Lords Feldman and Finkelstein: Guiding the Tories to Oblivion

In 2009, a British broadcaster made a simple prediction:

Pro-Israeli organisations in Britain look set to see their influence increase if the Conservatives win the next election, a film scrutinising the activities of a powerful but little-known lobby warns today. At least half of the shadow cabinet are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), according to a Dispatches programme being screened on Channel 4. The programme-makers describe the CFI as “beyond doubt the most well-connected and probably the best funded of all Westminster lobbying groups”.

Inside Britain’s Israel Lobby claims that donations to the Conservative party “from all CFI members and their businesses add up to well over £10m over the last eight years”. CFI has disputed the figure and called the film “deeply flawed”. (Pro-Israel lobby group bankrolling Tories, film claims, The Guardian, 16th November 2009)

Why is an important organization like CFI “little-known”? Because it’s dangerous to scrutinize Jewish power: people who do so lose their reputations, their careers and sometimes their liberty too. But the prediction made by Dispatches has come true. In 2014, supporters of Israel are very powerful in the Conservative party. It has not one but two Jewish chairmen: Lord Feldman and Grant Shapps. But I would question their conservative credentials. When ordinary Tories opposed gay marriage and membership of the European Union, Lord Feldman was widely reported to have called them “swivel-eyed loons.” His work in the party seems to involve funding its elite, not safeguarding its traditions:

Lord Feldman: the Tory party’s little-known chairman

There has never been a Conservative Party chairman quite like Lord Feldman of Elstree.

The suave, former barrister has never stood for office, rarely speaks to the media and is virtually unknown outside the Westminster bubble. … “It should be perfectly possible to work in Downing Street if you haven’t been to either Eton or Oxford,” one Conservative back bencher barked yesterday, reacting to internet rumours – subsequently denied by Lord Feldman – that he had referred to Conservative activists as “swivel-eyed loons”. …

Andrew Feldman’s relationship with the Tory leader stretches back 30 years to the manicured lawns of Oxford. While studying at Brasenose College, the pair struck up a friendship and tennis partnership. … After graduating in law with a first, the then Mr Feldman worked as a management consultant and then as a barrister. By 1995 he had joined his family’s fashion business, Jayroma. During his time as chief executive the firm’s turnover soared and his success ensured he could buy a £3milllion townhouse in Holland Park, just round the corner from Mr Cameron’s home in Notting Hill.

The tennis partners remained close and when Mr Cameron stood for the Conservative leadership in 2005, his old Oxford friend acted as his money man. He gave £10,000 to Mr Cameron’s campaign and secured tens of thousands more from business backers. After the leadership election, Mr Feldman became one of the Conservatives’ deputy treasurers and was promoted to be the party’s chief executive in 2008, a key role preparing the Tories for the 2010 election.

His charm and business experience attracted many wealthy donors, but insiders at Conservative Party headquarters say that his management style frequently veered towards the “brutal”. Once in power, Mr Cameron made his old ally a member of the House of Lords and even gave him an office at his side in Downing Street – a privilege never before bestowed on a party chairman. One senior Tory MP said of the peerage: “What was it for, other than being Dave’s mate?” (Lord Feldman: the Tory party’s little-known chairman, The Daily Telegraph, 18th May 2013)


Note how Lord Feldman is “little-known” too. Is it because, like CFI, he’s doing things that he doesn’t want Tory voters to notice and discuss? Just as the Labour elite hates the working-class, so the Conservative elite hates conservatism. And here is another member of the Conservative elite expressing that hatred:

A Conservative peer and leading moderniser has warned that the party could kill its chances of winning future general elections if it chases Ukip in an attempt to win next May’s contest. Lord (Daniel) Finkelstein, a close ally of the Chancellor George Osborne, told a conference of fellow modernisers that wooing Tories who have defected to Nigel Farage’s party could alienate young and ethnic minority voters and people living in the North. He warned: “The issue that Ukip raises is almost exactly the opposite of the one the Conservative Party needs to answer. Our problems are: we don’t have enough young people, we don’t have enough ethnic minorities, we do not have enough people in prosperous rising cities.” …

His comments lift the lid on a heated debate in Tory circles about the party’s election strategy. Lynton Crosby, its Australian strategist, wants a campaign based on attacking Labour and focusing on the economy, immigration, welfare and Europe.

