Yanis Varoufakis defends Jeremy Corbyn against anti-Semitism 'slander'

RT
Thu, 02 May 2019 18:33 UTC

© Reuters / Hannah McKay

Vans with slogans aimed at Britain's Labour Party are driven around Parliament Square in London

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis offered a ringing defense of UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on social media, dismissing accusations of anti-Semitism as "slander."

"Anti-Corbyn plotters are getting desperate," Varoufakis wrote on Twitter. "To perpetuate their antisemitism slander they are lambasting Jeremy for writing, in a blurb to JA Hobson's Imperialism's new edition, that it was both 'brilliant' and 'very controversial at the time'. They need to try much, much harder."

Critics, including Jewish leaders and members of Labour, have slammed Corbyn for penning the book's foreword, arguing he endorsed anti-Semitic content.

In response, Corbyn has labelled the accusations "offensive," and insisted to the BBC "I've spent my whole life exposing racism in any form."

The book, 'Imperialism: A Study', penned by British economist John A. Hobson in the early 20th century, digs into the moral, financial, and economic roots of imperialism as a form of a capitalist oligarchy. It indeed contains a common anti-Jewish trope, namely claiming that European finance is dominated by "men of a single and peculiar race."

Varoufakis briefly served as the finance minister of Greece back in 2015 and led tough negotiations with the EU over austerity measures for the country. He resigned, however, when Athens finally gave in to the demands of European leaders.

Comment: The UK's Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey also came to Corbyn's defense over the criticism:

"He was writing in the context I think of Hobsobn being a political thinker of his time and other MPs have spoken about that same individual.

"He in no way sanctions any anti-Semitic comments that are made by any individual nevermind this particular individual.

"He was commenting in a wider political sense as I understand, I haven't read the foreword myself, or indeed the book.

"This individual was a political thinker of his time - whether you agreed with his opinion or not. Labour and Conservative colleagues have commented on him whether that's negatively or positively taking certain parts of his thinking into consideration."