Will linking antisemitism with Labour under Corbyn ever end?
JVL Introduction
In the Morning Star, Ian Sinclair points out that Labour antisemitism was exaggerated and that the “if only Corbyn could bring himself to apologise” call is meaningless as he has apologised – again and again and again. The pervasiveness of the myth to which Sinclair refers is such that within this otherwise excellent article, even he says “To be clear, there was a problem with antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn” No one – least of all JVL – has argued that there was no antisemitism in the Labour Party but that it was at a similar – or actually lower level than the rest of society and that it is low in the UK. Highlighting the problem here, as if it was worse under Corbyn, shows how much the myth has penetrated.
Nonetheless, this is a useful summary of the appalling history we have been through with reference to Al Jazeera’s Labour Files, the Forde Report, Panorama, the IHRA and how reporting of these issues has been distorted and unchallenged.
This article was originally published by Morning Star on Thu 9 Feb 2023. Read the original here.
Unkillable myths: Corbyn’s Labour Party and anti-semitism
IAN SINCLAIR looks at the continuing smears against the former Labour leader, now being used to block him for standing for Labour in the seat he has represented since 1983
I’m afraid Jeremy only has himself to blame for the situation he’s in because of his failure to apologise for what happened in the Labour Party, when he was leader, on anti-semitism,” Labour MP Liz Kendall said, speaking alongside Jeremy Corbyn on ITV’s Peston last month.
“What apology – because maybe he’ll do it now – what apology would you want from Jeremy?” presenter Robert Peston asked. “A full and frank apology, which has never happened,” Kendall replied.
The idea Corbyn has never apologised for anti-semitism in the Labour Party is widespread in the media and Westminster. Discussing the topic last year, James Ball, who is, incredibly, global editor at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, tweeted: “Saying sorry for doing something immensely shitty shouldn’t be all that difficult, it’s just that Corbyn literally never apologised for anything.”
And in their 2021 book Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn, Times journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire state “Starmer’s first act as leader was to do what Corbyn never could” – apologise for anti-semitism.
Back in the real world, if you type “Corbyn apology anti-semitism” into Google the second result that comes up is a December 2019 Guardian report titled Corbyn Apologises For Anti-semitism In Labour Party. The third result is a March 2018 PoliticsHome report titled Jeremy Corbyn Issues Apology For “Pockets” Of Anti-Semitism In Labour Party. Corbyn also did a video in August 2018 saying “I’m sorry for the hurt that’s been caused to many Jewish people”.
The “Corbyn has never apologised” line is one of many myths that has refused to die about anti-semitism and Corbyn’s Labour Party, irrespective of the historical record.
On Peston, Corbyn said he had apologised repeatedly, before arguing “evil as anti-semitism is, the scale of it within the party was grossly exaggerated”, which Kendall visibly took exception to.
With this in mind, it’s worth considering some of the claims made at the time. A July 2018 front page editorial jointly published by the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph newspapers warned a Corbyn-led government would pose an “existential threat to Jewish life” in Britain. A month later Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told an Israeli TV news show that Corbyn had “declared war on the Jews”. Writing in the Express in 2017 Stephen Pollard argued “Labour is now the party of bigots and thugs, where Jew haters are cheered”, while Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer, appearing on LBC radio in 2019, said Corbyn “wanted to reopen Auschwitz”.
The same year Margaret Hodge MP told the media she had obtained “over 200 examples [of anti-semitism], some vile, where evidence suggested they came from Labour.” However, according to the Guardian, the Labour Party general secretary later confirmed “investigations had found those complaints referred to 111 reported individuals, of whom only 20 were members.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a 2019 Survation poll, commissioned by Professor Greg Philo for his co-authored book Bad News For Labour, found of the respondents who had heard about the topic “on average people believed that a third of Labour Party members have been reported for anti-semitism” when “the actual figure was far less than 1 per cent.”
As with many issues, the Fourth Estate played a crucial role in the so-called “anti-semitism crisis.” Philo and his co-author Dr Mike Berry noted the results of four focus groups they held showed “the media and the extensive coverage that the story has received feature very prominently in the reasons that were given” for higher estimates of anti-semitism in the Labour Party.
Furthermore, a 2018 analysis of British media coverage of anti-semitism published by the Media Reform Coalition “identified myriad inaccuracies and distortions in online and television news including marked skews in sourcing, omission of essential context or right of reply, misquotation, and false assertions made either by journalists themselves or sources whose contentious claims were neither challenged nor countered.”
