Anti-Semitism in UK Labour megathread

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If this is just going to be people who are totally ignorant of the matter at hand screaming at each other (as has started already!) and people playing at being a human RSS feed then I don't know if even this thread is a great idea.

This is a serious issue - one connected to wider issues within both British society and the New Left influenced parts of the harder Left everywhere -  but this needs to be a bad faith free zone to the extent that is possible...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well,  question for the British posters, is this that big of a deal in the UK?

Yes and no. It is not a big issue for most people (it concerns the internal affairs of a political party and those of a very small minority group) but is now a major one for people active in left-wing politics and the divides over the issue are not those some people might expect.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You can be anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic. To deny this is calling all Jews who oppose Israel anti-Semites, which basically makes you Netanyahu (he called David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel self hating Jews).

Posts like this are neither relevant nor helpful. Desist.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If Bernie Sanders wasn't a Jew who lived in Israel, they'd probably be calling him an anti-semite too. This is getting old.

Who are 'they'?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Opponents (internal and external) of Corbyn have o/c used (and will continue to use) this issue for political gain, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a real issue. They have used (and will use) it because it is a glaringly obvious weak spot and that's just how politics is: figures on the Left are the most vulnerable to charges of racism/blindness to and therefore complicity in racism (and it's really this that Corbyn gets hit over) because it doubles up as a charge of hypocrisy, and Corbyn and his circle in general have consistently responded to the issue in a way that indicates panic - they also know it's a weak spot and don't really know how to handle it and as such have made error after error.

The deeply personal nature of Labour factionalism c. 2018 means that any issue that touches on factional divisions at once becomes harder to deal with o/c.* That's Labour's unhealthy internal culture fycking it over again. I also think that Labour is institutionally incapable of dealing effectively with a crisis over racism, ironically because it has defined itself so much as an anti-racist organisation to such an extent that it is only capable of handling complaints on the subject as the product of individual deviancy. I strongly suspect that this would also be the case were the issue claims of serious sexism from members of a particular faction/elements in a leadership team etc.

_{*Because let's be blunt here: you could add the word 'Left' in front of 'megathread' in the title of this thread without fear of narrowing down things excessively or unfairly. Other factions have their own sins, of course.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is a useful thread on one of the issues at hand:

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1022832312822767616

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is very good:

https://jewishquarterly.org/2018/07/what-happened-when-jeremy-corbyns-office-reached-out-to-me-to-talk-about-antisemitism/

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Willsman's comments were already known  - and tbh were bad enough that there should have been more of a fuss at the time! - but the tape really... er... wow. It would be serious even were it not over this issue. Not that there's anything remotely surprising about this: Willsman has long had a reputation as an exceptionally nasty piece of work. But this takes us back to the old problem: he's a CLPDer from way back when, a friend of all the right people. So much of this has been about the craven protection of mates...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Momentum have dropped their endorsement for Willsman; the CLPD have doubled down on theirs. This is... important. Momentum was established essentially in order to function as a front organisation for the CLPD, but is now acting like an independent subfaction. Tectonic plates on the Left are moving it seems, though to what end no one can know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lol at Owen Smith's pathetic spinning.

Jones, not Smith - very different people!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Posted this on another forum, decided to add it here as well:

It's a bit unfortunate in some respects that the IHRA definitions have become central to this mess, because it opens things up to bad faith barrack-room lawyering. The point isn't to impose a strict and inflexible code For All Time and to suggest unpersoning anyone who could be argued to break it if you squint, but to provide a framework through which effective and prompt action can be taken. Campaigners on this issue often prefer - at least when this is possible - for action to be educational rather than punitive, as they typically regard antisemitism as being at heart a form of malicious ignorance, one that can be countered by education.

One of the problems with antisemitism (one of the reasons why it is an unusual and unusually pernicious form of racism: most other kinds are pretty clear cut even to the most casual of observers) is that antisemites have always been very good at obfuscation and distraction, much of which turns swiftly into victim blaming: antisemitism, even in its mildest forms, tends to operate according to a very nasty form of circular logic. A detailed list of potential antisemitic arguments and tropes is thus essential: this is the point of the IHRA definitions. These definitions can, of course, be quite easily augmented and contextualised without watering them down in the slightest. This is what should have been done in Labour's case: it wouldn't have been hard and it wouldn't have been controversial - especially if it had been paired with something else Labour desperately needs, namely a transparent and comparatively independent disciplinary process.

