massive issue with antisemitism
Only if we define it as criticism of Israeli policy.
Otherwise, that's a smear, substituting criticism with antisemitism.
>A smear campaign can only be really effective if there is a solid truth behind it.
Nope, it can be very effective without any truth. Try smearing someone as a pedophile - you think they'll be able to wash it off? Goebbels, for one, advised for complete lies, repeated often.
In fact, a complete huge lie can be even more believable, as people go "would they said something that great, if it wasn't at least a bit true?".
Using a very extreme example: if I got 4 people to call you a pedophile, then people will believe it until you submit proof that you're not.
The problem is that it's impossible to prove the absence of something, so you're forced to push back on me: "Where's your proof that I'm a pedophile", where I can reply with anecdotes or other useless information.
The point is not to "prove" you are a pedophile in that case, the point is to make people associate your name with pedophilia, and to make it unclear if you are or if you aren't. 80% of people will not look further into it.
Pedophilia is probably too extreme of an example and people may be more critical of pedophilia accusations than, say, racism ones.
for what it’s worth, i’m yet to find an individual that was able to concretely identify a single anti-semitic action or statement both in the run up to, and after the november 2019 election.
edit: probably worth mentioning, i read the report of the external investigation (all ~300 pages of it) on antisemitism in the labour party. to call it thin on the ground is somewhat of an understatement.
It's also easy to find "presence of anything" in some members of any large group, including satanism, doesn't mean it defines the group or is a big element of it.
Are you implying that all those Jews worried about anti-semitism in the Labour Party lack basic sense? I'm not sure they're likely to find that a comforting response.
Are you weasel-wording strawmen? Maybe, don't do that?
First, who are "all those Jews"? This is handwaving to make it sound like multitudes.
Second, people worrying about anti-semitism in the Labour party in general, either lack common sense (if we accept your argument that is "this attitude" I wrote about above that is their concern), or conflate anti-semitism (as in Hitler, Nazis, pogroms, and co) with criticism of actions by the state of Israel.
In fact, actual jews in favor of Corbyn and the party have been accused of "anti-semitism" (!) - like the Jewish Voice for Labour (jewish members of the UK Labour Party, because they are nonetheless critical about the situation with Palestine).
This "5x more likely" sounds horrific ... until you look at how it was reached:
"""
According to Labour statistics, by March 2021 there had been 1,450 "actioned complaints" against Labour party members in relation to allegations of antisemitism - equivalent to 0.29 percent of Labour’s membership, which averaged 500,000 between 2015 and 2020, when Corbyn was leader.
By contrast, says JVL, there were at least 35 actioned complaints against Jewish members. This is equivalent to 1.4 percent of Jewish members, who the group estimate to have numbered around 2,500 during the same period.
"""
Having 35 "actioned complaints" against Jewish members does not sound like a purge from the Labour Party, and portraying it as such is pretty misleading. I'm also wondering if there's some careful wording here, since they're comparing a total number of actioned complaints against Jewish members, vs number of actioned complaints specifically relating to allegations of antisemitism. Interesting that one of the two authors of the article is a Conservative (ie, the party Labour is in opposition to)
>Having 35 "actioned complaints" against Jewish members does not sound like a purge from the Labour Party
35 isnt a purge. > 1000 IS a purge. The fact that being an Jewish made it 5x more likely you would be purged simply underscored the fact that it was exclusively a project to purge anti-racists who were critical of Israel.
This point was underscored again when the party hired an ex Israeli intelligence agent.
I have misunderstood you then, I thought you were saying this was an purge designed to target Jewish members of the party, which didn’t seem to be the case to me.
Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously. The issues I have with Israel are because of the actions of its government and absolutely nothing to do with the majority religion there.
If you criticise Israel, you're an anti-semite. We're all scared of being called such, so we let them do whatever the fuck they want.
It's interesting that you find the need to type this out though, as if the UK (and US, and the West) doesn't cultivate many similar ties that absolutely get nowhere near the same level of attention. It's rare to see people with the same level of dislike towards a country like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. With Israel, people viscerally hate it.