“Overall, our findings were consistent with a disinformation paradigm,” the authors concluded.
Looking at the coverage of the debate on whether Labour should adopt the contentious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-semitism, the authors highlighted a high number of inaccurate reports from the Guardian and BBC.
For example, in July 2018 Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland referred to the “near universally accepted International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-semitism”. In contrast, a quick look at the IHRA’s own website shows that by July 2018 their definition had been adopted and endorsed by just nine countries.
In July 2019 BBC Panorama broadcast Is Labour Anti-semitic?, which had a big impact on the debate. The programme related how Ben Westerman, a member of the party’s Disputes Team, was sent to investigate reports of anti-semitism in the Wallasey Labour Party in 2016. According to Westerman, at the end an the interview with a party member he was asked “Where are you from?” and “Are you from Israel?”, both of which he refused to answer.
However, Al Jazeera Investigations undertook the journalism that the BBC should have done, and broadcast the audio of the interview in their 2022 The Labour Files documentary (which, naturally, has been ignored by the mainstream media). It turns out the interviewee, unfamiliar with the interview process, asked Westerman “What branch are you in?”, which he refused to answer.
It should be noted Corbyn is not alone in thinking the incidence of anti-semitism in the Labour Party was overstated for political reasons. Geoffrey Bindman KC, Jewish Voice For Labour, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, public figures such as Mariam Margolyes and Alexei Sayle, and three-quarters of Labour members in a March 2018 Times/YouGov poll are among those who agree with Corbyn’s analysis.
Indeed, the Forde Report, which was commissioned by Keir Starmer, noted “some anti-Corbyn elements of the party seized on anti-semitism as a way to attack Jeremy Corbyn… thus weaponising the issue” (Forde says Corbyn supporters did this too).
Moreover, the polling evidence seems to contradict the “anti-semitism crisis” narrative.
“Despite significant press and public attention on the Labour Party” an October 2016 home affairs committee report on anti-semitism found “there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of anti-semitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party.”
A 2017 YouGov/Campaign Against Anti-semitism poll found “Labour Party supporters are less likely to be anti-semitic than other voters”, such as Tory and Ukip supporters. Similarly, a 2017 report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR), which analysed polling data, concluded “the political left, captured by voting intention or actual voting for Labour, appears in these surveys as a more Jewish-friendly, or neutral, segment of the population.”
To be clear, there was a problem with anti-semitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. At the same time the evidence strongly suggests the level of anti-semitism in the party was overstated for political purposes. Both of these things can be true at the same time.
In short, the evidence points to Corbyn being the victim of one of the most successful smear campaigns in British political history.
This personal onslaught significantly weakened him and the broader Labour Party, delegitimised him as a political figure, and sapped energy and support from the wider Corbyn movement.
It wasn’t a conspiracy; rather undermining Corbyn’s leadership was the shared agenda of the centre, right-wing and much of the bureaucracy of the Labour Party itself, the Tories and nearly all of the British press. Also, it’s likely the MP for Islington North’s pro-Palestinian politics didn’t endear him to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the apartheid-implementing Israeli government both organisations supported.
Frustratingly, some prominent voices on the left caved in to the pressure. Asked in 2018 why anti-semitism was “endemic in the Labour Party” by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, Novara Media’s Aaron Bastani didn’t question whether it really was “endemic” but answered “I think there are a few explanations”.
And after Corbyn stepped down as leader, at the 2020 Jewish Labour Movement’s Labour Party leadership hustings the chair asked “Do you regard it as anti-semitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact?” To which, shamefully, the Corbynite candidate, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, immediately replied “Yes”.
Of course, in many ways Corbyn was merely the vulnerable figurehead. It was the hundreds of thousands of Corbyn-supporting Labour members, and the millions of people who voted Labour in 2017 hoping for a more equal and just society, who were the real threat that needed to be stamped out.
Look at the (different) groups who benefit from linking antisemitism with Corbyn and with the Labour party.
Look at the advantages these groups would forgo if they didn’t make these links.
If Starmer had popular appeal beyond being not Johnson, or Truss or Sunak, then he’d bang on less about antisemitism and more on what he’d got to offer the UK and the Labour party. He hasn’t.
Starmer’s also faced with the difficulty of Corbyn and the Corbynist agenda STILL remaining the focus of appeal for large numbers of voters sufficiently dissatisfied with today’s politics to want real change and to know what it looks like. So Starmer needs to shelter behind the useful cover of Corbyn’s “antisemitism” to defuse pointed attacks on his political irrelevance.
