Is left-wing politics inherently racist?

THIS YEAR  is the nine hundredth anniversary of Rutherglen’s foundation as a royal burgh. Given my family links with the town, I am participating in a venture to compile a historical record from personal recollections.

My grandfather, William Gilchrist, opened a shop on Main Street in 1919. He became friends with an Italian who came to Scotland in 1917 and founded the Buon Appetito café across the road. In 1939, William volunteered as guarantor for him so that he avoided internment. Two generations later, the family, which has the Di Maggio restaurants, is still grateful for the good deed.

My father, who was given three tanks in 1940 and told to defend Kent if Hitler invaded, took over his father-in-law’s shop when William retired after the war. He became friends with Canon Rooney who would cross the road from St Columbkille’s Church to obtain relief from the troubles of his flock. My father was active in the kirk, coaching the Boys Brigade football team, having played for Queens Park in the 1930s.

In both cases, common humanity breached the cultural and religious divides, although my first taste of hateful sectarianism was watching the annual Orange Parade on Main Street where the leader would throw the baton extra high as he passed St Columbkille’s.

Scottish shopkeepers were initially wary of Pakistani immigration in the 1950s and 60s because they breached the “civilised” working hours that allowed shopkeepers home to see their young children before they went to bed and made the Sabbath a day of leisure. But consumers wanted to shop when they liked, teaching complacent shopkeepers that the convenience of the customer comes first. “Paki” was a term of endearment for the local corner shop.

I was too young to be aware of post-war Indian partition where racism and sectarianism weren’t the “hurty-words” version that holier-than-thou left wingers call out today but killed millions of people.

Discrimination is based purely on ability – that’s why Western capitalist countries are generally among the least racist

I was friends with Jewish kids from Newton Mearns at my Glasgow south-side school in the 1960s, although there was always a sense of a separate identity. We played rugby on Wednesday afternoons while they played chess. I was never sure why.

As an employer in the 1990s and 2000s, my three hundred staff members came from all backgrounds, cultures and nationalities. I worked out they spoke 22 native languages. Entrepreneurs are in a competitive business and must employ the best to prosper and survive. In successful businesses, merit matters more than identity. Discrimination is based purely on ability. That’s why Western capitalist countries are generally among the least racist.

But left-wingers cannot recognise this. Socialism is powered by resentment and hatred. If someone succeeds financially, they must have done so at the expense of others. There can only be the exploiters and the exploited in their distorted world view. In peddling hatred, they look for it in their opponents and frequently play the man and not the ball in political debate. Reformers must not rise to the bait.

Anyone who harbours hatred against another person, no matter how unsavoury they may appear, only corrodes their own humanity. Hatred ultimately diminishes the hater.

Historically, usury was not permitted in Christian and Muslim countries, but it was alright for “unscrupulous” Jews to be moneylenders, interest being referred to as their “pound of flesh”. For countries to invest and fight wars they had to borrow money, so Jewish bankers like the Rothschilds prospered in the 18th and 19th centuries, often funding both sides in a war. Fledgling Communism railed against this, as did Fascism.

Today, left wingers support the terrorist state of Gaza against an Israeli democracy where a million Arabs have freedom to prosper. If “genocide” had been the strategy, the war would have been over in weeks. They ignore the fact that Iran seeks nuclear weapons to use against democracies and continues to sponsor terrorism, not only in the Middle East but in the West. They claim sympathy for Palestinians, but what about the Syrians, Iranians, Lebanese, Sudanese, Yemeni, Nigerians and Afghans who suffer from the curse of Islamism?

Reform’s task is to lead a return to the Western democratic values that the left shuns, either purposefully or delusionally

How long were the USA and Israel to wait until they addressed the Iran threat? Until they exploded a nuclear weapon? Calling it an illegal war is placing one’s head in the sand. UN members are largely oppressive regimes which is why it has been hopeless as a peacemaker. The South African ANC government proposed the UN motion condemning Israel because their corrupt officials received funds from Iran.

The left is naturally globalist because socialism can only succeed if there is no alternative to show up its fatal flaws. But who should lead a “beneficent” world autocracy: Putin? An ayatollah? The UN climate scam presented an opportunity to slow the growth of rich countries, which bear the biggest burden, so that poorer ones could catch up. Only the first part has worked.

The task for Reform is to expose the truth and lead a return to the Western democratic values that the left shuns, either purposefully or delusionally.

I am banned from the Glasgow Skeptics Society. This left-wing thinktank is sceptical about everything except climate change, the subject of a meeting when Russia invaded Ukraine. I very passionately pointed out that the green movement had funded Putin’s war by closing German nuclear power stations and buying Putin’s oil and gas instead of fracking their own. Green ideology was complicit in the murder of thousands of Ukrainians.

The Greens favour a UK open borders policy but, even if only a small percentage of the undocumented men of fighting age who enter the UK illegally are bad-uns, that is a serious security threat. Left-wing parties all seem to be tarnished with a similar curse that also leads to antisemitism.

Jewish people have made a stunning contribution to Western culture. Consider the following lists of prominent people, first in music and then in entertainment in general?

Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John, Bette Midler, Steven Adler, Paula Abdul, Barry Manilow, Neil Sedaka, Barbra Streisand, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein, Burt Bacharach, Sammy Cahn, Hal David, Marvin Hamlisch, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller, Lou Reed, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Billy Joel, Carole King.

The Marx brothers, Eddie Cantor, Douglas Fairbanks, Edward G Robinson, Jack Benny, Phil Silvers, Danny Kaye, Kirk Douglas, Red Buttons, Shelly Winters, Marilyn Monroe, Walter Matthew, Jerry Lewis, Peter Falk, Mel Brooks, Lauren Bacall, Gene Wilder, William Shatner, George Segal, Joan Rivers, Leonard Nimoy, Michael Landon, Dustin Hoffman, Woody Allen, Henry Winkler, Zoe Wanamaker, Sylvester Stallone, Kevin Kline, Andy Kaufman, Goldie Hawn, Paul Michael Glaser, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Billy Crystal, James Caan, Howard Stern, Jane Seymour, Jerry Seinfeld, Jeff Goldblum, Jamie Lee Curtis, Roseanne Barr, Ben Stiller, David Schwimmer, Adam Sandler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lisa Kudrow, River Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson, Steven Spiellberg.

Of course, none of them have got there on merit. It must have been a Semitic plot.

While I am a humanist, I am a member of the Reform Jewish Alliance. I urge others to join.