The Forde Report is what it isn’t
JVL Introduction
Mainstream media has displayed an obsession about Labour and antisemitism for over five years.
Suddenly there is something significantly new to talk about on this subject following the much-delayed publication of the Forde Report.
Why then, asks Michel Rosen, are all the mainstream commentators shtum?
This article was originally published by Facebook on Sat 23 Jul 2022. Read the original here.
Michael Rosen writes
Call me naive.
I had expected that when the Forde Report came out there would be a detailed response to it from the people who had frequently quizzed Labour Party leading figures, MPs, rank and file members and supporters about antisemitism in the Labour Party.
I’m sure anyone reading this can remember mainstream commentators doing this many, many times. There was a media presence – a media storm, if you like – about this matter. It was big. In fact, it was bigger than any other forms of racism or prejudice anywhere else in the political scene. Even if it wasn’t stated, the implication of this was that antisemitism was at the time the most serious form of prejudice/racism in the political sphere. Correct me if you think I’ve misinterpreted this.
The Forde Report was not designed to comment on this directly as it had other fish to fry, and yet it seems to have done so anyway. Forde has made comments about how people inside the Labour Party handled antisemitism and he has also made comments about antisemitism in relation to other forms of racist behaviour.
As I say very boringly (only because people keep asking me), I am not a member of the Labour Party and so have no say in any decisions to do with the Labour Party. For that reason, I’ll stay away from questions of who said what to whom or about whom or why or anything to do with what the rules said, could have, should have said etc.
My main comment after all this is about a mystery: the silence. Given that the antisemitism question was such a big, big issue for at least two years, given that all those commentators had so many questions (and in some cases, plenty of answers), I ask: why the silence?
It seems to me one of those occasions where the silence is more significant than any comments. Consider for example the huge amount of attention that has been given to two words about ‘irony’ that Corbyn said at a meeting. Consider the amount of attention given to how he may or may not have pronounced the name ‘Epstein’, or whether he did or did not look at a photo of a mural. This was detailed stuff, carefully harvested so as to prove a point.
I for one am not going to say this gripped the nation. I can’t believe that constituents of the legendary ‘Red Wall’ were fascinated by discussions about ‘English irony’ and switched their votes because of them. (Surely the fact that most of these constituencies had voted Brexit had something to do with that switch, given that Johnson offered to ‘get Brexit done’? Much more than whether that tranche of voters was getting hot and bothered about Corbyn’s alleged antisemitism.) However, it gripped the broadsheets, grabbed a few headlines in the tabloids, filled hours on the news and news comment programmes, and became established as a ‘fact’ – a ‘meme’ in the original sense of the word as Dawkins meant it to mean.
So…why the silence? Why isn’t the Forde Report all over the comment shows? Why aren’t all the relevant people being quizzed? Why aren’t there on-air discussions and rows going on between the opposing parties (and/or supporters)?
Over the years, a huge amount of analysis has been done of media content by media studies departments etc. I find a lot of it fascinating. The problem with media silence is that it’s very hard to analyse. It just happens. The flood of news stories washes over the story they’re not talking about and it’s gone. What is there left to say? The Forde Report has gone. The Forde Report has left the room. The Forde Report is a late report, a deceased report. It is no longer living.
is that job done? Is that now the most important thing about the Forde Report? It’s not that the Forde Report is something. It is that it’s not something. The Forde Report is what it isn’t.
You can’t expect Starmer to comment on Forde when it represents a wholesale dismissal of his stance and actions demonizing Jeremy Corbyn and the left. You might as well expect a criminal to volunteer evidence for the prosecution. But his refusal to comment proves that he knows that he’s been rumbled and fears that anything he says will further expose him.
Sometime I get depressed when I observe what looks like the total surrender of the media and political class to doublethink – to the narrative about Israel and the left promoted by bad faith actors and people who should know better. But I console myself with the thought that we are in the right and can meet our accusers with heads held high – and the thought that in their heart of hearts they know it and are ashamed of what they are doing. I’m not religious, but I do believe there is a process in life whereby the telling of lies sullies the soul with guilt and prevents the liars from fully enjoying their tawdry victories. I would hate to be one of them – I don’t think I could live with their karma.
If a Martian landed on Earth in the middle of the AS Scam and someone explained JC was being called a #$%^&*÷ antisemite and a racist by Margaret Hodge
There first response would be ‘your having a giraffe, even we know JC doesn’t have an antisemitic bone in his body’
‘In fact isnt the UK one of the safest countries in the world for the Jewish Community thanks to JC and the Labour movement ‘
The second response would be why was MH not sacked on the spot
If they landed last week, the response would be see you in court, time for the victims to bring the guilty to justice
As I said recently in another post, when it became useless as a hammer to bash Corbyn with, antisemitism has become totally irrelevant to the MSM.
Either you’re with the spin, you’re spun, or you’re smart.
I think the phrase “kicked into the long grass” is
appropriate here Michael !
Maybe when the press is bored by the Tory
Leadership Election then it will appear. However –
there is not a chance it will it be picked over
in the detailed way that Corbyn’s sayings were..
