Jewish Voice for Labour lobbies BBC over election coverage bias

Press statement – for immediate release

Jewish Voice for Labour lobbies BBC over election coverage bias

2pm Sunday December 8
Portland Place, London W1A 1AA

#StopBBCBiasNow, #Jews4Labour, #VoteLabourHateRacism

Members and supporters of Jewish Voice for Labour are staging a protest at the BBC’s Portland Place centre on Sunday, calling the corporation to account for election coverage that “falls disastrously short of its own formal standards of accuracy and balance.”

JVL points to allegations that the Labour Party is riddled with antisemitism being reported as “quasi-factual, with no indication that they are fiercely contested.” In particular the group, whose 1,000 members are active in at least half the Constituency Labour Parties in the country, takes issue with the BBC for persistently sidelining expert Jewish commentators critical of the attacks on Labour.

“In the closing stages of an acrimonious election campaign, the BBC’s coverage of antisemitism charges against the Labour Party has been both unbalanced and uncritical,” JVL co-chairs Jenny Manson and Leah Levane said in a letter on Thursday to BBC Director General Tony Hall and Director of News and Current Affairs Fran Unsworth.

The most recent example is uncritical reporting of the Jewish Labour Movement’s “leak” of its own submission to the Equality and Human Right Commission. JLM re-ran long-debunked allegations against Jeremy Corbyn and the Party, adding uncorroborated charges from individuals, many of whom have already had their testimony powerfully challenged.  A new investigation by journalist Paddy French into BBC’s Panorama programme Is Labour Antisemitic? gives many examples. French’s interim report, titled Is the BBC Anti-Labour?  is being made public on Sunday.)

BBC coverage of JLM’s manufactured “news” entirely disregarded JVL’s own submission to the EHRC which is freely available online. This was yet another example of the corporation’s disgraceful practice of editing out of the news stream material that challenges the ‘Labour is antisemitic’ narrative.

“We were pleased to receive an almost instant reply from Fran Unsworth to our letter, but we were deeply disappointed by its dismissive tone,” Leah Levane said. “We are requesting a meeting to discuss our concerns.”

The Portland Place protest coincides with a demonstration in Parliament Square purporting to represent Jewish fears about antisemitism in British society. JVL questions the motives of the event organisers, a group calling itself ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ (CAA), which claims unconvincingly that the rally it has called four days before the UK General Election will be “non-political”.

In a statement on the CAA rally, JVL notes the alarming rise in antisemitic attacks and the broader rise of the far right, alongside the normalisation of racist ideas. It says that over the last four years, “the CAA and others have concentrated their efforts on a concerted campaign to associate the Labour Party with antisemitism. They have chosen to minimise, if not ignore entirely, antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, and more widely.”

“It remains to be seen how the BBC reports the events planned for Sunday,” said Jenny Manson. “We hope there will be some attempt at accuracy and balance about the underlying issues that has been sadly lacking to date.”

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. JVL LETTER TO HALL AND UNSWORTH, SENT THURSDAY DEC 5

To Tony Hall, Director General of the BBC and Fran Unsworth, Director of News and Current Affairs

URGENT – “Is the BBC Antisemitic?”

We need to register with you our deep concern that, once again, and in the closing stages of an acrimonious election campaign, the BBC’s coverage of antisemitism charges against the Labour Party has been both unbalanced and uncritical. Your reporting today of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM)’s repetition of its flimsily-based charges against the Party that it used to support falls disastrously short of the Corporation’s own formal standards of accuracy and balance. This represents what we can only call a flagrant breach, and of all times during a general election campaign, of the BBC’s legal commitment to due impartiality and fairness.

Over recent months, and with no remission during the election campaign, coverage of allegations of Labour antisemitism has featured repeatedly in the BBC News, and often as the lead item. In news programmes the allegations have been reported as quasi-factual, with no indication that they are fiercely contested. In more discursive formats such as the Today programme or Newsnight, presenters have consistently adopted a negative, attacking stance towards anyone who questions the basis of the allegations. In complete contrast, those making the allegations, usually based on hearsay rather than personal experience, are supplied with leading questions and softball follow-up.

Jews are as diverse as any other substantial group in society. Yet people whose representative status is highly doubtful are routinely presented by the BBC as ‘representatives of the Jewish community’. Surely you can ensure that your broadcasting staff know the facts and convey them appropriately. The Board of Deputies, for example, has no supervised electoral process – and in any case its synagogue-based membership covers no more than one third of the UK’s Jewish population.  Secular Jews make up at least 50% of British Jews and have no voice through the Board of Deputies.

In particular the voices of the large numbers of Jews who are Party members, who know how atypical the quite rare examples of antisemitic behaviour in the party are, and who are enthusiastic supporters of a Corbyn-led Labour government have been almost entirely ignored. The BBC has allowed itself to be used as a megaphone for deeply contested charges.

The BBC’s Guidelines state that when a partisan political position is put forward, an opposing one, if it exists, should be broadcast too. The Labour Party does have many Jews who support it and who are prepared to speak out, notably in the organisation Jewish Voice for Labour. Our many requests to be able to present our experience and our perspective are routinely ignored, and in the rare exceptions have never been given equal weighting with the negative voices.

