It is even more bizarre that the same people appear to be telling us that the positive alternative is Johnson - someone who has amassed a host of publicly available evidence over the years of racially charged sound-bites drooling off his tongue at will.
It gets even more bizarre again when you move away from the leaders and look at the parties’ records on the issue. Labour has launched an ambitious Race and Faith Manifesto to tackle the divisive politics of hate and counter far right extremism. Meanwhile the Tories have presided over the Windrush scandal, the inhuman ‘hostile environment’ and want to scrap the Human Rights Act.
It is perhaps not surprising in this era of ‘fake news’ that people can confidently project an obvious lie without shame in the hope that if they say the lie long and often enough people will start to believe it.
Such a strategy would meet with little success were it not for a media only too ready to uncritically report the lie - or indeed encourage it.
The latest allegations of anti-Semitism by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis directed at the Labour Party, but more significantly at the ‘top’ of the party in a clear reference to Jeremy Corbyn, is one of a long line of allegations and should be no great surprise.
That doesn’t make it any more credible, especially since all these pronouncements rarely come up with any hard examples - and the media seem strangely reticent to ask about examples. The Chief Rabbi’s attack on Labour is all the more surprising when it encourages people to ditch Labour, which has introduced specific measures for tackling anti-Semitism, in favour of other parties that haven’t.
Blogger Anotherangryvoice draws attention to research from the Campaign Against AntiSemitism that found that the prevalence of anti-Semitic views amongst Labour and Lib-Dem supporters is much lower than the general public, but that the prevalence of anti-Semitic views amongst Tories is higher than the public at large.
Comparison of two YouGov surveys in 2015 and 2017 showed that rates of anti-Semitism amongst Labour supporters fell dramatically, while the same polls showed that anti-Semitism rates amongst Tory supporters was barely falling at all.
So why the apparent media consensus to depict anti-Semitism as solely a Labour problem? We can’t deny that anti-Semitism exists but why the politicisation and the focus solely on Labour in a general election campaign? Do we detect something more? Perhaps Labour’s position on Palestine?
On the ‘no great surprise’ front, let’s wind back to 2014 and the criticism of Labour’s first Jewish leader David Miliband for his condemnation of Israel’s bloody attack on Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,523 Palestinian civilians, including 519 children, described by the UN as “an unacceptably high ratio that could not be dismissed as collateral damage.”
A report in the Independent at the time alleged that Jewish backers of Labour were pulling out as a result of Miliband’s statement, causing a funding crisis. The last paragraph in this story was telling.
“A number of Jewish former Labour supporters also compared Mr Miliband's stance on Gaza unfavourably with David Cameron's, which, they suggested, had been calibrated to ensure that prominent Tory Jewish supporters stayed on board.”Now, here I stray into dangerous territory. Criticism of human rights in Saudi Arabia is not Islamophobia. Criticism of Trump’s record supported by fundamental Christians in the US is not anti-Christian. Criticism of the record of the Israeli government in its dealings with the Palestinians should not be, and is not anti-Semitic.
That, surely, seems simple enough. But we get on to shaky ground when we look at the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism, specifically in one of the 11 examples.
It states that it is anti-Semitic to hold “Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel”. That’s fair enough and those of us critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians have always taken care to target that criticism specifically at the government of Israel, as have the many Israeli commentators and writers of Jewish origin around the world.
However, the sentence in the 2014 Independent article refers to ‘Labour Jewish supporters’ - not to supporters of the Israeli government - taking action against Miliband’s Gaza statement. Does this article mean to suggest that all Jewish Labour supporters identify with the policies of the Israeli government, which we know from the IHRA working definition, would be an anti-Semitic statement?
In politics, this is where we get into the problem where criticism of the actions of the Israeli government are conflated with anti-Semitism. It is capable of being misused - on both sides of the Palestinian issue.
The people withdrawing money from Miliband then, and many of those attacking Corbyn now (eg Luke Akehurst), are doing it because of support for the actions of the Israeli government, not because they are Jewish - and many Jews would disagree with them. They need to be accountable on that front, or at least the question needs to be asked by the media rather than just parroting the words.
Conflating Israel’s actions as the actions of all Jews is not just anti-Semitic it is wrong in fact. Ask Israeli organisations like All That’s Left or the Israelis who work with Palestinians for justice in Ta’ayush or B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation that for 30 years has devoted itself primarily to documenting Israeli violations of Palestinians’ human rights.
Surely it follows that it is just as wrong to assume that Jewish people pulling support from Labour because of its position on Palestinians are doing it just because of their Jewishness. They are doing it from one particular political viewpoint.
One interesting aspect of the Chief Rabbi’s statement and the Jewish Chronicle’s front page plea to vote for anyone but Corbyn, is that neither specifically identify examples of anti-Semitism. They both reflect on the fact that polls and other information suggest that most Jewish people feel that Labour is anti-Semitic and that, understandably, creates fear in them.
Well that’s not surprising given the way the issue has been whipped up in the last couple of years both inside Labour and and out with no analysis as to the prevalence of anti-Semitism in other parties or the population at large.
Reflecting reported fears that you have partly contributed to is not leadership. It is creating unnecessary fears in the population you profess to serve - a population that over the centuries has had good cause to be anxious about discrimination and oppression.
Anti-Semitism exists. Racism exists. Exploitation of the poor, another form of discrimination, exists. They must be challenged.
So let’s look at the political history on these issues. Labour opposed appeasement of the fascists in the 1930s, created the NHS, and even in the Blair/Brown years managed to reduce child poverty by almost half (it’s well on the way up again). In 1998 Labour made history by passing the Human Rights Act into law, an Act the Tories now want to repeal.
In 1936, Corbyn’s mother stood with Jewish people and others to block the fascists in Cable Street. More recently in the 1970s Corbyn helped organise anti-fascist action in Wood Green. In the 2000s he has signed at least five Early Day Motions condemning anti-Semitism. See here for a list of 40 actions taken by Corbyn against anti-Semitism.
On the other hand, look at the Tory Daily Mail and Express support for fascism in the 1930s. Those papers and the Tories vehemently opposed to the creation of the NHS in 1948. The latest revelations about the NHS being up for grabs in a Tory/US trade deal should ring some alarm bells.
Most economists now agree the Tories, backed up by the Lib-Dems, have delivered years of unnecessary austerity, increasing child poverty and inequality and making foodbanks the norm in our society. They have demonised the poor, refugees, and migrants who have contributed to our country’s economy and public services.
In light of that, if you are being asked to ditch Labour’s record in favour of the record of the Tories and Lib-Dems, you should surely be asking questions of the people posing that question to you.
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