Talk Elections

Is the British Labour Party anti-Semitic?

Yes, clearly and blatantly, but with a caveat. This isn't the British Labour party, it's a strange Communist-Nazi hybrid movement that has hollowed it out and is wearing its skin. It's dominated by a small band of sociopathic, ruthless cultists who are working to purge all opposition - with declining success. Hopefully the evil that's infected the party will soon be purged after a crushing election defeat and the proud party that carried itself with honor for hundreds of years will emerge again.

Currently, yes, it is, but that's a recent development and, one hopes, a temporary one.

I don't think it's actually as recent as people with an axe to grind against its current leader make it out to be (although there's no question that Corbyn has made it worse). But yes, it is an institutionally antisemitic organization, and this needs to change now more than ever.

It is a party with anti-Semites in it, just like any other significant organisation.

Unfortunately, quantifying the problem any more precisely than that runs into two key obstacles:

1) the way certain people have shamelessly turned AS into a crude factional weapon against the present leadership;

2) the device ardent Likudists are fond of - expanding AS to cover virtually all criticism of Israel and its government.

Maybe the coming report will shed some actual light on all this. Or perhaps not that much, depressingly.

Absolutely not.

Its a false equivalence. The Party does not only have "anti-semites" in it, the Leadership itself is the problem. There are very many criticisms that one can have of the Tories, but Boris Johnson laying a wreath for Anders Breivik or the like is most definitely not one of them.

Can anyone explain specifically how the Labour Party is anti-semitic? Remember that criticism of Israeli foreign policy is not anti-semitic.

Please watch the panorama documentary on the subject and remember that the EHRC (a public body sign statutory powers of investigation) is currently investigating under the equalities act. Labour members have send sickening and vile anti-Semitic images to Labour MPs, accused them of being paid by Mossad and of course claimed the whole fiasco is invented by Israel.

The funny thing is that lots of the pro Palestine MPs who have done the legwork in parliament are clean when it comes to AS; the idea that Labours views on Israel changed in 2015 is as laughable as the claim anti-semitism didn’t exist before- but it’s certainly got a lot worse, and the party structures for dealing with it were awful.

The equally damning question is why so many anti-semites are attracted to Labour?

Parts of the Labour Party are anti-Semitic but it seems wrong to say that the entire party is anti-Semitic when there are plenty of MPs who are disgusted by the actions of the circle surrounding Corbyn.

No more than the GOP is anti-Arab/Muslim (not that most Americans know the difference).

Just a question to those who have queried my post above - so what do you think a Corbyn-led government would actually *do* to harm Jewish people if it was in power?

This is a fairly important thing regarding any supposed AS tendencies, but never seems to get a proper answer.

How would we know?

There's scenarios where it's limited to harassing "Zionists" out of public service and continuing their ongoing process of sweeping antisemitic harassment and abuse under the rug.

There's also scenarios where, holding the wheels of power, things move very fast and very bloody with no chance for British Jewry to escape.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to not find out?

Does this image (posted on a white supremacist website originally) qualify only as "criticism of Israeli foreign policy"?

()

This woman was initially suspended from her position in the local Labour Party over it but on appeal that was overturned with the Labour board claiming that image wasn't anti-Semitic.

No such "scenarios" exist, save in the minds of those who are utterly and terminally deranged.

The main thing that may *actually* happen is that those lobbying for Israel might not get as favourable treatment.

Of course, even this will be intolerable AS to some.

Thank goodness Atlas has you to goysplain anti-Semitism to the forum’s Jewish posters ::)  Perhaps now you can enlighten us as to how you find the time to build straw men when you’re already so busy moving goal posts.

Go on then, you explain to me how a few people s***posting on Twitter is going to lead to a new Kristallnacht.