The BBC’s coverage of the JLM’s release of its evidence to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s inquiry (into any discrimination in Labour’s processes for handling complaints of antisemitism) is a prime example of the BBC’s systematic imbalance. This deliberately-timed attempted destabilisation of the Labour Party’s position by JLM has appeared in virtually every main news bulletin today, including live coverage – uncontested – of the JLM news conference on BBC News Channel.

The evidence that Jewish Voice for Labour gave to the EHRC inquiry was made public at the time and is publicly available on our website. This evidence is directly relevant to your news item but was not even mentioned in today’s extended BBC coverage. It seems that the BBC is treating us as the ‘wrong sort of Jew’.

All Jews are not the same. Asserting that they are is an aspect of antisemitism. The BBC should be ashamed of its record in openness to the multiple voices of British Jewry.

By behaving in the way that it has (and today’s JLM coverage is only the latest example) the BBC has, constructively, been contributing to an assiduously promoted anti-Labour agenda.

We look forward to immediate corrective action.

This letter will be published on our website. [It was, here]

Sincerely,
Leah Levane and Jenny Manson, co-chairs JVL

2. JVL STATEMENT ON CAA RALLY IN PARLIAMENT SQUARE

Why we cannot support Sunday’s CAA Rally

We note that the organisation that calls itself ‘Campaign Against Antisemitism’ (CAA) has arranged a rally, that it claims to be non-political, but which will take place just four days before the UK General Election. We seriously question its motives.

The main billed speakers at the CAA rally are known for their hostility to Labour.  Non-political? Where are the ‘non-political’ speakers known for their criticisms of the Conservative Party or even of the far right?  There are none.

Jewish Voice for Labour stands firmly against all forms of racism: antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism towards Black and Asian people. We note with alarm the rise in antisemitic attacks and the broader rise of the far right, but also the normalisation of racist ideas and the othering of different communities. But over the last four years the CAA and others have instead concentrated their efforts on a concerted campaign to associate the Labour Party with antisemitism. They have chosen to minimise, if not ignore entirely, antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, and more widely. While specific attacks from far right groups have been mentioned by CAA, they have been treated as isolated incidents, rather than as part of a deeply worrying trend.

Thankfully Britain is currently one of the safest places to be Jewish. Long may this continue and improve. However, the London Bridge and other attacks make clear that comparatively safe is not safe enough. There are worrying and rising levels of racism of all kinds, including antisemitism. All research evidence shows that the threat is overwhelmingly from the far right.  The CAA can obfuscate this clear fact only by rolling Israel-critical statements into its version of antisemitism.

Many of the most high-profile allegations against the Labour Party, have been shown to be spurious, as JVL has repeatedly exposed. For example, Louise Ellman’s allegations about her treatment by her Liverpool Riverside CLP have been comprehensively debunked. The Jewish Chronicle has been forced to publish a damning IPSO indictment of its misrepresentation of what took place in Riverside.

Selective reporting is rife. After the dreadful attack on November 29^th on a Rabbi visiting the UK from Israel, Jeremy Corbyn not only expressed his horror at the attack, he also directly contacted Rabbi Gluck who heads up the Shomrim (an organisation that mounts volunteer Jewish civilian patrols in North London).  Rabbi Gluck welcomed the approach from the Labour leader and noted that Jeremy Corbyn was the only political leader to do so.  Curiously we did not see this reported in the CAA bulletin.

The campaign by CAA and others across all media has successfully established in the public mind the untruth that the Labour Party is a hotbed of antisemitism. Their “non-political” rally is yet another scarcely veiled attack on the Labour Party at this most political of times in this most political of atmospheres, when the country is at its most divided.

Jewish people share the same needs and concerns as all British citizens. Our shared Jewish experience highlights the importance of standing with all oppressed groups, who, like us, have also suffered centuries of abuse, discrimination, and murderous attacks – some of them from the same Nazi regime that murdered so many European Jews.  Today this must mean solidarity with Black, Asian and Muslim people, with disabled people, LGBT+ communities, and others facing discrimination. Seeing antisemitism as somehow a worse form of discrimination than all others deprives us of the strength that comes from wider solidarity.

This so called non-political rally is, in fact, a political rally against Labour. Labour offers the best hope for those suffering poverty, and for the regeneration of our public services. Labour’s policies offer the best way of removing the breeding grounds for all forms of racism, and for combatting the division between communities, especially those targeted by the far right. If you genuinely oppose all forms of racism, including antisemitism, you will be voting Labour on 12th December.

* Advertised speakers include: Colonel Richard Kemp (retired), highly critical of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and accused of serious levels of Islamophobia; Satish Shama, hostile to Labour for its stand in solidarity with the people of Kashmir and criticism of the Modi government; Fayaz Mughai, who has claimed – in contrast with Baroness Warsi – that the problems of Tory Islamophobia do not compare with antisemitism in the Labour Party; and Tracy Ann Oberman, the level of whose contributions is captured in her allegation that labour activists are “pretending to have lost family in [the] Holocaust to counter anti Semitism claims”.