Maureen Lipman drops her lifelong support for Labour after Miliband's stance on Israel

MAUREEN Lipman has ended five decades of support for the Labour Party after Ed Miliband gave his support to recognising the Palestinian state.

Maureen Lipman has dropped her lifelong support for the Labour party  Maureen Lipman has dropped her lifelong support for Ed Miliband's Labour party [ PA]

The actress announced she would vote for "almost any other" party at next year's general election until Labour is "once more led by mensches" - the Yiddish term for a person of integrity and honour. 

Mrs Lipman spoke warmly about previous Labour MPs, adding: "I have always been a socialist and I believe in the principles of socialism."

But she gave a damning assessment of the present shadow cabinet by saying: "The Chuka Harman Burnham Hunt Balls brigade? 

"I can’t, in all seriousness, go into a booth and put my mark on any one of them." 

Writing in Standpoint Magazine, she revealed: "For the first time in five decades, I shall not be voting Labour."

However, she saved her most hostile comments for the Labour leader’s decision to back a symbolic Commons vote in favour of recognising the state of Palestine alongside Israel.

I shall give my vote to another party. Almost any other party. Until my party is once more led by mensches

Maureen Lipman

In a very personal attack against Mr Miliband, she said his support for a motion recognising the state of Palestine “sucks” at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

She said she had a "sneaking suspicion" that David Miliband – who was unexpectedly beaten to the leadership by his brother in 2010 – "may return strengthened by his time out in the real world."

She wrote of the Commons vote: "I’m an actress, Ed, and I am often commended for my timing. Frankly, my dear, yours sucks.

"The world is exploding around us. Isis is beheading our civilians while raping and pillaging across Syria and Iraq. Presidents (Vladimir) Putin and (Bashar) Assad are playing such heavy-handed games that we don't know which rebel group to support.

"Hong Kong may be about to see a replay of Tiananmen. Islamist terrorism in every spot on the globe and if one Jew had been responsible for any of those bombings, there would, I am afraid to say, have been another Kristallnacht."

"At this point in our history you choose to back these footling backbenchers in this ludicrous piece of propaganda?"

Mrs Lipman said that Israel had been attacked by 4,000 rockets by Hamas militants from Gaza in the months before the vote and Miliband's support for a Palestinian state. 

While she supported a two-state solution "if it means peace and mutual respect", the threat of the so-called Islamic State and growing attacks against Jewish people meant his backing for Palestine was woefully misplaced.  

She added: "His misunderstanding of what that will actually mean for a country literally surrounded by jihadists and those who want Israel destroyed is bad, very bad and naive." 

Mrs Lipman revealed she supported former Labour politician's Neil Kinnock, Tony Benn and Tony Blair and is a “number one fan” of Alan Johnson. 

She also attacked Mr Miliband’s awkward eating of a bacon sandwich in public during the local and European election campaign in May.

Mr Miliband, a secular Jew, had told her he wanted to “learn more about his religion of his birth” by attending a traditional Shabbat dinner at her home.

However, "two days later he was all over the papers, knocking back a bacon sandwich," she said, referring to the Jewish dietary taboo on pork.

Mrs Lipman continued: "So, come election day, I shall give my vote to another party. 

"Almost any other party. Until my party is once more led by mensches. "

It seems unlikely the actress would lend her support to Ukip after the eurosceptic party leader Nigel Farage sought to blame one of her best-known roles for too many young people going to university to study poor quality degrees.

Mr Farage said the star’s well-known 1980s television advert, where she told her grandson that having an "ology" made him a scientist, meant now there were lots of students "getting ‘ologies."

"I blame Maureen Lipman for the whole thing," he said. 

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