Is it "goysplaining" to say that Corbyn isn't going to literally start a Final Solution? I'm critical of the man and the party on the issue, but I really think that's hyperbole. For another comparison, it's pretty clear that the conservative party is Islamophobic, but only the most deranged Tory hater believes Boris and co are going to start a mass pogrom. Not to traipse down the "actually we found a Jew who thinks it's OK so I can say k***" dumb route, but I highly doubt people like Ed Miliband and Alex Sobel would be keeping the whip if they believed that. (I know of the idea of the self-hating Jew, but I would feel weird as a Gentile labeling any Jew as self-hating)

It's clear to me that there is an anti-Semitic problem in Labour, which isn't to say that the majority of Labour's members are anti-semitic, but that leadership has ignored the issue for too long especially because the current leadership spent years associating themselves with factions of the far-left that are certainly anti-Semitic (e.g. they use "Zionist" as a perjorative, are obsessed with the supposed "control" that Israel and/or Mossad have over Western governments, indulge in the most crass insinuations about Jews in relations to banking and so on). I don't think this is unique to Labour - and if the party was to start griping about unfairness, they wouldn't be totally unreasonable to point at similar examples in the Lib Dems, Tories and Greens, but a party that defines itself as anti-racist must be especially vigilant in ridding itself of the taint.

I’m waiting with a bag of popcorn in hand. This should be good.

This is the crux of the issue for me. Folks are right to call out the asinine and demented anti-Jewish conspiracy theories that pass for 'anti-Zionist' rhetoric among Labour members, and Corbyn et. al. have been far too complacent about taking steps to set the boundaries of acceptable debate. Yet, when Corbyn's opponents (be they ideological/partisan ones or less biased lefty ones) denounce him with preposterous, exaggerated straw man arguments and chicken little catastrophizing, it makes it hard to take such criticisms seriously. Worse, it makes the issue of AS seem like a partisan/ideological issue, providing cover to sincerely bigoted voices (that Labour should purge itself of, no questions asked).

 

It's not "A few people s***posting on Twitter".

It's a loyal cult engaging in mass campaigns of antisemitic harassment, and the party and law enforcement brass under their control working to sweep it under the rug.

That's what they do when they're out of power. Why am I supposed to give them any benefit of the doubt about what they'd do when they have power?

See, this is what I'm talking about. Those descriptions of the Labour Party and the leadership ('a loyal cult', 'mass campaigns', 'sweep under the rug') are exaggerations at best, histrionic hyperbole at worst. It also doesn't help bolster credibility when they come from an avatar titled 'Corbyn is a Strasserist'.

People concerned about institutionalized bigotry should be worried when it gains mainstream salience and access to the levers of power. But if opposing such bigotry is really one's priority, and one does not differentiate between different kinds of bigotry, the Tories, UKIP, the Brexit Party, and the Lib Dems (when Farron was in charge) ought to incur the same level of denunciation as Labour has.

Tbf, it does seem that the Tories are more Islamophobic than Labour is anti-Semitic. So while this doesn't excuse anti-Semitism in Labour, people thinking the Tories are the tolerant option in this election and voting for them as a result are deluding themselves.

Eh, I'd call it even. Labour's anti-Semitic elements are a function of their being a party of more fringy political movements, and a longstanding anti-imperial sentiment that has found expression in anti-Zionist politics lately. The Tories' Islamophobia is more deeply imbricated in their membership's insular, jingositic worldview, but isn't tied to any particular policy or faction.

They're both equally awful.

Buddy, Coryn is not going to start a second Final Solution. Get over yourself.

I'm pretty sure you're posting in good faith, so a few things:

1) I haven't seen anyone say that Corbyn is going to literally going start another final solution (that was not how I interpreted Ray's post) and I certainly haven't said anything to that effect.  Nor would I because obviously Corbyn isn't going to start some sort of second Holocaust.  

2) There is middle ground between "Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite" and "Jeremy Corbyn is literally the next Hitler."  

3) That said, it's hardly unreasonable to suggest that at the more extreme end of possible scenarios is one where Corbyn gives the appearance of tacit approval of violent anti-Semitism more or less the way Trump did of violent racism when he tried to "both sides" Charlottesville.  That isn't the most likely outcome imo, but it wouldn't exactly be way off-brand for Corbyn either.

4) On a related note - and this next part isn't directed at you, so much as it is an expression of general frustration with certain maroon-avatars - it's really starting to get on my nerves how certain folks on Atlas seem to feel every Jewish poster owes them an explanation for any dumb thing they heard another Jewish persons say on Twitter once.  We're not a frigging hive mind and not all Jewish people feel the exact same way about every issue.


