Thornberry: a tribute in tweets

On 8 January 2020, as part of her campaign to become the next leader of the Labour Party, Emily Thornberry tweeted a link to an article she’d written for Jewish News about antisemitism in Labour. The article was headlined: ‘We need to get on our hands and knees and ask for forgiveness’.
For those who don’t use Twitter, or who don’t wish to wade through its murkier waters, here’s a random selection of responses to Thornberry’s tweet. All of this, incidentally, is to be read as [sic].

Ask forgiveness for other people lying about us? No thanks.

Forgiveness for the people who never pushed back against this vile smear- do you really think you can appease the alt right media with more apologies? it was a smear and should’ve been called out as such day in day out- how about apologising to the people of Palestine?

I bend my knee and duff my cap to nobody

You can get down on your knees if you want to appease the Israeli lobby. The rest of us can stand with the good people of Palestine and Syria.

I am not getting on my hands and knees for anyone FFS the Labour Party is not a modern form of the medieval church. It’s about time we grew up and recognised that if we do right then we don’t have to apologise for anything. This BS is really irritating.

1) I will not go down on my hands and knees to anyone. 2)I think every child in the world should live in a safe home free from persecution and that includes Palestinian children 3) antisemitism was used as a big stick to beat Jeremy Corbyn and anyone who followed him. Not my vote

You get on your hands and knees, I bloody well won’t be. Just read your article and it seems to be all about people standing up for Palestine and you equating Jews with Israel, which in itself is anti-semetic.

As a pitch to become Chair of Labour Friends of Israel, this article would be perfect. As a pitch to become the next Leader of the Labour Party, it’s effectively a false start and immediate disqualification.

Emily, I remember a conversation I had with you, when you said you supported Palestine, but you also needed to talk to the Israelis. Think you’ve been doing too much of that.

Unbelievable! When the weaponisera of antisemitism get down on their knees to beg forgiveness of Wadsworth, Walker, Williamson – and Corbyn – then I might be interested. You’re a true Friend of Israel Emily, and no friend to Labour. And btw, the BoD aren’t ‘experts’.

How many left-wing Jews will you have to expel to appease the BoD/ToI/JLC/JC, etc?

Labour should rid itself of @JewishLabour and @_LFI, both organisations have campaigned against Labour relentlessly ever since Ed Milliband declared Labour should recognise the State of Palestine. There is no antisemitism.

We all know she is part of the LFI & willing to do the work of Netanyahu a foreign gov’t against the best interests of the people of the UK

I keep on saying , she is dedicated to Israel every time. Eject her today. Please.

Time to rebrand Thornberry’s and some LP MPs idea of the Labour party as ‘The Bibi LIKUD Labour party’ Time form a real socialist party. The PSP party ‘People’s Socialist Party’. We can never have a true socialist government with the likes of Emily and her friends within Labour.

Until you publicly disassociate yourself from Israel’s apartheid/ethnic cleansing/ expansionist policies I will not vote for you.

No you stayed as a LFI backed MP to enable endless non evidenced claims of A-S, .01 of @UKLabour members were found to have said/retweeted something that could be seen as being A-S. You never once stood & try to stop this, in fact you became just another rotten apple in the party

Well you were a potential leader some years ago, liked your approach, but your stance and apparent lack of support for UN Res 181 ( equable two nation state 1947), means a no for me! International Law must be upheld or we have tyranny!

I’m appalled at this article. It amounts to a complete abandonment of the Palestinians, a 2 state solution, and gives a green light to Israel to continue/escalate its disgusting disgraceful policies of apartheid/ethnic cleansing/murder/harassment/bulldozing/ imprisonment of kids

The israeli government is worse than the nazis ever were

So 5 people out of 500,000 are being prosecuted for AS, even before the verdict of the courts you want to judge them guilty. Surely not fit to lead a party in the UK, maybe a party in Israel would be a better choice for you.

That’s the Labour party in the UK, right? The only UK party which has adopted strict AS policy, the only one which trawls and reports on members’ social media, has expelled people without reason and the one furiously assaulted by pro-israeli liars?

Is that the .06% you’re talking about?

Excuse me but people are under the impression that a third of our members are antisemitic. As the actual figure is 0.06,% how will you go about restoring the reputation of half a million decent people who have done nothing wrong?

Nought point nought six percent. But which party is saturated with racists ? Nearly half of Tory members would not want Muslim PM

Labour can try to rid itself of a tiny number of antisemites but the Tories will never rid themselves of an institutional culture of racism, bigotry & Islamophobia

No, I do not beg anyone as I’m not a dog, contrary to somes beliefs. Pls bring to our attention exactly when the incidence of antisemitism was in the LP. Lastly why is it Bozo Johnson transgresses gender, beliefs and race and a simple sorry suffices.

What about other forms of racism? The ones that affect more than 0.1% of the party?

Well thats a definite no from me then… I’ll never get on my hands & knees for the lie that antisem has become… Like the boy who called wolf it is now meaningless…!

At last. Now the cloak is off and the wolfe is exposed. True colours.

Well, you’ve been persistently going down in my estimations for years Emily. But giving credence to the biggest smear campaign against a Labour leader in history… thats a new low, you’ve officially hit rock bottom in my eyes.

Grovel on our hands and knees and beg forgiveness to who…? A good man has been dragged through the mud to destroy labour chances of forming a government. Members like myself have been trampled and left bloodied by this. I’m done apologising to those who throw Jews under a bus

You’re having a laugh, or maybe you’ve given up your day job and taking up trolling instead. I would never have voted for you, but now you’ve gone to the bottom of the list, even lower than Phillips & I never thought I’d see the day I’d say that.

I’m so pleased I don’t have a ‘friend’ like you – betrayer.

Honestly Emily, please grow a spine. Stand up to those who smeared a good man in the most awful way. Don’t pander to them. For God’s sake.

Still banging on about this smear.. well don’t, it did it’s job, labour lost. if you were keeping up with social media you’d read that the penny is dropping amongst jews that it’s the right they should have been watching not the left

it is madness making excuses for religion which was used as a weapon to insult Corbyn …. she will never go any further she insults our party.

All the people who bought into this McCarthyite smear campaign should get down on their hands and knees and beg forgiveness of those starving to death on Universal Credit. As the torrent of lies helped sink Labour and deliver another 5 years of Tory Hell.

Anti semitism my arse …you’ve got zero chance of my vote Lady

You’ve just lost our vote, Emily. Pandering to populist smear campaigns is not a good look.

This is a disgraceful article that has lost you my vote. The next leader needs to deal with the tiny AS problem but also fight the right wing smears and you wont do that.

If you win, I won’t be voting for someone or a party who uses anti-Semitism as a crude political weapon to cover up the crimes of the Zionist state.

I take great comfort in the fact you have got no chance of winning.

Have you had a bet with liz Kendall to get less than her 4%, you are saying anyone smeared should be kicked out instantly, I have always had respect for you in spite of you LFI membership, now I hope the new leader sacks you.

It’s very important that apartheid apologists like this are excluded from leadership.

Stuff that. I ain’t grovelling to anyone. #FreePalestine

Write article, claim money for doing so. Nothing changes.

Imagine Emily on her hands and knees

Yes, you do that Emily and the lobby will ask for a blow job too next …

Bog off

Obsequious.

LIAR!!!

Dear me!

Et tu brute?

Crap.

Yawn