I agree, discussions about ‘English irony’ was surely not the clincher swaying the electorate away from voting Labour in 2019. Yet noticeably all the media attention of alleged antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn put him and the Party nicely on the defensive leading up to the election – seeping away any hope of Labour gaining momentum (as it were).
Now in the face of the Forde Report, yes, the media is silent. Silence I would suggest comes from silencing. Long ago in the US Harvey Milk gave his life to the gay movement, for social justice, but here and now the Labour Left seem unwilling to risk losing anything at all. Yet in this desperate time of so many suffering under the Tories, to offer any hope of change, mouths must surely open and speak finally on this matter in the manner of Mick Lynch so as to shatter this all too obvious hall of mirrors.
Probably saving it to attack Starmer with when the next election is called.
“Where money speaks there all law is silent”
14C Anonymous. Nothing has changed.
The silence proves that the allegations and smears had served their purpose once Corbyn was gone, and the Forde Report is of no consequence, nothing to see here move on.
Yes, the ‘Red Wall’ was converted because of Brexit and Labour’s policy of a second referendum with ‘Remain’ as an option. My constituency in the E. Midlands would, nevertheless, have been won had not the LibDems increased their vote from about 2000 to 9000. My experience of canvassing in the constituency was being denounced as an antisemite. I suspect that many people refrained from voting Labour for that reason too.
I agree with Margaret West and assume that the release of the report has been timed as suitable to bury embarrassing news. Buried but not forgotten.
Apparently a Labour spokesperson told some journalists that the Forde report debunked the claim that HQ staff antagonistic to Corbyn had sabotaged the 2017 GE. They said all the sexism, racism etc., was under Corbyn and now Starmer is in control all is well.
Reading the report would show these were lies.
That there was indeed a serious sabotage, the racism, sexism Islamophobia in HQ right-wingers is more widespread and more recent submissions to Forde inquirymake for uncomfortable reading.
Remember Starmer himself was accused publicly by the Labour Muslim Movement and Black members that he was doing nothing to deal with their complaints being ignored in the Labour hierarchy of racism.
The same is true for JVL, their complaints of abuse are also ignored by Starmer’s team.
Starmer reinstated Trevor Phillips himself, a blatant interference which should be reported to the EHRC,
even before the NEC had concluded their investigation into the Islamophobia allegations.
Antisemitism had been weaponised, proving Jeremy Corbyn was right and Starmer was wrong to remove the Whip.
Forde criticised JLM training on antisemitism, and regretted that JVL’s more balanced education offer was banned by Evans!
Starmer hasn’t sorted things at all, he has intensified the factional war to crush the left, he seems to have pardoned the documented unacceptable behaviour of his right-wing factions and is unlikely to implement Forde’s recommendations. Nor welcome JVL. Nor reinstate Jeremy.
Starmer is now the problem.
And those journalists wrote just the lies anyway.
Most others were silent.
Because politics and the media are corrupt, driven for the rich and powerful, but for how long can they continue to bleed us?
The silence speaks volumes about the nature and motivation behind accusing Corbyn’s party of antisemitism and specifically Corbyn himself for “tolerating” and even “promoting” it. Those accusations were the “any means necessary” used to take down an honest, experienced and dedicated politician with a huge membership and following whose election would have taken apart the status quo in this country. He would have carried out his promise of a “kinder and fairer” way of doing politics. And who among the powerful elite in the U.K. and globally wanted fairness? Or kindness? They wanted and want business as usual. Wars, chaos, profiteering, the rich man in his castle, the poor man on his knees and desperate. That’s the way they like it. Press barons, company chiefs, politicians enabled to rise above their abilities … all the usual suspects. And now? Shrugging their shoulders and moving on. “Now what about this war in Ukraine/climate emergency? And where did I last park the yacht?”
I believe it has hallmarks or similarities to what is known in the Media as a Moral Panic, but nonetheless it was a MSM construction designed to serve a purpose & the repurcussions are still being felt as Socialists are still being expelled from the Labour Party. There is an elephant in the room & Ephraim Mirvis named it in his AIPAC address……….Socialism must be eliminated from the political agenda both in USA & GB.
The chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharpe, donated over £400k to the Tory Party just prior to his appointment; it is not surprising that on every news item or panel only right wing journalists are invited to comment as ever closer ties are forged with Murdoch’s News International. The only acceptable left of centre newspaper is the Guardian, which was equally complicit in the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn.
Rosen is naive & should have realised that the Forde Report was never going to ‘set the world on fire’ as the timing of its eventual publication should have shown him…….in the middle of a Tory leadership election.
Reminds me of Brian Klug’s definition of antisemitism, which is what Jews aren’t. We can add the right’s attack on socialists as at least grasped somewhat in Forde – on something we aren’t. That’s why they’ve gone quiet.
Maybe Michael should forward this article to the Guardian’s in house Zionist – Jonathan Freedland – who more than any other journalist stirred the pot of antisemitism accusations against the Labour party under Corbyn.
It is exceedingly bizarre the silence surrounding it.. it doesn’t fit THEIR narrative so its ignored.. All those who threw mud at Corbyn and the Left should be back on the media answering the questions that should be asked.. it wont happen.
