Labour Scots by-election winner quit party in protest at Corbyn antisemitism failure
Michael Shanks, who won Thursday's Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election for Labour, quit party under Corbyn after 'it became difficult to look Jewish friends in the eye'
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
A teacher who secured an impressive victory for Labour in a by-election in Scotland has told how he quit the party under Jeremy Corbyn over his failure on antisemitism because “it became difficult to look my Jewish friends in the eye.”
Michael Shanks was confirmed as the new MP in Rutherglen and Hamilton West after taking the seat in Scotland’s first ever recall by-election from the SNP in a landmark victory for Keir Starmer’s party.
He scored a resounding victory with a majority of 9,446 over the SNP candidate, after gaining over 17000 votes on a 37.1% turnout.
The seat had previously been held by Margaret Ferrier but she was ejected by the SNP after it emerged she had visited local businesses while awaiting the result of a coronavirus test and travelled by train from the Commons back to Scotland after testing positive.
Shanks was announced as Labour’s candidate despite the fact that he had quit the party in 2019, citing Corbyn’s failure both on antisemitism and over Brexit, rejoining again one year later when Starmer became leader.
Opening up on his reason for quitting, he revealed:”I’ve spent years working with different faith groups, particularly around Christian and Jewish relations.
“I know a lot of Jewish people and they were genuinely scared and hurt by the culture that had built up and that wasn’t being tackled by the leadership (under Corbyn).
“It was a deeply personal decision, I found that I found it difficult to look people in the eye who were Jewish and who genuinely couldn’t understand why I would remain in the party.
“It was that the party leadership at the highest levels weren’t tackling it. I took a personal decision to leave, which was incredibly difficult to do.”
His victory, confirmed in the early hours on Friday, will bolster Labour’s hopes to form a majority UK government at the next general election, which must be held by early 2025.
It is also a setback for SNP leader Humza Yousaf in his first significant electoral test, and good news for both Starmer and Labour Scottish leader Anas Sarwar.
Shanks, who teaches modern studies at a local high school, said he understood why some Labour members decided to stay and fight against the issue.
After he quit in 2019, ahead of the election, he wrote in a blog post of Corbyn:“A party that has been woefully inadequate in tackling antisemitism time and time and time again does not have those values at its core. And aside from all that, it’s a party that seems oblivious to how utterly unelectable it has become.”
Shanks praised Starmer for turning the Labour Party around. “It’s a party that’s ready and able to become the government of the country again,” he told Daily Record political editor Paul Hutcheon. “Ultimately that’s the point of being in the Labour Party.”
Priot to Thursday’s victory for Labour the seat, to the south-east of Glasgow has changed hands three times between the SNP and Labour since the 2010 general election.
Ferrier first won it in the SNP landslide of 2015, then narrowly lost it to Labour in 2017, before retaking it in 2019 with a 5,230-vote (9.7%) majority.
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