The Reaction of British Jewry to Suez, 1956 / by Raphael Langham

forced to let Israeli ships pass through the canal. With the exception of the Labour no confidence motion, he abstained from voting against the Government on the other three occasions when votes on the Suez issue were taken. He later mentioned that his failure to abstain on the no confidence motion was an aberration. In a speech in Australia early in November he took a pro-government position, supported Eden and attacked those Jews including Jewish MPs who seemed not to do so. For his pains he was hauled before his local party to justify his stance. A remarkable occurrence since he had represented his constituency for more than thirty years and had been a cabinet minister and was one of the leaders of the Labour party of which he had been a member for more than fifty years. It indicates how strong feelings were on this issue.
There were two occasions when Jewish MP's were accused of dual loyalty. In the first Harold Lever was interrupted during a speech and accused of being an Israeli nationalist. He responded that he was a British nationalist, first, foremost and all the time and believed that support of Israel was entirely consistent with British interests. On the second occasion Ian Mikardo was accused of his loyalties being stretched and speaking on behalf of Israel, he simply responded 'I represent the citizens of Reading' and carried on with his speech.
Hugh Gaitskell was the leader of the Labour Party. He had a Jewish wife and was considered sympathetic to Israel. In one of the debates he told Eden that he was like a policeman who went in and helped the burglar shoot the householder. This comment was widely reported in the national and Jewish press. A frisson of hostility towards Gaitskell and the Labour party went through the Jewish community at this comparison of Israel with a burglar. It was probably the final straw in the declining love affair between Anglo-Jewry and the Labour party, which had already been shaken by the 1945 Labour government's anti-Jewish policy in Palestine prior to the establishment of Israel.
On 1 November, the Labour party issued a no-confidence motion reading 'This house deplores the action of Her Majesty's Government in resorting to armed force against Egypt in clear violation of the UN Charter'. Please note that there was no mention of Israel in the motion. No Jewish MP spoke during this debate but all 17 Jewish Labour MP's voted for the no confidence motion and the two Conservatives against.
It is interesting to note that only one MP (a Labour one who was not Jewish) abstained. His action was used in some parts of the Jewish press as an example of what they thought Jewish MP's should have done, and it was claimed by those papers that no subsequent action was taken against him. They were wrong. The MP was Stanley Evans who represented Wednesbury and he was forced to resign his seat, so there were very severe adverse consequences to his act of rebellion.
The citizens of Wednesbury do not seem to have had a lot of luck in their choice of MP. At the by-election they replaced Evans by John Stonehouse. Many of you will recall that he was a Postmaster General in the Wilson government, but in the early 1970's his clothes were found on a Miami beach. He was subsequently found in Australia where he had fled to with his mistress and former secretary Sheila Buckley. He was only found because the police arrested him because they thought he was Lord Lucan.

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