@ Helen Kirsopp :
…and, yet, at the same time has, actually, increased in The Labour Party, as Members of JVL can attest.
I think many don’t read & so absorb uncritically news from the main media without the know-how or time to unpick & root out sources, fact from fiction etc.
Why a non-partisan press aimed at truth from whatever source vital.
I think the anti-semitism mud against Corbyn stuck & influenced the vote disastrously. I supported him.
Part of the problem: cold war Russo-phobia bogeyman Putin not related to state-welfare-corporate capitalism in the West (not to mention Tory friends of Russian oligarchs)
Agree with Michael that the silence is deafening
It is sadness I feel reading all the corruption, the vitriol the lies & counter lies by people within the Labour movement who made plans from the very beginning when Mr.Corbyn was voted in as Labour Leader.
His success in gathering people around him to hear him speak was kept silent by the media especially the BBC. Silence & very little film coverage. Mostly videos from hand held phones.
When he won a second time the knives were already sharpened & more were bought & training given on how deep to pierce the man they feared!
This has been a tactical exercise from the start. Finanancially supported & paid out to willing defenders of Israel like the BoD, the Jewish Labour Movement & Friends of Israel, not forgetting the Blair loyalists.
My sadness remains as I see replacements for Mr.Corbyn remove their masks & I see the smirks the falsehoods they hold for removing someone, imperfect but so honest & caring that we never had a chance to see changes which could have reversed the Slurry in our society, instead its pure sewage that now pours through the Right Wing Labour front.
The Forde report, took too long, & stated things too causally. It needed more emphasis on the shocking treatment given to the Corbyn team when they won first time.
Starmer is NOT the right person for the job never was, he is Israel’s mouth piece, Blairs defender, a Right Wing stooge whose legal career was not always moral or correct.
Have we lost our true Labour Party through the silence, when no one was allowed to speak the words ” Jeremy Corbyn”?
People stood back in silence instead of standing up for him…since then they were promoted, given key positions by Starmer.
Silence in not standing up for Justice & fairplay is more damaging, more hurtful & frankly NOT the Democratic Socialist Labour Movement it SHOULD BE!
If Mike Lynch can stand up, confidently, calmly standing up for his workers rights & be so coherent why can’t the genuine Labour Party?
Remove the Right Wing they have no place in SOCIALISM……& the LEFT need to start acting like grownups & unite itself, stop the silence , UNITE & FIGHT for justice & Human Rights for ALL.
As regards silence, I think we were all naive about the impact the Forde report would have. We have to get used to the lies and distortions of traditional media and politicians. They were never going to rehabilitate Corbyn or the left. They will go on slandering us for a generation, popping up every few weeks or so to renew their smears. Today I read a tweet from a Jewish journalist to the effect that after Corbyn she will never feel safe in Britain again. For people like this the claim to extreme victimhood is a form of personal validation. Kudo to Heather Mendick who tells of how deeply depressing it felt “being Jewish during the 2019 GE when antisemitism was used to attack Corbyn and the movement he inspired.” But as I say, we have to get used to this and learn how better to deal with it. At least in the future we will know where the attacks will be coming from and what weapons will be used against us.
I don’t think Michael Rosen is naive (Stephen Richards). I assume he is talking tongue in cheek. Did anyone seriously expect the msm to react differently?
I have just listened to a phone-in to Radio Merseyside
– with Starmer answering questions.
I must say the interviewer did her best – even came
through with some questions of her own to get him to
come to the point. However Starmer mainly waffled
through the half hour. The interviewer asked him a
question about the Forde Report and reinstating
Corbyn but all we got was a smug reply that the
Labour Party is different now with him in charge etc.
The problem was that the program was too short so
there was no time to come back and ask
1. how expelling Jewish people en-masse from the LP
is dealing with anti-semitism?
2. how sifting through peoples social media is freeing
the Labour Party of toxicity?
I would say it’s been watered down by starmer in order to appease the establishment! Money talks they say! We all know JC will not be allowed back as a result of his stance against apartheid in Israel, The very fact a large number of starmer’s party support apartheid should be making news!!
It would be difficult for the media, broadcast or written, to discuss the Forde Report as they were totally complicit in the campaign against Corbyn. It was published on one of the busiest news days of the year and they’re also well aware that if together they ignore it, it will quietly disappear.
I hope Mr Michael Rosen has sent his perceptive letter to the Guardian and the Director General of the BBC.
Thank you Michael for this brief analysis: and all the more effective for its brevity. Unlike yourself I am a Labour Party member and I mentioned the Forde report at a recent branch meeting. Unfortunately with the general end of term atmosphere usual at this time of year, there was little interest, and the meeting was very sparsely attended. I will try to get the report raised when we reconvene in September but very likely it will be seen as old news by then. I can’t believe the timing was entirely accidental.
The report, let’s not forget, was commissioned by Keir Starmer himself. This gives all of us who remain in the Labour Party a good reason to keep raising the Forde report in the Autumn. I for one will continue to do that.