{"id":99305,"date":"2016-06-24T07:20:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=99305"},"modified":"2016-06-24T07:20:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T15:20:05","slug":"brexit-its-a-wonderful-day-for-britain-and-its-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=99305","title":{"rendered":"Brexit: It’s a wonderful day for Britain – and its Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Jewish Chronicle of London<\/a>:<\/p>\n

By Stephen Pollard, June 24, 2016
\nAs editor of the JC, I kept my views on the EU referendum off its pages. In so important a vote, I didn\u2019t think it appropriate for the paper \u2013 let alone the editor – to take sides. But now that it\u2019s over, it\u2019s time to deal with some of the bizarre myths that are being created about what Brexit will mean for Israel and British Jews.
\nAs PM, David Cameron has grown into one of Israel\u2019s staunchest allies, defending her when there was no political gain. That has been wonderful to observe. Whoever takes over, one hopes, will have a similar view. But whatever their view of Israel, they will form it irrespective of EU membership. In Mr Cameron\u2019s case, it was seeing the terror threat against British citizens that woke him up to the threat faced daily by Israelis. Our membership of the EU was irrelevant.
\nIrrelevant up to a point \u2013 because one could argue that, away from the Brussels bartering and negotiations that lie behind the EU\u2019s foreign policy, Britain will be free to carve out an even more supportive stance, should we wish to.
\nAnd that is the crucial point: should we wish to. At root, it\u2019s all about democracy. The Friends of Israel groups will have exactly the same job to do post-Brexit as they do now. No more, and no less. And if we ever ended up with Jeremy Corbyn in No 10, it would be domestic politics \u2013 and his own prejudices \u2013 that formed his policy towards Israel, not the fact that we are no longer members of the EU.
\nAs for our place in British society as Jews and the threat of extremism: I have rarely read more rubbish than the idea we as Jews will suffer from Brexit.
\nWhile it\u2019s important not to overstate it, antisemitism is a problem now \u2013 today, as EU members. I don\u2019t argue that it\u2019s the EU\u2019s fault. But it\u2019s ludicrous to pretend that it doesn\u2019t exist, and that extremism will be a product of Brexit.
\nIt\u2019s certainly a truism that when times are troubled, the Jews are often the first target. But the referendum demand from voters that we regain control over immigration isn\u2019t an attack on immigrants, on foreigners \u2013 or on Jews. It\u2019s an attack on people being denied any say on a core issue of politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Jewish Chronicle of London: By Stephen Pollard, June 24, 2016 As editor of the JC, I kept my views on the EU referendum off its pages. In so important a vote, I didn\u2019t think it appropriate for the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42755],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brexit"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99305"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99306,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99305\/revisions\/99306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}