London – London’s former mayor Ken Livingstone has once again hit
headlines for peddling antisemitic stereotypes, after he claimed that Jews tend
to vote for the right-wing Conservative party because they are wealthy.
The comments were made Tuesday night in an interview with BBC Newsnight,
in which Livingstone, who also served as a Labour MP in the past, claimed that
income, rather than ethnicity, was the single biggest factor in determining how
people vote.
But that seemingly innocuous suggestion took on an altogether more
sinister tone, as he continued to assert that because the Jewish community is
“rich” most Jews had switched their allegiance the Conservatives.
“If we were talking 50
years ago, the Roman Catholic community, the Irish community in Britain, the
Jewish community was solidly Labour. Still the Irish Catholic community is
pretty still solidly Labour because it is not terribly rich,” he said, but
continued: “As the Jewish community got richer, it moved over to voting
for Mrs Thatcher as they did in Finchley.”