If s***posting could cause a new Kristallnacht, then it'd have already happened the day you created your account.  See, I can give dumb, bad-faith responses too :)


Speaking of getting over things, have you gotten over the fact that no one else on Atlas liked season eight of Game of Thrones or do you still think RINO Tom/GrassRoots/whichever R-IL it was you blew up at earlier this year is leading a forum conspiracy against you?

You're a long-time Corbyn loyalist on this forum. Your post reads like more routine gaslighting.

More heat than light in this thread thusfar, I think. I suppose I should comment because, as is well known, this is the issue that I cancelled my not short membership and even longer affiliation with the Labour Party over.

What is an institution? It is made up of the individuals within it, of its rules and practices, of its collective actions and its collective memories. If it is an institution with some form of membership structure, then it is quite possible for the institution to have characteristics at a corporate level that are not shared at an individual level by a majority of members. It is actually very common. I don't think it is really possible to discuss this issue without that point being acknowledged.

Anyway, I was asked about some of this a little while ago and most of what I wrote in response seems relevant, so instead of just repeating myself, I will quote the relevant parts:


Some additional comments are worth making. The first is that Labour, as an institution, also happens to deal appallingly with claims of sexual harassment and has, in general, an internal culture that a lot of people would find to be... um... aggressively masculine. As with the Sarwar case, this different problem highlights something of the true nature of this issue.

The second is that while it is not rational to belief that a Corbyn government (especially one without a Corbynite parliamentary majority: not possible, by the way, even if Labour were to win a majority, somehow, in the present election) would present as a material threat to the Jewish community, it is not actually reasonable to demand cold rationality from the Jewish community on the subject of its safety, given that the Holocaust remains, just about, within living memory and most of them lost family members to it. This does deeply complicate exactly how people on the Left can respond, and I understand that it makes things difficult. Nevertheless...

A third and, mercifully you may well say, final point now: an additional issue is that for a brief but significant period in the 1950s and 60s (a very important time in the history of the Jewish community in Britain for obvious reasons), the Labour Party was one of the main bulwarks against antisemitism in British society. There was no easier way to get on the wrong side of Gaitskell or Wilson than to be caught making an antisemitic remark: some otherwise promising MPs had their careers derailed for doing so. This was a long time ago now, but history is history and it has added a real sense of betrayal to what has happened: e.g. that the institution that Grandfather voted for is now like this being widely seen as adding a grotesquely personal insult to what would be felt as an injury no matter.

I may have misunderstood Ray, but I seem to remember similar statements from him that seemed to suggest he feared Corbyn would drop a nuclear missile in Israel. The issue is that the AS that Corbyn has surrounded himself in isn't that kind - which in this country remains the domain of the far-right, a faction which - regardless of what you may think about Corbyn - has no truck with the Labour leader, and despises him for many reasons. Corbyn's AS is more the "muted" kind endemic in the middle-class of this country (and probably most countries) and in his case is wrapped up around the obsession with supposed Israeli influence. Definitely something problematic that should be pulled out, but a clear step (in my mind) from Trump's "good people" remark about those chanting "Jews shall not replace us".

Definitely agree with the bolded. Throughout this whole debate, I've tried to read the opinions of British Jews throughout the spectrum and they obviously are not even remotely operating under a hive-mind. Rest assured, if it gets to the stage that Jews across the board are leaving and casting aside the party, I would follow them out. No policy plank is worth that kind of garbage.






didn't Bevin have problematic views, or am I mistaken? Although I suppose he was the old guard by that stage anyway.

Bevin was indeed a pretty unashamed anti-Semite, yes. Which makes his adoption as a poster boy by some of the "Eustonite" brigade in recent years all the more ironic.

I tuned out from the donnybrook surrounding Farron eventually, and I've made my low opinion of the Lib Dems as a party very clear on this forum, but is there any reason at all to believe that he used or would have used the party structure to grind his own axe about gay people to nearly the same extent that the Corbyn people have used Labour's party structure to grind their axes about Jews? The crux of people's problem with Labour is not merely that Corbyn is personally antisemitic.

