OPINION: We’ve come a long way in Westminster
Our current Parliament – with 13 Jewish MPs – is the least religious in history, writes Derek Taylor
Until the passing of the Oath Act in 1858, every MP had to swear allegiance to the Crown “on the true faith of a Christian”. Which meant that Orthodox Jews couldn’t take their seats. The Oath Act abandoned the wording. It is, therefore, interesting that more than 40% of the current elected MPs chose to take a secular oath of allegiance, which makes the current parliament the least religious in history.
While the composition of the Commons after the Labour landslide is still in our minds, let’s set down the facts. There are 13 Jewish MPs: Ben Coleman, Damien Egan, Georgia Gould, Fabian Hamilton, Ed Miliband, Alex Nobel, Charlotte Nichols, Matthew Patrick, David Pinto-Duschinsky, Peter Prinsley, Sarah Sackman, and Josh Simons, The 12 are Labour and there is one Conservative; – Julian Lewis. Ruth Anderson and Gillian Merton have been appointed government ministers.
Are we fairly represented? Well, the population is 68 million, 270,000 of whom are Jews and there are 650 MPs. Thirteen Jewish MPs should, therefore, represent 1,300,000 people and not 270,000. We have five times more MPs than our numbers warrant, but this is way down on the position 50 years ago. In 1975 there were over 40 Jewish MPs and now there are just 13.
It certainly isn’t because it’s a Labour government. So it was in 1975 and between 1945 and 1970 there were only two Jewish Conservative MPs.
To be elected an MP you first have to be a nominee, and Conservative associations didn’t select Jewish candidates. By contrast, the Jewish community’s Poele Zion, campaigning for a National Home for the Jews, and the Labour Party, just beginning as a party, joined together in the early 1920s. Poele Zion became an associate body of the Labour Party.
We’ve now been associated for more than 100 years. So what has changed? Well, the community has dragged itself up by its boot straps. It’s far more middle class than it was in the East End before the First World War. Labour still represents the workers, but Jews have worked hard to become members of professions and academics. They also run their own businesses, to a far greater extent than the national average.
We have suffered anti-Semitism. It was only after the Second World War that just one major accountancy firm was known to be prepared to take Jewish youngsters. There were advertisements for medical positions which sometimes stipulated that the jobs were not for “Jews and Coloured people”. We’ve come a long way to cut out racism and colour prejudice in my lifetime, though there is still room for improvement. I knew one major bank director, who pointed out that he was the only member of the Board who hadn’t been to a specific school and a specific Oxford college.
The government is at Westminster. There are plenty of organisations who want people who have their views to be elected; Scottish nationalists and Muslim communities spring to mind. There is nothing wrong with this; it’s a free country and people are entitled to try to achieve more political muscle. We expect trade unions and the Church of England to be political forces, and it is up to the Jewish community to take politics seriously.
- Derek Taylor is an historian
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