Does Labour Have an Antisemitism Crisis or Does it Have a Perceived Antisemitism Crisis?

Some might argue that the question posed in this title is simply academic. “Whether they have one or not isn’t the point,” they might say. “The point is that they are perceived to have one, and therefore they must act on antisemitism as if they have an antisemitism crisis.”

This is a bewildering (but common) logic that attempts to say that truth no longer matters. It belongs very comfortably in the post-truthist camps of the right and far-right than any intelligent, liberal discourse. But truth still matters. It always has and it always will.

It’s important.

It’s also important that we work out how we might define a crisis in the first place. If a crisis is that any members of the Labour Party, and, perhaps, additionally any Labour party supporters or voters are antisemitic, then Labour clearly has an antisemitism crisis, but— by that logic — so does society, every political party, and nearly all workforces in the UK.

If we are defining this so-called crisis as the Labour Party under Corbyn giving a green light to antisemitism, then at least consider that the party has taken more robust action on it in at least a decade, particularly since Iain McNicol left as General Secretary.

If it’s the idea that it’s been tolerated because not enough people are being expelled from the party, then I will discuss some of the reasons why expulsions are not generally the best solution (unless for the most serious matters).

(I would also argue that many members are being smeared as antisemites including Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson, and subject to unfair and politicised processes and outcomes not befitting of any of their actual misdemeanours — if there were any— but I’ll save that for a rainy day).

If a crisis might be defined in terms of numbers of antisemitic incidents, then it would not surprise me if there has been a substantial increase in complaints since Corbyn’s leadership and therefore what you could call a crisis. But there has also been a vast increase in Labour membership.

Proportionality is vital when we consider whether the Labour Party has an antisemitism crisis or is institutionally antisemitic,which is why it’s important to consider that, according to the Labour Party this month:

“Records show that antisemitism cases that have gone through the stages of our disciplinary procedures since September 2015 account for about 0.06% of the party’s membership.”

This 0.06% figure does not even equate to those people with complaints upheld against them actually BEING antisemitic, because often people ignorantly perpetuate antisemitic tropes without realising the basis or history of the trope, and without any hostility or prejudice towards Jewish people or those perceived to be Jewish. This is one of the key reasons why it would be foolish to not give those sorts of people some room to learn and better themselves.

So the 0.06% stat is certainly one useful indicator suggesting that antisemitism is not an endemic issue in the Labour Party, but, of course, one can argue that the reason it is low is precisely because Labour tolerate antisemitism so much (e.g. they ignore or dismiss genuine antisemitism reports on mass), so another pointer as to how antisemitic the Labour party might be is from comparing an attitudes poll from 2015 and 2017 which strongly suggests that Labour supporters have less antisemitic views under Corbyn than under Miliband, and a more recent poll suggesting Labour supporters are less likely to have antisemitic attitude than the general public. Additionally, it’s worth pointing out that the same YouGov poll suggests Labour supporters are less likely to have antisemitic views than Tory supporters (if you feel this last point is irrelevant, I will explain more around the relevance of this in a moment).

There’s also a 2016 Home Affairs Select Committee Report on Antisemitism, which says:

Despite significant press and public attention on the Labour Party… there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than in any other political party.

And here’s another useful piece of evidence, which Ian Sinclair points out in a letter to the Guardian:

“Similarly, a 2017 report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (IJPR) found ‘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’.”

In my view — as a response to repeated accusations— antisemitism, as a type of prejudice, has been both heirachised and exceptionalised by the Labour Party. This is incredibly unhelpful and unhealthy. I know there are still some people who argue, using the example of the holocaust, about why antisemitism should be exceptionalised, but those arguments really don’t stack up. Whilst Jewish people were undoubtedly and predominently the main victims of the holocaust by a very large percentage, gays and those with disabilities were also well-documented targets and victims of the Nazi holocaust too.

It is vitally important that prejudices are shown as interrelated, especially because one of the primary causes for them in the first place is ignorance. And if we isolate prejudices and pretend they are all more exceptional than they are similar, then, as a society, we restrict our ability to more easily recognise them when we see them, and to defend and show solidarity to our fellow humans; and worse, we become more susceptible to the prejudices in the first place.

You may be reading this and saying, “Yes, I agree with that last point, but is that what’s actually happening in the Labour Party?” Well, yeah, it is. Firstly based on the discourse both within and about the Labour Party being overwhelmingly focused on antisemitism over other prejudices. Secondly based on the actual changes to Labour rules and processes, including the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism with examples.

And why is all of this problematic? Firstly, Islamophobia and racism against Black & Asian people is [highly likely] more prevalent in the Labour party than antisemitism, and is certainly more likely within society as a whole. Secondly, hate crimes that these demographics are victim to have a disproportionately worse impact than antisemitic hate crimes in general. This is partly because Muslims, Blacks and Asians are more likely to be victim to physical attacks and visceral attacks in public, which tend to be, by their nature, more traumatic. Secondly, those demographics tend to be disproportionately poorer and disproportionately less integrated with society (including holding much higher distrust of police in British born populations, and also, for example, immigrants from countries where police are a more unaccountable instrument of the state used to oppress dissidents). So if we are to prioritise or hierarchise prejudice (which I do not think we should do), I would strongly argue, simply based on the evidence, that the Labour Party should be focusing on other prejudices.