The main difference between Israel and worse global players is the wide range of westerners (including self described "liberal" ones) who tolerate or are willing to step up to endorse its vicious racism, its ethnic cleansing and its illegal settlement expansion both with trumped up accusations of antisemitism and whataboutism.
That naturally elicits a bit of a reaction.
By contrast I dont remember anybody calling anybody an Islamophobe because they condemned Mohammed bin Salman's killing of Khashoggi or invasion of Yemen.
There's also an element of what is done in Israel being done in our name, since it was essentially a remnant of European colonialism (a particularly shameful part of our history) and continues thanks to support from our governments.
I can't speak for anyone else; but I feel the same way about any other country which is committing similar crimes against people just for being alive, as I do about Israel.
That includes the US, Russia, China, UAE, SA, Myanmar and whatever other examples you wish.
Why pro-genocide israelis feel (and shout that) they get an inproportionate amount of criticism vs the other dickheads of the world is an exercise I leave to the reader.
>Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously.
This rhetoric is not any different than conservatives arguing Af-Am play the 'race card'. In both cases there's actual bigotry that some people want to sweep under the rug by a mindless counter-accusation.
as implied by "too much" - your comment is truly rhetoric as it cheaply dismisses this claim as "mindless" and makes a poor tribal comparison - African-Americans aren't currently occupying another state.
The comparison is to the rhetoric used to ignore bigotry (see the absurd defence of Corbyn in the comments). The alleged sins of a country are irrelevant to that issue.
Please show me where Corbyn said anything against Jewish people for being jewish? He, like me, is strongly against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the war crimes it commits against its peoples in exercise of that.
Saying so does not make you a bigot or an anti semite. Israel and it's defenders hide behind these kind of statements and they're nonsense. Labour if elected would not have given Israel such an easy ride and they throw a lot of money around -- thus, Corbyn is an anti-semite and labour has 'issues' around Jews, and surprise surprise; the tories got in and are happy to sell them lots of nice missiles and intelligence.
It's bullshit. They just have ethics. I Would feel the exact same way if it was Christians or Hindus or whatever in charge of Israel and behaving like this; where is the defence then? Criticise us and you're anti-christian? Doesn't have the same ring to it does it?
Nearly all of the statements and actions in issue with Corbyn have nothing whatsoever to do with Israel. 99.9999% politicians manage to avoid antisemitic murals and endorsing antisemitic books just fine.
It's not remotely difficult, and I'm sure 99.999999% of Labour Leftists with nigh-identical positions would not be so compromised. Can't understand why the Labour Left had to (politically) die on that hill.
The book was presumably "Imperialism: A Study" - not wholly about Jews, and Corbyn describes the accusation as "mischievous representation".
These are weak examples, basically a degrees-of-separation argument coupled with your own opinion of what is black-and-white anti-Semitic without informed discussion (or even examples since you only provide suggestive anecdotes, not sources). Feel free to demonstrate your "99.9..%" numbers for politicians that are under the same amount of scrutiny.
So the topic you wish to discuss is "rhetoric used to ignore bigotry".
Feel free to demonstrate where this exists in the comment you replied to. I can just as easily decide the more relevant topic is "rhetoric used to ignore ethnic nationalism", which your post could be.
EDIT:
I'd also note the comment you replied to says:
> Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously
your own comment elsewhere (on Noam Chomsky):
> Noted genocide denier (repeatedly) with zero credibility on anything.
Why is dismissive labelling ok in one case, and not another?
The issue isn't if Chomsky's credibility is relevant, but on the credibility swipe itself: If Chomsky can be dismissed on all topics (zero credibility on anything) for alleged genocide denial, why isn't that "rhetoric that ignores X" for whatever X Chomsky might discuss?
I was dismissing Chomsky's testimony on anything, not anything he might say. If he said '2+2=4' that would be true (if also trivial). I regret not being 100% clear in a forum comment.
> Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously
They use it in very specific circumstances that relate to criticizing the idea of Israel being a Jewish state. I can understand that people may innocently criticize this, due to missing the historical context of why Israel was created, but I agree that this form of criticism against Israel should be condemned.
P.S. There are very specific actions by the Israeli government that I do condemn. Notably, not stopping settlement expansion in the West Bank. However most comments against Israel are far more gangue and sensationalist.
That was only very recently codified and was very controversial inside and outside of israel.
> They use it in very specific circumstances
I'm sorry but that's just incorrect, it's been used much more broadly.
for example according to Noam Chomsky:
"Actually, the locus classicus, the best formulation of this, was by an ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations.... He advised the American Jewish community that they had two tasks to perform. One task was to show that criticism of the policy, what he called anti-Zionism—that means actually criticisms of the policy of the state of Israel—were anti-Semitism. That's the first task. Second task, if the criticism was made by Jews, their task was to show that it's neurotic self-hatred, needs psychiatric treatment. Then he gave two examples of the latter category. One was I. F. Stone. The other was me. So, we have to be treated for our psychiatric disorders, and non-Jews have to be condemned for anti-Semitism, if they're critical of the state of Israel. That's understandable why Israeli propaganda would take this position. I don’t particularly blame Abba Eban for doing what ambassadors are sometimes supposed to do. But we ought to understand that there is no sensible charge. No sensible charge. There's nothing to respond to. It's not a form of anti-Semitism. It's simply criticism of the criminal actions of a state, period"
> Very recently as in 'in the UN assembly resolution authorizing the creation of Israel' (1947) or the 1985 basic law etc.
You are correct. I'm sorry. I was misremembering the news from when "Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People" [1] was passed in 2018. My bad, I can no longer edit my post though. So apparently "Jewish ethnic homeland in Palestine", "Jewish state" and "Jewish nation-state" mean different things and have different connotations. The latter being the recent and most controversial one.
for people that want to check the resolution referenced is UNGA181.[2]
Turns out the Palestinian opposition to the term is because they see it as giving up on their right of return (given to them by UNGA194 [3] )
I don't often respond to claims like these, but I think it might be necessary to in this case. I am not sure what sources you used to inform those claims, but I will simply say that in both cases both are misleading.
Noam Chomsky is a lot of things, but 'genocide denier' label is at best inaccurate and, more importantly, does not automatically make him wrong on any other issue. I get that character assassination works well, but this is HN, where stuff like that will be called out.
"That was only very recently codified and was very controversial inside and outside of Israel.
Very recently as in 'in the UN assembly resolution authorizing the creation of Israel' (1947) or the 1985 basic law etc."
I think parent is referring to this piece of legislation[1]. I might be wrong, but if not, that would strike me as recent.
The quote in question provides no sources beyond that Chomsky said it (no direct sources or anything). So the question of Chomsky's credibility is important, and well, Chomsky's own record in the Balkans and earlier in Cambodia speaks for itself.
>I think parent is referring to this piece of legislation
I believe you are right, but the particular issue parent's objecting to is not new at all [EDIT: Note that parent clarified his position in a later comment].
I will admit that I don't follow him closely enough to know his stance on either Balkans or Cambodia. If you can share any sources, I would not mind learning a little more.
That said, I accept your argument that credibility is relevant. Not to search very far, if we accept him as some sort of authority on geopolitical matters, is he wrong, say, about US-Iraq relationship? My point is that opinions should not be automatically dismissed or automatically accepted. It should be based on the merits of the argument. And Chomsky can present an interesting argument based on what I heard.
That's fair enough. We can discuss arguments to a large extent divorced from who made them. This is often useful.
However, the quote in question goes a bit further, Chomsky says Eban started a specific strategy of using antisemitism to Eban's own ends, almost directly paraphrasing something Eban allegedly said. I think I'm entitled to ask what's Chomsky's source, and if there isn't any, than it rests on Chomsky's credibility which, well, isn't very much IMHO.