Buddy, if you need to bring up things that happened months ago about something not even related to the subject of discussion, then I'm not sure you have much of an argument.

quote author=Corbyn is a Strasserist link=topic=342148.msg7033349#msg7033349 date=1572561092 uid=8153]

You're a long-time Corbyn loyalist on this forum. Your post reads like more routine gaslighting.
[/quote]

How is me saying that Corbyn is not going to start a second Holocaust is gaslighting?

I see what you mean, but the threshold for a minority group (LGBT or Jewish) being rightfully upset with a political party is pretty low in either case. Jewish people have every right to be mad at Corbyn and Labour for turning a blind eye to the cranks and crypto-racists posing as 'Anti-Zionists'. Similarly, an LGBT person had every right to be mad that the Lib Dems - supposedly the party of personal freedom - would even contemplate elevating a homophobe to such a high position.

Read my reply to Crabcake if you want a serious response.

I may have missed someone else pointing it out so forgive me if this has already been said, but it’s not merely Corbyn and his friends in Leadership (although they certainly are part of the problem), but what (who) the phenomenon of “Corbynism” has attracted to Labour.

That is to say, even if Corbyn and his allies in the Party are not intentionally engaging in anti-Semitic tropes or ignoring incidents of anti-Semitism within Labour circles, the indisputable reality is that Corbyn’s rise to Leadership has brought out the most noxious and extremist aspects of the Left who do indeed, to one extent or another, believe in some kind of (((Zionist))) conspiracy - and, as indicated, wrap their anti-Semitism in a thinly veiled condemnation of ISRAELI APARTHEID (or “Jewish supremacist settler-colonialism” *le sigh*). And that’s when they’re being subtle.

Not that I want to make some sort of false equivalence, but if you look at how white nationalists seem to love Donald J Trump and how he doesn’t seem to have any problems whatsoever with that support, one would hope that the anti-Semitic parts of the Left loving Corbyn would give him and his best intentioned supporters pause. Especially since, as CrabCake and others have noted, a leftist party ought to hold itself to higher standards than “but wait, we’re not any worse than the Tories!”

I think that point was raised in another thread. It's not the strongest way to denounce Corbyn or Labour, as it reeks of the kind of specious guilt-by-association that characterizes a lot of disingenuous arguments (about AS or anything else).

Drawing comparisons between Corbyn and Trump - as people or as leaders of movements - is dubious at best, but I see what you're coming from. What I think is quite notable, however, is that Trump's flagrant racism was obvious beforehand and has only gotten worse in office. Corbyn's complacency about anti-Semitism seems to have evolved somewhat since the 00s (he is, for the record, still *way* too complacent) and I have difficulty imagining him getting away with the kind of indifference Trump has shown to political violence.

Apparently Jewish voters think so:

https://twitter.com/EAA_UK/status/1190361714614775811

the British irony thing was the most repulsive thing he's said though tbh.

Even today, the Labour Party is not Jeremy Corbyn...

But that's the point in a way, granted it was somewhat crass and tasteless - but compared to what Farage said, or indeed the far from unknown Tory conspiracy theorising about Soros?

How about when he called a convicted terrorist who received seven life sentences for organizing a Hamas suicide bombing that killed seven people his “brother” on Iranian State TV.  Corbyn also implied that said terrorist should never have been imprisoned in the first place given what he was accused of (“you have to ask the question why they [Palestinians arrested for terrorism] were in prison in the first place.”).  That was much worse imo.  

Then there was the time he repeatedly compared Israel to the Nazis at an event called “Never Again — For Anyone: From Auschwitz to Gaza.”  

I hadn’t even heard of the British irony comment before, but I’d file that one under “dumb, but harmless.”  It’s certainly not the worst thing Corbyn has done by any stretch of the imagination.  I don’t know that I’d even call it anti-Semitic per-se, just...well...dumb.


Farage is probably worse, but that’s kind of a low bar.  “It could be worse, at least he’s not as anti-Semitic as the guy who bragged about getting 1/3 of the BNP vote” isn’t exactly going to put anyone’s mind at ease.  Plus, Corbyn is infinitely more powerful than some random UKIP grifter and thus, people are going to worry more about his views.  I guarantee people would be a lot more worried about Farage if he were leading one of England’s two largest political parties.

I think most of the people raising these questions though don't support Farange or the Tories...