Now, one might say, “Well, this is a false dichotomy. The party can raise the profile of all prejudices and ensure robust action is taken against offenders and appropriate support provided to victims.” Okay, one can say that, but the Labour Party aren’t doing that. Their very code of conduct places antisemitism as a title issue (with specific other forms made to appear as a secondary issue) and also a special category deserved of hundreds of words, whilst other forms of racism (and disabilitism as well as other prejudices) carry very few words. If I was thinking of joining the Labour party today, I might be legitimately put off from doing so because they appear to be ignoring the demographics that actually suffer the most (both in frequency and impact) from prejudices.

Do the Labour Party Still Need to Do More About Antisemitism?

I have heard the repeated statements that Labour need to do more about antisemitism. This has been a prevailing on-and-off narrative for years, and most of the time it is said by people who very neatly ignore the fact that they have been doing more and more (and more) in the last three years.

We are still hearing the regurgitated notion that Corbyn needs to unequivocally and openly condemn antisemitism. But he has done this repeatedly. It reminds me of when an Islamist attack takes place and people decry the Muslim religious and community leaders and groups for not condemning the attacks when they’ve already made a clear and unambiguous statement denouncing such actions.

But, okay, yes, perhaps the Labour party can still do more. Although I am concerned about why, even if this is the case— based on what I’ve set out — this issue should be one of the most repeated and discussed conversations about the party (often in place of ignoring sound policies and ideas for improving the country, all to the plausible detriment of UK society as a whole), especially when:

i) there is no evidence of a significant problem beyond anecdotal evidence

The anecdotes are more often provided by people who are passionately against the politics or alleged nature (e.g. using spurious criticisms such as not a good orator, simply ‘not very bright’, too much of a wimp to commit a war-crime, too supportive of Palestine, too oppositional to Israel, etc.) of Jeremy Corbyn and were against his politics well before they had any concerns about antisemitism. This is evident, I understand, from the recent Panorama documentary (full disclaimer: I haven’t watched it, but I have read a lot about it) which features as whistle-blowers, a majority of JLM Executive members (at least 8) as Jay Blackwood points out in his Jewish Dissident blog, highlighting that some of JLM’s aims are, according to their rule-book:

• “To maintain and promote Labour or Socialist Zionism…”
• “To promote the centrality of Israel in Jewish life…”

For many Jewish people, the idea that Israel should be central to their life is deeply offensive and racist, as it suggests that their ‘homeland’ is not the place they have always been, where they are citizens, where they were born and their parents were born, contributing to society and holding strong community ties; but to a place that exists by virtue of ethnic cleansing as collateral damage, and predicated on conveying exclusivity of membership based on ethnicity.

As Antony Lerman points out, the Panorama documentary doesn’t even let the audience know the JLM ties, nor does it discuss the ongoing debate about Zionism and how anti-Zionism has been deliberately conflated with antisemitism (as has criticism of Israel). The documentary features two ‘experts’ one from BICOM, an actual Israeli lobby organisation. The other, Community Security Trust, an organisation that has argued, for example, that BDS is anti-semitic — an absurd attack on freedom of expression.

ii) Similar issues or arguably worse issues affecting other political parties (particularly the Tories as a more powerful party) are not discussed to the appropriate proportion to its problem, especially relative to how much antisemitism is discussed in relation to the Labour Party.

This might be dismissed as whatbouttery, but it’s a very important point. A distorted impression of Labour having an endemic or institutional antisemitism problem has been perpetuated through the media without proper evidence to support it (nor have the media given adequate right of reply), and through a fixation on amplifying very specific (and, in my view, many problematic) Jewish community groups as spokespeople for an entire demographic, as if Jews belong to some homogenous whole.

The media have not focussed anywhere near as much attention on something for which there is more stringent evidence of: hostility, hatred and prejudice against Muslims, Jews and other demographics within the Conservative party. This is arguably more newsworthy because it’s more prevalent and because they wield the most influence by virtue of being the majority in coalition, and because we currently have and have had whilst this has been placed by mainstream media as a major issue, Three Conservative Party Prime Ministers and major front bench changes.

The media have also demonstrated a long pattern of misleading,inaccurate and unbalanced reporting on the subject of antisemitism and the Labour Party which has helped to feed the narrative that the Labour Party is institutionally or endemically antisemitic when the evidence does not support it. Media Reform Coalition analysed media reports on this subject during the summer of 2018 and:

“…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.”

They say: “Overall, our findings were consistent with a disinformation paradigm.”

Finally, assuming that more can be done, it’s important to define what that action is. If more action means the sort of inane zero-tolerance actions including automatic dismissal as has recently been repeatedly touted (including by Keir Starmer of all bloody people, considering his background as former Director of Public Prosecutions of CPS), then this would be incredibly counter-productive. It would also be in opposition to basic principles of justice (e.g. due process, especially when considering taking serious action against a member).

As the writer Jamie Stern-Weiner points out (on Twitter):

“One of the salutary functions of a mass party is that, by uniting people from different walks of life in common struggle for shared objectives, inter-group prejudices and animosities can be eroded and, ultimately, overcome..

“…The demand to expel anyone guilty of having uttered a stereotype is so counter-productive and betrays such deep unseriousness about the task of combating racism: it pre-empts the possibility of using the party to reduce prejudice in society at large.”