Using Peston as the latest example of the best and worst of JC
When Kendall made her attack, JC did very little to knock it out of the park
The man is pathologically decent, a street fighter he is not
The far right get away with it because they simply repeat it ad nauseum and no one in the MSM and toilet papers, including Peston is going to say any other
So what should he have said and what should we all adopt as the standard response
How about ‘you mean the AS Scam, a bunch of lies and smears, aided and abetted by the MSM, toilet papers and Israel’
Sad to say, to succeed in politics (at least in Britain), you have to be forceful against people who are your enemies and who do you down. The Tories have had purges of “wets” from time to time and if Jeremy Corbyn, who, it must be said, had huge popular support from the British people as a whole, had had a purge of the likes of Margaret Hodge, the country would now be vastly better off.
It is a terrible shame that people have succumbed to the white-wash that has been applied to the cruel treatment of the people of Palestine, and it may be that Britain’s coming economic demise is its just reward for centuries of imperialism.
“One thing is sure: life for Palestinians will only get worse under this Israeli government. It is with unimaginable levels of cruelty that perpetual occupation exists for Palestinians. Lives are lost in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel with little hope for change.” So say Mike Katz and Izzy Lenga, respectively, National Chair and International Officer for the Jewish Labour Movement in a recent piece for the Jewish Chronicle. I think this is a brave thing to say. It’s certainly not a view shared by Labour Right mouthpiece Luke Akehurst, director of We Believe in Israel. In response, he said: “The situation of the Palestinians is bad, and they deserve a state of their own, but it’s just silly to describe it as involving ‘unimaginable levels of cruelty’. Most people in the West Bank and even Gaza have higher living standards than counterparts in surrounding Arab states.” There seems to be a split among erstwhile allies among anti-Corbyn Labour advocates for Israel. Perhaps they always disagreed but only with Far Right involvement in the Israeli government has this difference of opinion become public. I welcome the JLM’s outright condemnation of Israeli state cruelty to Palestinians. It should make it easier for other Labour members to say similar without fear of the Purge. Speculating, I think Izzy Lenga was instrumental in the BBC’s acknowledgement that the Ware Panorama team misrepresented the interview she gave them to leave many viewers believing that she received anti-semitic abuse “every day” in the Labour Party “telling me Hitler was right, telling me Hitler did not go far enough.” She was in fact referring to abuse she received from the Far Right and Neo Nazis – but this was edited out by the Ware team to give the impression she met these particular instances of anti-semitism in the Labour Party.* The Ware team did her a disservice and I’m guessing but I think she may have played a role in the “correction/clarification” published by the BBC. I think Izzy Lenga is principled. I can’t find it in my heart to praise Luke Akehurst at the moment, however. He seems to be suggesting that Palestinians don’t suffer Israeli state cruelty because they enjoy relatively high living standards. It would be revoltingly anti-semitic to say that Jewish people don’t suffer from Hamas cruelty because they enjoy relatively high living standards. But somehow Luke Akehurst hasn’t detected the double standard. *https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications/archive-2022/
The stupidest thing that Corbyn did was to apologise. Apologise for being lied about! When did any Tory apologise for Windrush?
Unfortunately large parts of the left in the Labour Party, including Corbyn, kept repeating this mantra that ‘the incidence of anti-semitism in the Labour Party was overstated for political reasons’.
Anti-Semitism was not merely overstated. There was NO anti-Semitism phenomenon in the Labour Party. Of course if you looked for individual examples of anti-Semitism you could, with great difficulty, find them.
But you could have found such examples any time in the Labour Party’s history but since when has the Zionist movement, still less the right-wing of the party ever been concerned with anti-Semitism or indeed any other forms of racism?
The whole ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign was bogus and contrived from the start.
You could undoubtedly find individual paedophiles in the Labour Party. There are bound to be some statistically in a party of nearly 600K members but there was no paedophile phenomenon.
Ironically there were times in the past when overt and indeed lethal examples of anti-Semitism abounded. The worst example being Herbert Morrison who, as Home Secretary in the war time Cabinet, refused to admit thousands Jewish refugees from Vichy France. The result was that when Vichy France was overrun by the Nazis they were deported to Auschwitz.
Morrison, who doubted that there was a holocaust, was of the opinion that Jewish refugees were communist agitators who after the war would provide an ‘explosive element’.
