New Labour leader Keir Starmer recently sacked Corbyn protégé Rebecca Long-Bailey from Labour’s front benches. She was dismissed for the ‘offence’ of sharing on social media an interview published in the Independent that touched on the police killing of George Floyd in the US.
In the interview, actress and activist Maxine Peake commented that US law enforcement learned tactics such as those used on Floyd from training provided by the Israeli military. These comments were subsequently dubbed an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” by the usual suspects from the smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, in which bogus accusations of antisemitism were used to derail his leadership of the party and chances of becoming prime minister.
We need to be clear: Long-Bailey’s sacking was completely unjustified. And the comments she supposedly endorsed in the first place don’t seem quite so outlandish after closer examination.