I think the hyperbole about how Corbyn would being about new concentration camps is pretty absurd but there's a lot of red flags that aren't being addressed well....see that image posted by me on the first page. Does posting images like that from a white supremacist website only fall under "criticism of Israel"?

Again, no one has said or implied Corbyn would do that.  It’s just a strawman Horus and certain maroon avatars are whipping out in an attempt to discredit legitimate concerns about Corbyn’s anti-Semitism.

The issue for me is it seemed to case "Zionists" as inherently foreign and non-British, which is one of the the more alarming form of anti-semitism around

I've seen posts here talking about "the likely refugee crisis" of Jews fleeing the UK if he became PM so no it's not a strawman. But handwaving or simply ignoring all the issues with him is absurd too.

Fair, I haven’t noticed those posts myself, but I believe you.

47% of British Jews say they plan to emigrate if he becomes PM. This isn't a hypothetical.

The worst case scenario of Corbyn trying to seal the borders and kill all of Britain's Jews is highly unlikely - mostly due to him not having the power. But him using every tool at his disposal to create a hostile climate for Jews, including winking at third-party violence in the way Trump does at far-right violence? That's not a big leap and it could definitely result in a very fast exodus from the UK for several hundred thousand people.

Talk about extreme hyperbole.

What percentage of Democrats "planned to emigrate" if Trump became President?

Democrats aren't a historically persecuted minority facing a government where the leader has been inciting against them for decades.

It is just silly that Jews dont consider Farage anti-semitic by a 42/32 margin, but consider Corbyn anti-Semitic by a 87/8 margin.

However, it should be mentioned that UK Jews are overwhelmingly conservative in recent years. They split  approximately 70 Tory 20 Labour in 2015 (pre-Corbyn), despite Millibrand being of Jewish origin (though atheist).

No, But the leader of the party is.

certainly nowhere near 47%, plus I'd guess the average American Dem can't emigrate (to a place they'd actually be willing to emigrate to) for a lack of skills, money or clean record.  I'd guess that's not the case with the average Jewish person in the UK.

There are some in the party that are and Corbyn has refused to reprimand and deal with it.

I recommend you read this article to see how Jews feel about Corbyn:

  https://medium.com/@rob.mindell/three-reasons-why-a-corbyn-government-would-threaten-jewish-life-in-britain-cbe20cbd813d


The article sets out 3 reasons why Corbyn is a threat to Jewish life in Britain.

1. Corbyn’s threats to cut of trade with Israel threatens Jewish access to a main supply of kosher food.   Corbyn supported boycotts of Israeli goos.  Labour at it’s 2019 Party Conference adopted a policy singling out Israel as a country with which Britain should not trade
2.The Jewish community needs a government it can rely on to provide protection. Corbyn has never provided assurances of protections. In 1994 Balfour House, a Jewish community building.  In the years thereafter Corbyn has campaigned for the release of the bombers
3.As a backbencher Corbyn invited many sworn killers of Jews to Parliament. He spoke at rallies and conferences side by side with those who would diminish the horrors of the Holocaust and use those horrors to threaten the supporters of Israel. The Labour Party has seen its membership rise along with a rise in in anti-Semitic incidents. Labour Party functions include statements of “conspiracy theories about money, power, and control by Jews to persecute others.”

The Brexit Party/UKIP are constantly (and rightly) raked over the coals for bigotry/racism in their ranks. The Tories also receive criticism for Islamophobia, which undoubtedly exists in their party, though as has been brought up previously nobody in the party has stooped anywhere near to Corbyn's rock bottom level of laying wreaths for terrorists.

As for Farron, that was truly a shameful media smear, contrary to media narrative he actually has had a pretty strong voting record on LGBT rights during his tenure in parliament. We live in a free society and people are totally allowed to personally believe something is wrong so long as they don't try to use their own beliefs to infringe on the human rights of others. Farron's Christian beliefs are in no way comparable to in Labour's 'issues' with Antisemitism.

There's a problem of it in the party, and it not being handled properly, and although some of it is magnified due to conflation of "criticisms of Israel" and antisemitism that's not all that it is and it would be crazy to presume otherwise.

