Downplaying the anti-Semitism of the Corbyn years is a disgrace

Telegraph

9 hours ago

It was hard not to sympathise with Jeremy Corbyn 's most devout supporters back when he was leader of the Labour Party.
Desperate to cling on to whatever collective responsibility existed in the party at the time, determined to show undying loyalty to the Sage of Islington, they gritted their teeth and nodded along to his declaration that Labour would, at last, accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.
Many of them were profoundly unhappy about this apparent capitulation to the 'Zionist entity'. How could they possibly go through life without describing Israel, on a daily basis, as a 'racist endeavour', which the definition now proscribed?
You have to hand it to the various and conflicting interests of what we call the hard-Left – they just about managed to make it to the 2019 general election with sufficient (though unconvincing) lip service to the IHRA's definition to make the party's pummelling at the hands of voters about something other than anti-Semitism. Which, under Corbyn's leadership, might be counted as a rare victory.
But now, after hiding behind Labour's coattails for decades, the hard-Left has finally grown a backbone and decided to do what many in Labour have been urging them to do all along: leave the Labour Party and stand as a separate party.
Be honest about your politics and your political ambitions and stop depending on Labour to get the usual handful of 'socialist' MPs elected at each election. If you're that principled, why depend on a party you clearly despise for the votes you need to win?
In the last few weeks, precisely that has happened. Coventry MP Zarah Sultana has announced that she and Corbyn will co-lead a new Left-wing party that is so far without a name, a policy, or, indeed, a leader.
To this rather shambolic state of affairs we shall return in due course. In the meantime, Sultana is likely to be one of those people who, having decided to leave Labour, fell into an easy chair with a loud sigh of relief and repeated over and over to herself: 'Israel is a racist endeavour, Israel is a racist endeavour, Israel…'
In a potentially fascinating, and possibly consequential, intervention, Sultana has taken something of a swipe at Corbyn for his decision, during his tenure as leader of her old party, to accept – albeit reluctantly (some might say 'kicking and screaming') – the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.
'We have to build on the strengths of Corbynism… and we also have to recognise its limitations,' she told the New Left Review.
'It capitulated to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which famously equates it with anti-Zionism.' That sounds to me like a swipe at Corbyn himself, perhaps in revenge for his lukewarm (and apparently bewildered) response to her premature claim that she was to be a co-leader of his new party.
To most normal people, adhering to the IHRA's definition of anti-Semitism wasn't a huge sacrifice, and it says something quite appalling that to those of Sultana's political outlook, it is an unconscionable compromise of their right to free speech.
There is a certain type of politician for whom hatred and smearing of Israel – with its liberal democracy, Western-level human rights and tendency to shame by comparison all its Arab neighbours' own records in such matters – is an article of faith without such political life would be pointless.
Given that the new party, whatever it is to be called, hopes to capitalise on the impatience of at least some British Muslims with Labour's stance on Israel, it is hardly a surprise that Sultana wants to allow members to defame Israel without fear of disciplinary action.
Interestingly, another part of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is the suggestion that British Jews are in any way responsible for the actions of Israel. Is this also something Sultana will not put up with?
Certainly, judging by the behaviour of many of those middle-class keffiyeh-botherers who take to the streets every weekend, the acceptance of that particular part of the IHRA's definition would severely curb their venomous public declarations. And we can't have that, can we?
Sultana has helped the rest of us define a little bit more what her new party is about. True, it doesn't yet have any structure or leadership, or even a membership – just a large list of online supporters.
But the absence of policy – aside from hatred of Israel, obviously – is a problem. Since Sultana's announcement earlier in the summer, there is a sense that some precious momentum has been lost.
Nothing much seems to be happening, and time is moving on. We may assume that the new party will be all for trans rights and will campaign to remove women's sex-based spaces and services. It will probably echo the Greens' demands for an immediate halt to all plastic production and oil drilling.
We can feel confident that the identitarian bandwagon may consider itself fully boarded, with Critical Race Theory in particular a central part of the party's philosophy.
Open-door immigration, whether it's described that way or not, will be in there, as will an open-arms policy for welcoming asylum seekers.
So far, so predictable, although we might expect that other obligatory part of the hard-Left manifesto, the recognition of 'sex work' as legitimate, to face some resistance from the party's more, shall we say 'orthodox', members.
This has all the ingredients for a thoroughly entertaining conference season and next few years in UK politics. Whatever the outcome of the policy-making process, Sultana and Corbyn will soon find themselves at the top of a party that, whatever else it stands for, hates Israel and will likely create a hostile environment for British Jews.