The Board of Deputies were completely unconcerned about this or genuine anti-Semitism – then or now, which is why Boris Johnson’s genuine anti-Semitism in his novel 72 Virgins went unremarked by all.
I just found the youtube video clip of Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Kendall on the Peston programme a few weeks back, and the relevant part starts at 5mins 30secs. So the section starts with Alyshka (I think Peston calls her) who just wants to show viewers ‘a quick poll’ about how people feel about the LP, and ‘how they felt’, and she says how in 2017 and 2019 under Jeremy Corbyn, 43% and 49% respectively ‘said they would be dismayed if Labour won’, and yet within seconds of saying THAT (and then referring to Starmer), she points to the same list/category, and refers to it as ‘the wouldn’t mind category’???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YuWCUsfNxE
Starmer and his far right, self serving cronies are still sh*t scared of Corbyn. He wants to work for the people, Starmer and his nazis just want to work for themselves and those who are bribing them….They have no interest in serving Britain or the British people….Just like the tory criminal Cartel!
‘The Myth’ is perpetuated because it is a useful tool to ‘beat Socialism’, which has been successfully eliminated from the political agenda. It is not just the new Murdoch owned TV channels such as GB News nor Talk TV but also continual references made on BBC; ITV & Channel 4. Last night, on the Andrew Neil Show, George Osbourne again referenced it, supported by his chum, Ed Balls, just prior to an interview with David Baddiel.
Who said a lie repeated often enough becomes truth?
The reality is this: jeremy Corbyn was far too ‘decent’ with the pro-Israel right wing lobby. In politics you have to create a tribal clash on ‘big issues’ to mobilise your forces. He should have just laid into the opposition and called them for what they are and mobilised the crowd. Getting involved in detailed arguments with the hard line Zionists is always what they try and do. Then they confuse things. Criticism of Israel DOES not equal antisemitism. Just repeat this time and again and unleash the anger of the masses.
Why would the non Jews like Robbie Gibb, editor of almost all the snidey BBC politics programmes during Corbyn’s leadership, former chair of The Federation of Conservative Students (‘Hang Mandela’ promoters, too outrageous even for the conservatives, who dissociated themselves from the group), advisor to a Tory PM etc., bother to invest in the financially failed Jewish Chronicle except as a very useful and proven tool for destroying the left? These vile lies will just go on and on and on. There really needs to be an enormous effort by every decent person to counter the lies every time they’re repeated. #ItWasAScam
yes Corbyn is no street fighter.he is fundamentally a decent man.so street fighting is not his way. If it was say Tony Benn Kendal would have been firmly put in her place. Why I ask are the street fighters of Left not out there pointing out the nonsense that MSM is doing, let along Starmer’s so called Labour Party. Why are they not shouting from Roof tops
I think that there is a lot of calling this out but it is being largely ignored by the mainstream media….we have to be on the streets talking to as many people as possible…..
I agree with Leah’s suggestion but also think it makes sense to get the message out to the provincial press. It takes more bandwidth and sheer effort to control all of the local press than it does to control the London-based nationals.
Instead of homing in (immediately) on the unfairness done to Corbyn, show how a wide range of other “ordinary” individuals have been targeted by a clique out to get them and using phoney allegations of antisemitism to do so (eg the Dr Millers of this world threatened with the loss of their careers and social respectability simply for telling students the results of his academic research).
In the space of just several days at the end of June 2016, first Jeremy is forced to sack Hilary Benn for organising/plotting a coup against him; more than half the shadow cabinet resign; and 80% of the PLP pass a no-confidence motion in Jeremy.
It’s funny how in many of the resignations of shadow cabinet members they refer to Jeremy as a decent and principled person. Lucy Powell, the shadow education secretary, for example:
In her resignation to the Labour leader, the shadow Education Secretary wrote that she did not know Mr Corbyn before he became leader but “have come to know you and found you to be a decent, principled and kind colleague.” She also said that the party faced an “existential threat” and warned that it has lost the support of many of its traditional voters.
I wonder who this ‘existential threat’ that she referred to was! The corporate MSM and BBC perhaps? The Israel lobby? The Blairites?
Shadow transport secretary Lilian Greenwood:
“Faced with such challenges, it is essential that we have a strong and united opposition. You are a kind, decent and principled colleague, but in my view a new leadership is required to bridge the widening divides in our party, both in Parliament and in the country as a whole.”
