Snap analysis: Cautious relief for British Jews

Times of Israel’s British-born editor David Horovitz sends this short snap analysis:

Britain’s exit poll would have to be spectacularly wrong for today’s elections to represent anything but a disaster for Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

If Boris Johnson’s Conservatives perform as well as predicted, voters will have delivered the most stinging rejection Labour has faced since before World War II.

A victory this big could be ascribed to many factors. Given that the election was focused on Johnson’s pledge to implement Brexit and bring Britain out of Europe, the predicted result would mark an endorsement of that stance. But it would also signal a repudiation of Corbyn.

The vast majority of British Jews will be cautiously celebrating the poll figures, relieved at the likelihood that Britain will not be led by a lifelong opponent of Israel and a party leader who has allowed anti-Semitism to flourish in Labour.

Were Labour to be narrowly defeated, some of Corbyn’s supporters might seek to place some blame on the Jewish community, who they have accused of inflating Labour’s anti-Semitism problem. But if the defeat is as stinging as the poll predicts, even Corbyn’s most fervent supporters will have a hard time deflecting responsibility away from the leader himself.