[EDIT:
On the Balkans, you can see Kraut's video on YouTube. This text has similar arguments though:
I followed a chain of links to see if I can pinpoint the origin of the quote, but that only resulted in, as you indicated, in Chomsky's own words[1]. As such, you are right, for that reason his credibility is more relevant since I was not able to verify Eban's words.
Separately, I did some basic googling of Eban quotes and his positions[2] do not seem at odds with the gist of Chomsky's quote though:
"One of the chief tasks of any dialogue with the Gentile world is to prove that the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at all. Anti-Zionism is merely the new anti-Semitism….”
I only started reading the link you provided so it may take a while before I respond.
>his positions[2] do not seem at odds with the gist of Chomsky's quote though
I would like to differ slightly. Chomsky has it that Eban wants to tar criticism of Israeli policy as antisemitic* - which leads to the 'oh well, they just accused Corbyn of antisemitism because of his Israel position' argument you see in the comments.
Eban wants to argue against a specific ideological position which at least is aimed at completely modifying the Israeli state (not 'policy criticism') and he has his argument for it - an argument we can safely say Israel has lost in the West. People may defend Israel, but they usually do not consider their opponent antisemitic per se.
* There's also the 'neurotic self-hatred' part, where Eban supposedly is naming Chomsky specifically, but I think we can safely discard that.
The problem with Israel being "a Jewish state" is that requires the suppression and occasionally ethnic cleansing of its non-Jewish residents in order to prevent them from ever achieving enough numbers or power to make it not Jewish.
It's a fundamental contradiction embedded from the Israeli declaration of independence (which commits to racial and religious equality) onwards: what does it mean for a state, rather than individuals, to be Jewish?
The underlying argument is that it's necessary for the continued survival and security of Jewish people that there be a Jewish state, and unfortunately the continuous attacks on Israel suggest they might be right.
I think you can point out that any state founded on ethno or religious grounds is a bad idea. Although in this case given when it was formed and why that clearly adds a lot of context.
You can certainly state that the right of self-determination doesn't trump the rights of others. So a Jewish state somewhere is a right, but not if there are already people living in that particular somewhere who object.
You can also state that predominantly European migration to a part of the world where there are other people living has been somewhere between a mistake and a disaster and a tragedy, be that America, Australia or Israel.
I think the last part is the issue that causes much of the problems. Many people in Labour party wanted to protect the right of those directly affected by the migration to call it out in their terms.
We wouldn't deny native americans or aborigines using terms like 'racist' to describe what has happened to them. Yet the misuse of the IHRA examples (turning examples into a legal definition) did exactly that. And many people in Labour objected.
I can understand the continuing need for there to always be a place of safety for Jews. Although it's tragic that this is the case, but understandable, not least given the holocaust still being within living memory.
The current direction of Israel can't be it though, there has to be some other way.
Some left-leaning organisations across Europe supporting Palestine is not antisemitism, regardless of what nationalistic Israelis might say. Is there any proof whatsoever for those claims or is it like the Labour party "scandals" that are taken out of proportion as a part of a smear campaign? For instance in France there are multiple left parties, and none of them are antisemitic in any real sense of the word.
>Jean-Luc Melenchon, a far-left politician running for France's presidency next year has suggested that a jihadist's 2012 murder of Jews was part of an elections conspiracy.
What a weak argument — but let’s humor this idiocy. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are saying that smear campaigns are built exclusively on “solid truth”?
So you think it is impossible for anyone to organize a smear campaign based on lies and/or misrepresentation?
Seems naive to me.
I wonder, are you just trying to add to the “labor is anti-Semitic” smears that Zionists push online? You know the smears they push because they have no answer to the criticism that zionist Israelis are (a) stealing other peoples lands through settlements (b) supporting racist Apartheid laws and (c) supporting a criminal state which regularly oppresses and violates the universally-acknowledged rights of the native population.
I took their meaning to be that successful disinformation includes enough truth to provide some level of plausibility. That doesn’t mean that truth is at the core of the smear, or even that it’s a “whole” truth.
Epstein had many rich and powerful friends. Epstein was a pedophile. Epstein died within an inexcusable lapse in custody. These are all truths. Combine them together into the Q narrative, and now you have a massive conspiracy that is mostly wild speculation but contains some kernels of truth.
