David Blunkett blasts 'anti-Semitism and thuggery' under Labour
2 min read
David Blunkett has blasted "anti-Semitism and thuggery" under Labour, saying the current state of the party makes him "despair".
Writing in the Telegraph, Lord Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, also said the current election was more akin to 1983 than 2017.
"The behaviour of the hard-left within the Labour party – the anti-Semitism, the thuggery, the irrational views on security and international issues, and the lack of realisation that you have to embrace a big tent of people in order to win – certainly makes me despair.
"But it also makes the likelihood of an all-out Labour majority in the general election extraordinarily slim.
"The political landscape right now is completely different to what the hard-left would have you believe.
"We are in a 1983 situation here, not a 2017 – with not only the Lib Dems and the Greens, but the Brexit Party, the Tories and the SNP all seriously vying for traditional Labour votes."
The 1983 General Election saw the Conservatives secure a sizeable majority, after votes for the opposition were split between Labour and the Liberal/SDP alliance.
Lord Blunkett's intervention comes shortly after a prospective Labour parliamentary candidate was forced to step down after allegedly making an anti-Semitic remark.
Gideon Bull, of Clacton, apologised after a Jewish councillor complained about a reference he made to "Shylock", the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
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