by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
As many of Corbyn’s opponents prefer to fight the ineffectiveness of Labour leadership on the antisemitism problem rather than leave the party, this internal battle is unlikely to go away any time soon.
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Jeremy Corbyn, photo by Garry Knight via Flickr CC
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BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,248, August 7, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Dissent
inside the British Labour Party has increased following the recent
broadcast of a BBC Panorama documentary on antisemitism within the
party’s ranks. One-third of Labour members of the House of Lords
published an advertisement attacking Corbyn’s position on
antisemitism. A great majority of Labour staff members accepted a motion
against the party leadership’s attitude toward employees. As many of
Corbyn’s opponents prefer to fight the ineffectiveness of Labour
leadership on the antisemitism problem rather than leave the party, this
internal battle is unlikely to go away any time soon.
The BBC Panorama documentary
on antisemitism in the British Labour Party, broadcast on July 10, has
unleashed a torrent of reactions. A number of these are important new
developments. On one side in Labour remains party leader Jeremy Corbyn,
those who do not want to fight antisemitism effectively (the
“smokescreeners”), and the antisemitism whitewashers. On the other side
are those who want to stamp out the party’s institutional antisemitism.
Dissent inside the party significantly increased in the wake of the documentary. One spectacular sign of this was a full-page ad paid for by 67 Labour peers – several of them former ministers – in the left-wing daily, the Guardian.
The signatories represent about one-third of all Labour Lords. They
accused Corbyn of not having defended Labour’s anti-racist values. The
key line of the ad read: “The Labour Party welcomes everyone*
irrespective or race, creed, gender identity, or sexual orientation
(*except, it seems, Jews).” It added: “This is your legacy, Mr. Corbyn.”
It is telling that these Labour peers did not
write an open letter. They were apparently trying to maximize the
audience for their dissent on the party’s antisemitism. Quotes from the
ad were picked up by a variety of other British media outlets.
An additional front of dissent has opened up
between Labour staff and party leadership. Staff members affiliated
with the major GMB trade union voted 124 in favor, with only four
against, for a motion condemning the Labour press office’s response to
the BBC documentary. The motion said it was “unacceptable for an
employee’s workload or the culture of an organization to cause staff to
have breakdowns or to contemplate suicide.” (On the BBC program, several
whistleblowers claimed extreme stress caused by party leadership.)
Baroness Hayter, Labour’s Deputy Leader in the House of Lords, is one of the signatories on the peers’ ad. Hayter said
Corbyn’s inner circle was behaving as in the last days of Hitler in his
bunker, where “you stop receiving any information into the inner group
which suggests that things are not going the way you want.” A Labour
spokesman described the comments as “deeply offensive.”
Corbyn fired Baroness Hayter from the party’s front bench, but only the party’s peers can sack her as Deputy Labour leader in the House of Lords. There, Hayter remains sitting on Labour’s front bench, flouting Corbyn’s decision.
Lord Mandelson, a former Labour minister who has
also been a European Commissioner, said he feels “dirty” staying in a
Labour Party in which “no effective action” is being taken against
people holding antisemitic views.
As a reaction to the peers’ advertisement, a local Labour party expelled
one of its signatories, Lady Armstrong. She was Chief Whip under PM
Tony Blair. This was a symbolic vote, as only the Labour leadership can
expel party members. Shadow justice minister MP Gloria Depiero, who left
Labour’s front bench, announced that she would not be standing at the next general election as the party has a “lack of tolerance.”
MP Dame Margaret Hodge wrote an article in the Guardian
in which she wrote that one year had passed since a face-to-face
encounter with Corbyn in the parliament’s lobby in which she called the
Labour leader “a racist” and an “antisemite.” Hodge wrote that her
politics have been defined by her Jewish identity in a way that she
never imagined. She added that she never thought she would ever be a
victim of Jew-hatred from the hard left. Hodge wrote that in the year
that has passed, the situation within the party has deteriorated
dramatically and the antisemitism crisis in Labour has spiraled out of
control.