That being said, it's also crazy to act like "Corbyn is a nazi." That's an insane thing to say. I think insensitivity/ignorance should be treated differently than clear malicious views (such as far-right views about Islamic immigrants).

(Full disclosure I'm neither Jewish nor British, and agree with Corbyn quite a bit on policy--I definitely oppose the Tories and Tory: Bremain Edition quite a bit--so maybe it's a blindspot or I'm giving too much "benefit of the doubt." Also perhaps as someone who has grown up around American conservatism seeing a take on the Israel-Palestine conflict that is not callously bigoted towards Palestinians and their right to live is refreshing, so I might miss it if those takes are flawed in other ways.)

At the risk of relitigating this entire matter, Corbyn's wreath laying is a far better example of a 'shameful media smear' than Farron's beliefs about queer people. Farron's record on LGBT issues in parliament was decidedly mixed (voted against bans on LGBT discrimination in public services, abstained on equal marriage), and he was evasive about his own views about gay people during the 2017 campaign. Granted, he subsequently 'clarified' that he was pro-LGBT (specifically, that he didn't think gay sex was a sin), but a year later he turned around and said he regretted saying that. LGBT people had every reason to think Farron was a fairweather friend and a hypocrite.

Corbyn's wreath laying controversy, on the other hand, was a clear example of deliberate (or unthinking, at any rate) misdirection. Corbyn, along with a Tory and Lib Dem Lord, attended a conference on Palestinian rights in Tunisia. Part of the conference involved a wreath laying ceremony commemorating the deaths of PLO members during a 1985 Israeli attack; Corbyn attended this. After the ceremony, delegates moved on to a cemetery where the victims of the bombing were buried. Also buried in that cemetery were people suspected of being involved in the 1972 Munich bombing. The controversy stems from deliberately conflating the wreath laying ceremony with the visit to the cemetery, and the coincidence of who was buried there. (See this BBC explainer for details (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45196409))

For the record, I see how this would still look a bit hinky for someone who doesn't want to give Corbyn the benefit of the doubt. But it's an inaccurate smear to state Corbyn laid wreaths for terrorists.

More to the point, Corbyn's been quite consistent about his beliefs: about religious toleration, seeking peace in Israel/Palestine through creating dialogue, and denouncing anti-Semitism. Unlike Farron he's never turned around and recanted them.

So does this mean you’re going to explain to me how the incidents described below weren’t anti-Semitic?  Because I’ve yet to see any of Corbyn’s defenders in this thread respond to or even acknowledge them.  I don’t wanna assume anything, but it certainly comes off as folks ignoring the worst instances of Corbyn’s anti-Semitism and instead cherry-picking incidents that are a bit easier to defend.


I get that a lot of maroon avatars like Corbyn, but can’t we just call a spade a spade and acknowledge that he’s an anti-Semite?

Respectfully, this is not the first thread about this topic on this forum. If you'd like to acquaint yourself with what has been debated in previous threads where the accusations you raised were discussed, you're more than welcome to do so.

Corbyn's in the unenviable position of having lost the benefit of the doubt among most of the people heavily invested in these issues. Just today he gave an interview where he called anti-Semitism "a poison and an evil in our society" and enumerated the steps he's taken since becoming Labour leader to address it. This will change precisely no one's mind about Corbyn, of course, and I struggle to imagine what words or actions he could deploy that would. People's nerves are too exposed and the debate is too visceral for any meaningful dialogue to occur.

I wish Corbyn had been swifter to slap down anti-Semitic outbursts among Labour Party members over the past few years, and he's definitely made some regrettable choices in phrasing/post sharing. But he doesn't seem any more an anti-Semite to me than Boris Johnson seems a racist or Tim Farron a homophobe. That's to say, bigotry of one form or another is endemic in British society; no one is going to be completely free of it, and almost everyone expresses a mild form of it from time to time (can't count the number of witless jokes I've heard British people tell about French/German/Spanish people over the years)

If Corbyn holds anti-Semitic views, he seems, from my view, willing to acknowledge they are something to atone for, not defend, and something he cannot expect to base policy around if/when in a position of power. For me that's enough to relent on the denunciation for now. For someone who, for ideological or sincerely felt emotional reasons, doesn't trust Corbyn, that's probably not enough. But then, probably nothing ever will be.

tl:dr version:I don't want to think about those things, much less type a response, so do some searching, the questions have been dodged in the past by people better at this than me

My lack of willingness to type a response seems to be belied by the length of the post I actually typed :P

Fittingly, that sort of response is precisely the kind of incapacity for dialogue I alluded to.