When did it become a "massive" issue? It was a few isolated incidents that were handled badly. What has happened exactly please? There's been no reports of 'massive' issues. I think you might exaggerating the actual allegations.
Also very suspicious that some of the biggest advocates for Palestinian rights have suddenly become anti-Semites seemingly overnight.
The conversation has moved from Israel's utterly disgusting treatment of the Palestinians to almost trivial claims of anti-Semitism.
One a systematic and brutal campaign of regression against hundreds of thousands of people, the other a few people got called names.
I always thought it was probably a very successfully Mossad smear campaign akin to Putin's anti-Hilary campaign.
And a lot of the British press helped because they hated Corbyn.
Afaiu, the solid truth was that higher-up admin people of the Parliamentary Labour Party HQ, which is separate from the office of the Leader Of The Opposition, failed to do the investigating, partly due to the fear and hate of Corbyn in the PLP, but then LOTO took the blame (partly cos Corbyn isn't the greatest of communicators). Novara did various detailed videos on the whole saga, including looking at the PLP WhatsApp leaks. https://youtu.be/G02ZZY_KE4Ehttps://youtu.be/ZjNB7fGc1-A etc
This was a book that was widely referenced. Certainly referencing it didn't mean endorsement of Hobson's antisemitism ( a few lines in that book).. like praising the works of many other authors of the time that contain antisemetic references.
Here's the then leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg citing Hobson.
"J.A Hobson was probably the most famour Liberal convert to what was the literally 'new Labour'"
or Gordon Brown
"In Britain, this idea of liberty as empowerment is not a new idea, J A Hobson asked, “is a man free who has not equal opportunity with his fellows of such access to all material and moral means of personal development and work as shall contribute to his own welfare and that of his society?”"
Is the same for all other cases.
This is how smearing works. People take something that happened (that cannot be denied) and then insist this is proof. If the person says nothing they seem guilty, if the person tries to explain and put things into context they seem guilty.
People who write an encouraging and approving forward to a book are endorsing what the book says, duh.
That's very different from a general reference to a phrase that a person said (Brown) or mentioning a person as part of an historic development (Clegg) - the difference between say, an historian mentioning Goebbels, compared to writing an approving forward to a new edition that a book that Goebbels wrote.
Corbyn has a long long history of happening to not notice antisemitism by people he has been encouraging.
>People take something that happened (that cannot be denied) and then insist this is proof.
How dare we look into mere evidence?! Apparently the important thing to some is that the guy is left-wing and that covers for everything.
well that's exactly the trap isn't it? The others have clearly been contextualised and explained many many times, but that's never enough and there's always 'but what about this one..'
Throw enough stuff at the wall and hope something will stick.
And if I put up a list of the times where Corbyn has gone above and beyond to support Jewish communities in the UK, people will undoubtedly put the effort in to dismiss them.
No, you are doing exactly what you are claiming was done, explaining away one thing (which still btw doesn’t work, Blair and brown are both labour too), and saying the others don’t matter because you’ve proved one wrong.
Yet somehow it’s always Corbyn labour that gets “misquoted”. Why is that? The Labour Party has plenty of motivation to smear the conservatives over antisemitism, yet somehow they don’t have the material for it. Why is that?
But whatever, I won’t convince you anyway, you refuse to look at the evidence. The mural one is the best example but you claim it’s a smear too. Yet somehow again it’s corbyn who got messed up in it.
But fine, I understand why the left is antisemitic, just like the Soviet Union was, it would just be nice if you were honest about it. If you blame identity groups for the worlds problems it’s hard to not blame Jews, and it must really frustrating seeing a successful nationalistic nation be successful against all odds.
Did you just call "the left" "antisemitic" and then immediately complained about people who "blame identity groups for the world's problems" in two consecutive statements?
On the mural. Yes I agree that is the clearest example. The mural is clearly antisemetic. Corbyn claims he wasn't paying attention and made the comment about censorship without opening the image.