But modernisers including Michael Gove, the former Education Secretary who will play a key election role in his new job as Chief Whip, want a more positive campaign to build support among young, ethnic minority and northern voters without whom it will be unable to win future elections. (Chasing the Ukip vote could kill the Conservative Party, claims Tory moderniser, The Independent, 24th July 2014)

“Moderniser” is a smarmy euphemism meaning “destroyer.” Finkelstein wants to turn the Conservatives pink in a futile attempt to chase the three groups he identifies as important: young people, ethnic minorities, and people in cities. They’re really the same group, because ethnic minorities form an ever-increasing percentage of young people and of city-dwellers.

And ethnic minorities are not going to vote for the Conservative party. Why should they, when Labour pander to them much more successfully? It’s the same in the United States: the Republican establishment chases the votes of ethnic minorities by being soft on immigration but are rewarded by non-Whites voting overwhelmingly for the Democrats in election after election. Minorities like Muslims and Hispanics are not “natural conservatives.” Quite the contrary: they are natural enemies of any party that symbolizes the historic White nation to which they can never belong.

If Lord Finkelstein wants to understand the futility of “out-reach” to minorities, he should consult his co-ethnics in the Community Security Trust (CST) and the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive, which are organizations that monitor the safety of Jews in the UK and France respectively. For decade after decade, British and French Jews have supported mass immigration by Muslims and sought to build alliances with the incomers. After all, are Muslims not natural allies of Jews? Both groups are persecuted and oppressed by the White Christian majority, so Muslims should feel a close affinity with Jews and work with them to reduce the majority’s malign power. That’s the theory, anyway. The reality is this:

A vibrant youth discusses Israel and the Jews

A vibrant youth discusses Israel and the Jews

UK antisemitism: current situation

In Manchester on 12 July, after a pro-Palestinian rally that included a “Drive for Justice” to the BBC, a group of four [or] five cars with occupants of south Asian ethnic appearance passed through the Jewish neighbourhood of Broughton Park. Some of the cars flew Palestinian flags, and occupants shouted and swore at Jewish pedestrians (including “Heil Hitler”). Cans and eggs were thrown at Jewish pedestrians from at least two of the cars. Similarly, that same day in Glasgow on the fringes of a demonstration, a man of south Asian appearance was heard shouting “f**king kill the Jews”. CST has made police aware of all these incidents.

The above pales in comparison with the situation in France, where on Sunday 13 July over 100 Jews needed rescuing from inside a synagogue that was besieged by a violent pro-Palestinian mob. Also that day in Paris, a Jewish owned shop was reportedly ransacked by a 50 strong mob armed with iron bars; and a synagogue was fire bombed. On 8 July, a 17 year old Jewish girl was attacked with pepper spray in her face, whilst her assailant (an adult male of North African ethnic appearance) yelled antisemitic abuse at her.

These antisemitic impacts, very largely involving Muslim perpetrators, are why so many thousands of Jews have left France in recent years. The kidnap, torture and ultimately murder (by burning) of Ilan Halimi in Paris in 2006 was one particularly horrific act. In 2012, there was the appalling terrorist attack on the Jewish primary school in Toulouse. Two months ago, a French Jihadi killed people in the Jewish Museum in Brussels. None of this has satiated the antisemites in France: they want more. (UK antisemitism: current situation, CST Blog, 14th July 2014)

More vibrant youths discuss Israel

More vibrant youths discuss Israel

Protesting Palestine, targeting Jews

CST wrote last week about the danger of anti-Israel protests in the UK involving or encouraging antisemitism, either by targeting British Jews or by featuring antisemitic language and imagery. …

• A Rabbi walking in north London was verbally abused by a group of youths who shouted “Free Palestine”, “F*** the Zionists”, “F*** the Jews” and “Allah Akhbar.” …

• A visibly Jewish boy was cycling in north London when a woman wearing a black niqab threw a stone at him, hitting him on the head. …

Another disturbing factor is that the proportion of antisemitic incident perpetrators described to CST as being of south Asian appearance has been much higher during this period than is normally the case. Antisemitism in Muslim communities is something that others have written about before; the incidents reported to CST suggest that it is playing a significant role in the high level of antisemitic incidents currently being reported. (Protesting Palestine, targeting Jews, CST Blog, 21st July 2014)

That is the Jewish reward for decades of “outreach.” The equation is simple. More Muslims in Britain and France mean more and worse anti-Semitism, but of course it also means less and less power for White British who are seen as the greater enemy. The enemy of my enemy ….

If the Tories in Britain and the Republicans in the US try to woo ethnic minorities, their reward will be the same: hatred, contempt, and and little to show for it come election time. Lord Finkelstein isn’t helping to modernise the Tories: he’s helping to destroy them. Something tells me that, just like Lord Feldman and Grant Shapps, he knows exactly what he’s doing.

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