A
Ardross
Guest
I don't like Gerald Kaufman much but this is just another piece of evidence to me that the Countryside Alliance is a front for a dangerous anti-democratic right wing mob
I saw on Teletext that I had been "jostled" by pro-hunt demonstrators during the Labour party conference in Brighton on Tuesday. Well, if that was being jostled, heaven help me if I undergo anything worse.
I was billed that afternoon to speak at two lunchtime fringe meetings. The first, at the Metropole Hotel and organised by three animal welfare organisations, was called to support the hunting bill, which embodies a ban on hunting with dogs, with which I have been heavily involved, which passed all its stages in the House of Commons two weeks ago. It will be considered by the House of Lords a week on Monday.
The second, farther down the seafront at the Thistle Hotel, was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and was part of the campaign, with which I have been actively associated, against the wall the Israeli government is building in Palestinian territory. Since the first meeting was due to start at 12.30pm and the second at 12.45pm, I had to get from one to the other in a hurry. The PSC laid on a taxi.
After delivering my speech at the anti-hunting meeting I met a PSC official, waiting with the taxi. Because of a pro-hunting demonstration, the traffic was blocked and the taxi couldn't move. We began walking towards our venue. The main road was blocked with demonstrators, but my escort and I made our way fairly swiftly, until we had to cross that main road.
At this point I was spotted by a pro-hunt demonstrator, a stout, middle-aged man dressed in checked tweeds. He rushed up to me and yelled: "You Jewish bigot!" He went on screaming this at me dozens of times; perhaps it was the only phrase he knew.
The commotion he made attracted other pro-hunt demonstrators, hundreds of them, who surrounded me, penning me in so closely that I was unable to move and could, to my repellence, see the pores in their faces, which were contorted with rage and hatred. All of them were howling at me, and a number took up the tweed-clad man's theme, offering such observations as: "You're an immigrant", and "You weren't born in this country".
I found their anti-semitism, though loathsome, ironically amusing, since I was - if I could get there - on my way to make a speech which would undoubtedly impel pro-Sharon Jewish chauvinists to accuse me of being a self-hating Jew and, as a lackey of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has recently put it, straying far from my Jewish roots. Those roots were, at any rate, easily apparent to the pro-hunt demonstrators.
This mob were, however, not content with besieging me with foaming imprecations. They began aiming blows at me, tearing at my clothing and attempting to pull it apart. One of them sought to rob me, zipping open a compartment in the briefcase I was carrying and delving inside for what he could steal. Another ripped my conference credential from around my neck, perhaps hoping to use it to gain admittance to disrupt Tony Blair's speech; though the security staff, comparing his face with my photograph, would have been able to see quickly enough the difference between his honest English countenance and my sinister semitic features.
While I was preoccupied with coping with the physical assaults upon me, my PSC escort, appalled at what she was witnessing, had been trying desperately to find the police. A plain-clothes officer eventually turned up, though this rabble ignored the warrant card he thrust in front of them. She tried again, and this time found several uniformed policemen, who, with me in their midst, pushed a way through the baying crowd. I went into the Thistle and delivered my speech against the Israeli wall.
Though there were times when I believed I was in danger of serious injury, I was not in the least frightened by my experience; adrenalin kept me going. This episode was, however, extremely instructive. It caused me to wonder whether those of my Labour colleagues in the House of Lords, such as Lord Bragg, Lord Donoughue and Lady Mallalieu, who no doubt will be opposing the hunting bill in the upper chamber next month, have any idea that the simple rural yeomanry, whose right they defend to maintain their traditional country pursuit, contains so high a proportion of fascist-minded, racist, foul-mouthed, brutalised, larcenous scum.
My encounter with this lot made me more determined than ever that a legislative ban on tearing wild creatures apart for amusement should be implemented as soon as possible. And on this it is I, together with my colleagues in the Commons, who will have the last word.
· Gerald Kaufman is Labour MP for Manchester Gorton
I saw on Teletext that I had been "jostled" by pro-hunt demonstrators during the Labour party conference in Brighton on Tuesday. Well, if that was being jostled, heaven help me if I undergo anything worse.
I was billed that afternoon to speak at two lunchtime fringe meetings. The first, at the Metropole Hotel and organised by three animal welfare organisations, was called to support the hunting bill, which embodies a ban on hunting with dogs, with which I have been heavily involved, which passed all its stages in the House of Commons two weeks ago. It will be considered by the House of Lords a week on Monday.
The second, farther down the seafront at the Thistle Hotel, was organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and was part of the campaign, with which I have been actively associated, against the wall the Israeli government is building in Palestinian territory. Since the first meeting was due to start at 12.30pm and the second at 12.45pm, I had to get from one to the other in a hurry. The PSC laid on a taxi.
After delivering my speech at the anti-hunting meeting I met a PSC official, waiting with the taxi. Because of a pro-hunting demonstration, the traffic was blocked and the taxi couldn't move. We began walking towards our venue. The main road was blocked with demonstrators, but my escort and I made our way fairly swiftly, until we had to cross that main road.
At this point I was spotted by a pro-hunt demonstrator, a stout, middle-aged man dressed in checked tweeds. He rushed up to me and yelled: "You Jewish bigot!" He went on screaming this at me dozens of times; perhaps it was the only phrase he knew.
The commotion he made attracted other pro-hunt demonstrators, hundreds of them, who surrounded me, penning me in so closely that I was unable to move and could, to my repellence, see the pores in their faces, which were contorted with rage and hatred. All of them were howling at me, and a number took up the tweed-clad man's theme, offering such observations as: "You're an immigrant", and "You weren't born in this country".
I found their anti-semitism, though loathsome, ironically amusing, since I was - if I could get there - on my way to make a speech which would undoubtedly impel pro-Sharon Jewish chauvinists to accuse me of being a self-hating Jew and, as a lackey of the Board of Deputies of British Jews has recently put it, straying far from my Jewish roots. Those roots were, at any rate, easily apparent to the pro-hunt demonstrators.
This mob were, however, not content with besieging me with foaming imprecations. They began aiming blows at me, tearing at my clothing and attempting to pull it apart. One of them sought to rob me, zipping open a compartment in the briefcase I was carrying and delving inside for what he could steal. Another ripped my conference credential from around my neck, perhaps hoping to use it to gain admittance to disrupt Tony Blair's speech; though the security staff, comparing his face with my photograph, would have been able to see quickly enough the difference between his honest English countenance and my sinister semitic features.
While I was preoccupied with coping with the physical assaults upon me, my PSC escort, appalled at what she was witnessing, had been trying desperately to find the police. A plain-clothes officer eventually turned up, though this rabble ignored the warrant card he thrust in front of them. She tried again, and this time found several uniformed policemen, who, with me in their midst, pushed a way through the baying crowd. I went into the Thistle and delivered my speech against the Israeli wall.
Though there were times when I believed I was in danger of serious injury, I was not in the least frightened by my experience; adrenalin kept me going. This episode was, however, extremely instructive. It caused me to wonder whether those of my Labour colleagues in the House of Lords, such as Lord Bragg, Lord Donoughue and Lady Mallalieu, who no doubt will be opposing the hunting bill in the upper chamber next month, have any idea that the simple rural yeomanry, whose right they defend to maintain their traditional country pursuit, contains so high a proportion of fascist-minded, racist, foul-mouthed, brutalised, larcenous scum.
My encounter with this lot made me more determined than ever that a legislative ban on tearing wild creatures apart for amusement should be implemented as soon as possible. And on this it is I, together with my colleagues in the Commons, who will have the last word.
· Gerald Kaufman is Labour MP for Manchester Gorton