Former Labour PM Tony Blair was asked in a BBC interview
whether he would vote for the party in elections amid the rows on
Brexit and antisemitism. Referring to the antisemitism issue, Blair
indicated that it would be difficult.
Matthew Turner, head of the Labour Campaign for Human Rights, said
there is currently a real and ongoing issue of antisemitism within the
party. He said, “We must now take the fight to antisemitism within our
own ranks. We cannot ignore it or fail to deal with it properly.”
The National Executive Committee of Labour (NEC)
is backing a proposal by Corbyn to fast-track expulsions of members in
the most serious antisemitism cases. It was decided that a new internal
panel should be set up to take up rapid action against the worst
offenders. The shadow cabinet is also backing this proposal. Yet Labour
Deputy Leader Tom Watson wants
automatic expulsion of party members only where there is “irrefutable
evidence of racism and discrimination.” In the meantime, a page of
information on antisemitism has been added to the party’s website.
The parliamentary head of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), MP Ruth Smeeth, said,
“There is still no independence. In fact, arguably political power over
antisemitism cases is going to be consolidated by political supporters
of Jeremy Corbyn.” Mike Katz, the JLM Chair, said,
“Nothing short of a fully independent process, first asked for by the
Jewish community way back in April 2018, is even going to begin to
suggest that the party leadership really cares about tackling
institutional anti-Jewish racism.”
Dave Rich of the Jewish defense organization Community Security Trust (CST) wrote:
“Labour still talks about antisemitism as a problem of ‘a small number’
of members with the wrong ideas, who can be persuaded to change their
views with a leaflet and a video or two. In fact it is a problem of
political culture and institutional racism, and a leadership that wants
us to believe they can turn the problem around without ever addressing
their own role in creating it.”
The antisemitism debate is apparently hampering
pro-Palestinian activism and extreme attacks on Israel in Labour. This
was made clear in an earlier article by former minister Peter Hain. Another former minister, Clare Short, a fanatical anti-Israel inciter, wrote a letter to the Financial Times
claiming that the root of the antisemitism problem is the “growing
awareness, injustice and suffering inflicted by Israel on the
Palestinians.” As usual among the extremist lookers away of major
Palestinian criminality, there wasn’t a word in her letter about the
genocidal intentions of the largest Palestinian party, Hamas, and the
glorification of the murder of Israeli civilians by the Palestinian
Authority.
Labour has made public the information that 625
antisemitic complaints were received during the first six months of
2019, and that a total of eight party members have been expelled.
Over the past three years, it has become clear
that under Corbyn’s leadership, Labour has become institutionally
antisemitic. A report from CST found that the number of antisemitic
incidents in Britain rose in the first half of 2019, and it stated that
antisemitism in the Labour Party was a contributing factor.
Jewish activist David Collier compiled a report
that concludes: “The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in
September 2015 established the toxic environment which enabled the
growth of rampant anti-Zionist hostility and inevitably antisemitism.”
Collier also discovered a “clear pattern” supporting the “general
assumption” by commentators that “the Labour party was invaded by
extremists when Jeremy Corbyn became leader.”
Nevertheless, a substantial percentage of the
Labour membership remains at least partly in denial about Corbyn’s role
in causing all this. A poll by The Times
found that 70% of Labour members admitted that antisemitism was a
genuine problem in the party, but only 48% believe Corbyn has fared
either fairly badly or very badly on the issue. Only 27% agreed that
Corbyn should step down. More than 80% thought he had the right
leadership priorities for the country.
The party is thus full of supporters
of Corbyn – a man who has called genocidal antisemitic terrorists
“friends” and “brothers” and is himself an antisemite. Yet many of those
opposed to the party leadership’s lack of desire to confront
antisemitism prefer to fight within the party rather than leave it. The
battle over antisemitism in the party is thus unlikely to go away in the
near future.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/uk-labour-antisemitism-bbc/
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