Why should anyone have faith in the left if it continues to sit on the fence when it comes to supporting the Kurds?

The National Union of Students, which went berserk last year over a misogynistic pop song by Robin Thicke, has found itself unable even to condemn IS, a group which enslaves women as the ‘spoils of war’. To support the struggle of Kurdish women would be to accept a ‘western racist narrative around Isis’, as one member of the NUS Executive wrote on Twitter (implying unintentionally that IS somehow represent Muslims).

Meanwhile the Stop the War Coalition decided that, rather than join one of the many Kurdish anti-Isis demonstrations in London, it was more appropriate to protest against US airstrikes on Isis positions.

Considering it is those same airstrikes - in support of Kurdish fighters – that are helping to holding back Isis forces in Kobane, this is as good as to say that a massacre of Kurdish civilians is preferable to any US involvement in the conflict. Or to pursue this as a metaphor, it is a bit like protesting against the solving of a murder because you do not like the police.