Ian Murray, shadow Scottish Secretary:
He’s [Mr Corbyn] a decent human being, a lovely man who I get on incredibly well with. But he just can’t lead the Labour Party and I don’t think the public think he can be Prime Minister.”
Needless to say, the ONLY reason Jeremy couldn’t lead the party is because 80% of the PLP are/were Blairites and wouldn’t let him – ie were never-EVER going to play ball and co-operate with Jeremy and left-wing MPs!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-labour-party-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet-revolt-leader-resigned-latest-eu-referendum-a7104276.html
Could you be more specific Ian: Out where, exactly? And pointing out the nonsense (as you put it) via/through which platforms/mediums?
Why is it that *SO* many posters say the left should do this, and the left should do that, but they never-ever specify just HOW exactly!
And I can’t help but wonder WHY, because it happens ALL the time.
And why do they refer to the left as if THEY are not left-wingers and the left are some separate entity from themselves, as opposed to speaking in terms of *us* and *we* (on the left).
Quite right about the street fighters – there is a video clip on
Face Book:
“27 Jan 2023 — Michael Crick DID interview the Orthodox Jews supporting Jeremy Corbyn ahead of yesterday’s NEC meeting yesterday!”
(but the link doesn’t work for me now ..)
Michael Crick – by no means a Corbyn supporter has been
doing some digging about and has discovered some useful truths
– none of which are reported in the MSM.
The clip involves some Orthodox Jews with placards
denouncing Zionism – which is against their beliefs. The
placards support Corbyn and there is a short interview
with them in which they state that those who equate
anti-Zionism with anti-semitism are themselves antisemitic.
As for the “apology” – Corbyn’s remarks are an example
of “functional numeracy” and typical of the sort
of questions asked by the presenters of the R4 program
“More or Less”. Are those demanding an apology asserting that
he gave the wrong answer? If so they should state what
the right answer was ..
And of course you are quite right in that the same statement
is asserted in the Forde Enquiry –
.. and he has apologised many times as given.
No – the real reasons for Starmer continuing the current situation
is that
(1) he wishes it and
(2) he can.
So what should he have said and what should we all repeat ad nauseum
I was being polite, that does not work
Channel your inner Street fighter, needs to include what we call those responsible for the AS Scam
Hi JVL
As the author of the article in question, I just wanted to clarify one thing. Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough in the article: by writing “To be clear, there was a problem with antisemitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn” I am simply saying there were examples of antisemitism in Labour under Jeremy Corbyn – something Corbyn himself has stated – which constitutes a problem. This sentence doesn’t mean I think the problem is specific to Corbyn’s leadership, or it is greater under Corbyn than under other Labour leaders.
Indeed, directly above this I write: ‘an October 2016 home affairs committee report on anti-semitism found “there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of anti-semitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party.”’ and then ‘a 2017 report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR), which analysed polling data, concluded “the political left, captured by voting intention or actual voting for Labour, appears in these surveys as a more Jewish-friendly, or neutral, segment of the population.”
I hate to use the space excuse but the article was already a bit too long. Given more space I would have included the polling analysis – from Evolve, I think – that shows antisemitism in Labour seems to have reduced after Corbyn became leader.
Anyway, many thanks for reprinting my article.
Ian
Thank you Ian. I realise there has been a great deal of confusion over your article because of the omission of a quotation mark at the very beginning of the article. For want of a nail the battle was lost! Of course, you start with a quote from Liz Kendall! And of course you didn’t say those first words! JVL please correct. I have a further suggestion to make – please ask for my email from JVL.
Here is the Evolve Politics analysis I mention in my post above: https://evolvepolitics.com/yougov-polls-show-anti-semitism-in-labour-has-actually-reduced-dramatically-since-jeremy-corbyn-became-leader/.
Thank you Ian, I am sure that will be of interest to many of our readers
The yougov poll was in respect of party voters, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the percentages for left-wing LP members would be far, far lower than the figures for LP voters.
And such views/tropes do not amount to hatred of Jews, and I doubt that more than a tiny percentage of people – and just about all of them on the rabid, fanatical right – habour actual hatred towards Jewish people, just as they do practically every other minority.
As for the question posed, the only way it will ever end is if thousands of us on the left across the UK get hundreds of thousands of leaflets together exposing the A/S black op – and all who conspired in it – for what it was and stick them through peoples doors. The most important point being that every single person who participated in it – and the OTHER smears – was subverting democracy – ie THAT was their intention and their objective.