Labour neglected Jewish communities’ concerns, says Dugher

Labour neglected the concerns of the Jewish community and paid the price for it when it came to polling day, according to Shadow Transport Secretary Michael Dugher. Dugher, who is managing Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign, told the Jewish Chronicle that a “rather catastrophic political management error” in the party’s approach to the Israel/Palestine conflict alienated many Jewish voters.

In an interview with the paper, Dugher also says he deliberately abstained on a vote over Palestinian statehood last year despite a three-line whip, as the position had not been discussed at Shadow Cabinet.

“I deliberately abstained and I made it clear that I wasn’t going to invent some kind of appointment in my constituency or busy campaigning opportunity. We were in the run-up to a general election, I absolutely stand by collective responsibility but there was no discussion of this at Shadow Cabinet.”

He added that the motion did not reflect the multilateral approach to the Middle East peace process:

“When we talked about recognition for the Palestinians in the past, our policy, rightly — and this is still true today — recognised that there needed to be a multilateral approach and it needed to involve the UN. I felt that they were fundamental components of our policy and I felt that the motion didn’t adequately represent that.”

Dugher says that over the past few years, Labour’s relations with Jewish communities have suffered through “neglect or, frankly, in some instances incompetence”. He claims that if elected in September, Andy Burnham will “reach out” to Jewish voters – and points out that he has the support of the two vice-chairs of Labour Friends of Israel (Dugher and Rachel Reeves). Burnham himself voted for the Palestinian statehood bill in October.

Last week, London Mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan also voiced his intention to rebuild Labour’s trust with Jewish voters.