Three further comments:

1. The present firestorm around Corbyn was triggered by an online post that had nothing to do with Israel (i.e. the mural). Berger's alarmed complaints were actually picked up pretty late by the media. Even some of the more damaging episodes from Corbyn's past that have recently emerged were unearthed not by journalists, but a left-wing anti-Corbyn academic. Of course some in the media are exploiting this for political ends, but that's how politics works: you aim at the weak spots of your opponents. Liberal/left attacks on (for instance) Trump's conduct political aspect are a case in point.
2. Even Jews philosophically opposed to Zionism will generally be a little unnerved at aggressive criticism of 'Israel' spoken or written in a certain tone and utilising certain tropes and arguments. Particularly when it comes out of nowhere, especially when it's clear aimed 'at' them. I'm a little surprised that this needs pointing out.
3. Antisemitic attitudes remain quite widespread in British society and are in no way restricted to the Left, of course. To pick just a few examples: The Daily Telegraph ran an antisemitic headline recently, Private Eye continues to publish antisemitic content and cartoons and Nigel Farage now regularly makes overtly and openly antisemitic comments. There has also been a growth of a certain sort of strange 'racial' conception of Muslims in recent years that often tips over into pretty disturbing territory. All of this is serious and needs dealing with (I mean if you are a good Civic Liberal who wishes for constructive political discourse, that is - I guess if you aren't you probably won't care), but it will not do to bring this up as a means of defence of distraction - doing so is not just cynical but stupid as it works to discredit all criticism of racism and retards any concerted attempt to do anything about any of these problems.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's amazing how horribly they've handled this.

Two aspects to that - two aspects because 'the Party' and 'the Leadership' are distinct.

a) organisationally the Labour Party is a complete mess with a byzantine and basically jerry-built internal structure and disciplinary process. Its rule book is a joke (might struggle to hold up in court if ever seriously challenged, so contradictory are certain sections) and interpretations of it are often brazenly factional.

b) there is a circle of advisors around Corbyn with hard-to-far left backgrounds who are motivated mostly by personal vendettas and who have very strange and cranky political views. Milne is the best known, but it's not just Milne. Other people in the Labour Left (including supposedly pretty major players like McDonnell and Lansman) pretty clearly find the influence of these people extremely depressing, and you can understand why.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Proceedings against Hodge dropped.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/joe_oliver/status/1026536369412366338
The best/worst part is that this rings true...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1033467298135322626

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1033467367815299072

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Don't read too much into NEC Elections- and not just because of the very low turnout. When I first voted in 2014 I had no idea what it even was so I voted for Ken Livingstone, and picked the others based on who had written good statements. This year I didn't vote for the straight Progress/Labour first slate because I despise one of it's members, and wanted to vote for Anne Black. Previously I've voted for someone from own CLP who was running a single issue campaign.

Besides, people generally vote right at the beginning when you get sent your ballot (was in mid july I think?) or right at the end (when they get an nagging email) So a fair few people may have voted for Willsman before his comments came to light.

Most of the people who vote in these things - not many as a proportion of the membership: really embarrassing turnout again - vote pretty blindly for a slate with maybe a slot left open for someone from outside. Willsman, very notably, was not 'removed' from the official Momentum slate until after a high proportion (quite probably a majority these days) of votes were cast and o/c he still appeared as part of it on the printed booklet that went out with the postal ballots. His disgusting outburst wasn't a major news story except online and the average Labour member is a retired teacher or local government worker...

The other factor, much smaller, is name recognition, thus Izzard once again nearly making it. Meanwhile probably most of the people who have actually heard of Black (except as a face on a booklet every two years) voted for her, but without a slate, particularly right now...

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He's also certain other things, as we all know well. It's also the case that certain people have gloated about him getting back on - under the circumstances that's the main active outrage. Even ignoring the moral considerations, I don't entirely understand how people can be that stupid.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

NEC has voted to adopt - or, more accurately as it turns out, to re-adopt - the IHRA definitions. Some drama, of course, but not as much as we've been used to.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Good example of why a total lack of trust is a problem, isn't it.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This has nothing to do with anti Semitism

Well, it does: Bloom is an unrepentant and quite open anti-semite, much like Farage. But there does seem to be a trend right now of reporting on the attempts of well-known grotesques to join/re-join mainstream parties as being automatically successful, when of course that's not how this works; see also Derek Hatton (repeatedly).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Good. We are well past the point where this can be considered an internal party scandal.

On the contrary, that is exactly what it is: factional myopia has led to the completely grotesque and unacceptable situation whereby racist harassment has been de facto tolerated because an already inadequate disciplinary process has been fatally compromised.

This in what is not only a major political party (and the one with the best - least worst - historical record on racism, the one that the architects of the country's anti-racist legislation were members of), but what is also one of the most important non-ecclesiastical institutions in British civil society.

Of course it's also a reflection of how prevalent antisemitic attitudes remain in British society, and of the specific problem of antisemitism on the hard and far left, but these matters, though unpleasant, aren't really the scandal here.

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Cressida Dick is not the Prime Minister.