He has since agreed the mural was antisemetic and that he made a mistake.
That's basically the only scandal that has stood up though, that he said he wasn't paying attention when surfing on Facebook 10 years ago, and people who believe the other scandals insist he was paying attention and was deliberately endorsing a piece of antisemetic art.
And on the 'left' blaming Jews for everything. You are wrong obviously. but also worth noting many of the heros of the left : Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Jesus Christ. Are Jews.
> Labour party antisemitism goes way beyond criticism of isreal, including support for hezbollah and hamas.
corbyn famously laid a wreath on the grave of a hamas fighter[1]. an interpretation - more in line with how corbyn has historically treated war and violence - reads:
> "They insist Jeremy Corbyn was at the service to commemorate the Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in 1985"
i'll leave "support for palastine is equivalent to antisemitism" argument to the side here, needless to say i don't think i'm unique in thinking that this isn't the case.
> Jeremy Corbyn faces fury after praising ‘brilliant’ book which claims Jews control world banks
if this is in reference to the hobson book foreword, then, this would be very similar in nature to calling me misogynistic for recommending the 1st edition K&R C book, because it presumes the programmer is a man.
the book in question, Imperialism, is a treatise on how capatilism causes imperialism. which does sound like something corbyn would be interested in. i implore you to read it and tell me how antisemitic it is.
> Corbyn also backed the artist behind the mural clearly depicting evil jews controlling the world like a board game:
look at the damn mural![2] where is the antisemitic message? it's literally called "freedom for humanity". it seems clear to me that this is a complaint on the power the rich have over the rest of us.
every single one of the threads i've ended up going down over years has always been a variation on: corbyn, or the labour party, is decried as antisemitic for something. this "something" is rarely made clear or obvious when it gets media coverage. surface level investigation makes claims of antisemitism look not particularly strong.
in the meantime, i need to learn advanced memory keeping techniques to keep track of conservative government scandals from the last 6 months.
> The excusing away of this behaviour on HN is crazy, it's not just about isreal. Not by a long shot.
if corbyn is antisemitic, then let me be clear: fuck him. it would be at odds though with his otherwise radical socialist and humanitarian track record: views on which he has been remarkably consistent on for the majority of his political career. somehow, even today.
the only thing that seems crazy to me is just how effective the campaign against him was.
The only thing the Israeli lobby attacked him for was not being their kind of racist.
They dont even give a damn about anti semitism. They backed Orban when he put out hook nosed Jew campaign adverts because he backed Israel and they treasure their relationship with anti semitic US evangelicals.
That particular smear campaign wasnt very effective but it was remarkable in its audaciousness - just like the fantastically stupid czech spy smear.
Also unsurprising in view of even more egregious incidents from the past:
Shai Masot, the Israeli embassy official at London, caught on camera in 2017 talking about 'hitlist' of members of parliament, including Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, a vocal supporter of Palestinian state [0]. And that led to a slap on the wrist.
A comparison of reactions to related incidents involving different parties is revealing [1].
Doesn't the fact that she had to resign point to the opposite conclusion, namely that these governments are distinct entities with sometimes conflicting interests?
The current Cabinet is suffering from a serious lack of talent in my opinion; several political purges related to Brexit has meant the only real qualifying characteristic for some of the highest offices in the land is being a yes-man for Johnson.
Now that you are saying this.. take a look everywhere, it's all like this.. every country turned into the worst versions of themselves, but even the worst of UK its kind of not bad in my opinion, compared to other countries.
At least from an outside view, it's the UK now that is showing a good leadership in the current worldwide crises. While the US, France and Germany are completely lost, especially on how to deal with a "strong-man".
(Meanwhile nobody remembers Cameron or that guy that was a pure puppet of the US in the forced Iraq war, and they were the posh gentleman everyone was expecting)
It points to there being some pressure, probably from the public. But like police officers who get fired only to be rehired the next town over she now has a even more prestigious position in government. So there is no actual accountability here, just theater.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41923007
It is completely unsurprising that there is little care shown by our government.