Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair
The Labour party’s “antisemitism crisis” keeps dragging on.
What can the Labour leadership do about it?
The Labour’s leadership has tried appeasing its critics, but this has not worked. Appeasement has only emboldened these critics.
Jeremy Corbyn’s detractors, both inside and outside the party, are adept at moving the goalposts, and will never be satisfied until he is gone as leader, and Labour once again becomes a “natural” home for opportunists like Tony Blair and his followers, and their friends in the Zionist lobby.
Best just to have a proper process of scrutiny in place, with a complementary disciplinary framework, and place the onus on these to deal with the charges of “antisemitism”, most of which have no merit.
As far as I can tell, and speaking as a party member, this is what Labour is doing.
As is the case with Islamophobia, there is antisemitism everywhere, and the Labour party is no exception.
There have been some episodes of antisemitism from Labour’s local councillors and party members, but accusations of antisemitism involve around 0.1% of Labour’s 550,000-plus membership (the largest in Europe).
A clue as to what these numbers might indicate is afforded by the recent interview Luciana Berger, a Jewish MP who just defected from Labour, had with London Broadcasting Corporation.
Berger has been subjected to vile and unforgiveable antisemitic abuse, and said in the interview that of the 6 convicted for…