In any case, Labour's record on AS is pretty easy to track down. There's a wikipedia article on it. It's worth a read.

Thank you, for the thoughtful response.  I don’t agree with all of what you said, but I have a better sense now of where you’re coming from and can at least acknowledge it as a legitimate position.  As to what would be enough, I’d like to see some sort of genuine apology for his past comments and a real effort to address anti-Semitism within the British Labor Party for a few years, I’d certainly be willing to give him another chance, but sometimes forgiveness has to be earned, you know?  

This shows that in the UK, the rates of anti-semitism are
4% of left-wing
4% of center
14% of right-wing

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/criticism-of-israel-and-antisemitism-shades-of-prejudice/

Between "But I didn't know Shylock was Jewish!" and the Hey Jews/Hey Jude thing Labour has certainly done a wonderful job to address concerns on the matter in the past few days.

This matter and Corbyn's record on Europe are the reasons I'm extremely unfomfortable with him as possibly the next PM.

Is this the "thing" which there is absolutely no evidence for, save the (highly dubious) word of a single hack? And has been denied by literally everybody else who was on the trip??

One of the chief media witchfinders in chief of Labour AS, the Graun's Jonathan Freedland, grossly libelled a totally innocent man on Twitter yesterday. I don't suppose that sort of thing bothers you though - all collateral damage in a greater "cause" innit.

Okay... No offense, but what's with the attitude? I can hardly see why you'd find it appropiate to go personal out of nowhere as if A. I had some sort of dark motive or was somehow committed to whatever "a greater cause" means, B. I somehow didn't care about facts, or C. somehow your argument was enhanced by pretending you can assume what I care about or not. All three are not only irrelevant, they're uncalled for.

Interested as I am on British politics I don't have a personal stake on the election or on the situation, I'm just pointing out that the Labour Party really isn't doing a wonderful job of addressing the issue and that there have been plenty of embarrassing - if not concerning - situations they've handled badly; and furthermore, that the sort of inappropiate (or abusive) behavior that keeps happening simply isn't normal.

If there's a valuable argument to be taken out from what you just said is that the media can make mistakes (had no idea about the Guardian thing) and that not every accussation is necessarily accurate. There certainly is merit for people to discuss whether media bias plays a role (or not) on how the issue is portrayed or presented, either by downplaying or overplaying.

Still, even in that context and with the caveat that mistakes are made (and looking more closely at what has been said, Dan Corden could turn out to be one), there seems to be a lot of very real situations and/or screw ups which, at least from what one can see at a distance, are causing a lot of distress to people who shouldn't be feeling unwelcome in a party which asserts to be against racism in any form.

I agree with your post entirely; good points well made. What I think is important to acknowledge, however, is that much of the rancour in this debate more generally is based on an unspoken - and I would argue unfair - assumption: that any alleged incident of AS in Labour automatically becomes part of the story whether or not it is corroborated.

The Corden incident seems to be (still early days) a great example of this. Assuming this really is a libelous hit job, we're still talking about it in a thread about AS, and the media is still reporting it with that framing. The damage is done. Labour gets tarnished, we spent another day not talking about the Tories' dismal record on the NHS/Brexit/what-have-you, and every ostensibly open minded person has their biases reinforced by a media narrative that's based, at least in this instance, on a false premise.

To be clear, I'm *not* saying Labour and Corbyn haven't earned a bit of skepticism on this matter or that they haven't done things that genuinely deserved media attention. But if you're trying to understand the nature of this debate in British politics, it helps *a lot* to observe how accusations of AS can be easily and eagerly sensationalized, especially by outlets who are champing at the bit to undermine Labour/Corbyn from the get go.

Apologies to Lumine for being a bit snappy last night, not for the first time cp sums things up well.

Aw, shucks. Thanks. And good call on the apology. Far too rare a sight in this discussion.