Tagged Brexit

LONDON (JTA) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party has defeated Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party by a large margin in Britain’s general elections on Thursday, exit polls indicate. The Conservatives received 368 seats out of 650 according to the polls by BBC, ITV and Sky News, with Labour lagging… Read more »

LONDON, England (JTA) — I am a secular Jew and a lifelong British Labour Party voter — two allegiances that once intersected very comfortably. As so many of us do, I inherited my politics. Every time Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was reelected, my mother and her friends held a… Read more »

(JTA) — As the United Kingdom nears the final stretch of what is shaping up to be one of its most fateful general elections since World War II, all eyes are on the leaders of its two main parties: Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the Conservatives and Jeremy Corbyn… Read more »

(JTA) – After nearly a decade in power, Britain’s Conservative Party is in tatters. Years of failing to negotiate a deal with the European Union to follow through with Brexit have led to internal party discord and roiled public frustration. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial push to leave the… Read more »

(JTA) — John Bercow, the British House of Commons speaker who became widely known for his cries of “Order!” and other colorful rhetoric, announced Monday that he will resign his post by the end of October. Bercow is Jewish and said last year: “I’ve always been very open about… Read more »

LONDON (JTA) — Twenty years ago, this city’s oldest maker of smoked salmon endured a series of catastrophes that convinced its Jewish owner that his family business was a goner. In 1999, a fire consumed three-quarters of its factory. A year later, flooding forced it to relocate. A year… Read more »

(JTA) — British Jews thanked Prime Minister Theresa May for being a “true friend” to their community following her announcement Friday that she is stepping down. May said she will step down as Conservative Party leader on June 7 after failing to convince lawmakers to support her Brexit deal.… Read more »

(JTA) — As the United Kingdom’s political establishment continues its tailspin over Brexit, little can be said with certainty about either’s future. All bets are off as Prime Minister Theresa May, whose own survivability in office seems increasingly doubtful, continues a desperate balancing act meant to satisfy her own coalition’s many… Read more »

(JTA) — Portugal used to be little more than a sunny holiday destination to Adam Perry, a 46-year-old Londoner who works in procurement. But following the United Kingdom’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union, Perry, who is a Sephardic Jew, applied for citizenship in the Iberian nation. Since… Read more »

(JTA) — Jews are rarely central to peacetime domestic British politics. But on Feb. 18, Jewishness appeared front and center at Westminster when seven members of Parliament left the Labour Party, citing its inability to effectively oppose an unworkable Brexit and its apparent unwillingness to confront anti-Semitism. Some of… Read more »

LONDON (JTA) — Two and half years ago, Murray Lee voted in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. A Jewish real-estate agent from northern London, Murray shared the concerns of many in the leave camp over the United Kingdom’s perceived vulnerability to Europe’s immigration problems. If… Read more »

  AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Considering Marine Le Pen’s historical gains in the French presidential elections, the Dutch far-right’s rise and the assault on ritual slaughter in Belgium, this spring is shaping up to be a life-changing time for Europe — its religious minorities in particular. In other words, it’s… Read more »

  (JTA) — Two days after delegates from more than 70 nations attended the Paris summit on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was wrong to label the meeting “useless.” Admittedly the France-initiated event, which neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority attended, did… Read more »

(JTA) – If you’re a Jewish-American liberal who believes that Donald Trump could never become president, British Jews have one word of warning: Brexit. Following the shocking referendum vote in June favoring a British exit from the European Union, many British Jews now believe that their liberal circles and cosmopolitan lifestyles… Read more »

(JTA) — When the late Austro-Hungarian aristocrat Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi attended church on Good Friday, his father would famously cause a scene, storming out when the liturgy came to the anti-Semitic exhortation “Let us also pray for the faithless Jews.” Such protest was unusual in 19th-century Austria-Hungary, where anti-Semitism and other forms of racism were de… Read more »

LONDON (JTA) — For two years, in her travels around the English capital, Natalie Pitimson has toted a library bag emblazoned with a word in Yiddish. “The word ‘schlep’ written on the side perfectly describes my regular hour-long trek through central London,” Pitimson, a senior sociology lecturer at the University… Read more »

EDINBURGH, Scotland (JTA) — The last time that Scotland voted on whether to become independent from the United Kingdom, most of its 7,000 Jews thought doing so was a bad idea. Worried that Scottish independence would encourage nationalism and embolden an already aggressive anti-Israel movement with deep roots in the… Read more »

Great Britain and the rest of Europe woke up to a new reality Friday as a slim majority of British voters said their country should leave the European Union. Markets trembled, British currency crashed and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his pending resignation. It was a major blow to an alliance… Read more »

(JTA) —  Only a week ago, Jeremy Corbyn seemed to have survived his biggest public relations debacle as the leader of Britain’s Labour Party:  the proliferation of anti-Semitic rhetoric among its members. Yet this week, the British vote to leave the European Union achieved what Corbyn’s opponents failed to… Read more »