On Friday, the Times’ Sam Coates put out a series of tweets about the supposed ‘Labour antisemitism problem’ – an angle the ‘MSM’ continues to push in spite of clear evidence to the contrary – to tout an article by Coates and Lucy Fisher claiming Corbyn is ‘failing to tackle antisemitism’.
The clear evidence to the contrary is research conducted by polling company YouGov for the anti-Palestine group Campaign against Antisemitism (CAA) that antisemitic attitudes have fallen sharply under Corbyn’s leadership – data that were not released by the CAA, but which the SKWAWKBOX exclusively obtained from YouGov.
Neither CAA nor YouGov have any reason to massage figures favourably for the Labour Party.
That series of tweets contains a claim so far from the Times’ own findings that it constitutes fake news – and it was put out as the ‘key finding’ of the article:
The figures show no such thing. Nineteen percent considered it a ‘genuine’ and ‘serious’ problem – while forty-seven percent say it is a genuine problem but has been exaggerated for political purposes.
Sixty-six percent therefore consider it genuine, not nineteen.
In fact, another thirty percent do not say there is no ‘genuine’ problem, but consider it ‘not serious’.
In other words ninety-six percent of Labour members acknowledge there is a problem – and of course any antisemitism is a problem, even though Labour is far better than most other parties and society in general (those CAA/YouGov data again). Of those, only ninteen percent appear not to think it is being politically exploited.
It’s hard to imagine how the narrative put out around the figures could be much less accurate – yet Mr Coates does not appear to have a general problem adding numbers together, as he combines the 47% and 30% figures to arrive at his conclusion that 77% believe it is being exaggerated.
The SKWAWKBOX contacted Mr Coates for comment about the inaccuracy of this emphatically-made ‘key finding’.
He did not respond and the tweet has still – as of 11.53am on Sunday 1 April – not been removed, although for the sake of completeness, it should be noted that he acknowledged to journalist Owen Jones that he should have included the words ‘without qualification’ in his tweet.
However, the misleading tweet has not been deleted.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Why should ANYONE in the Labour Party think that in the Party anti-Semitism is a serious problem when time after time Jewish members, including Naomi Wimborne Idrissi from the Conference platform have said Labour does NOT have a problem with Jews?
We must not throw any bones to the Zionists out to get Corbyn, they will not be satisfied unless they get the whole carcass. To give them any acknowledgement whatsoever is playing into their hands.
We must not throw any bones to the Zionists out to get Corbyn, they will not be satisfied unless they get the whole carcass. To give them any acknowledgement whatsoever is playing into their hands.
——————————————————-
Agreed.
Dearie, Dearie, me . To simply deny there is any problem at all in our Labour Party with anti-Semitism ” because this throws bones to the Zionists” is fact-denying stupidity , not serious politics. For a start who exactly are these “Zionists” of whom you speak ? A careful definition of this many-layered multi “dog whistle” embedded slippery term, is needed – but seldom provided For too many on the Far Left inside, and outside, of our Party, a “Zionist” or “Zio” is actually anyone at all who considers that the only long term solution of the tragic Palestinian/Israel dispute (and the Israeli state includes a significant minority of very loyal Druze and Christian Arabs who do not want to live in a fundamentalist Islamic state as is currently on offer ) is a “two states ” one. By the extreme demand sloganised by the Far Left (originating in the foreign policy objectives of the defunct Soviet Union and its satellite Communist Parties postwar) the only acceptable “solution” is for the utter destruction of the Israeli state, and the supposed “absorption” of the Jews in Israel into a single new state. A complete fantasy demand that actually spells a new expulsion or genocide for what, since 1948, has shifted from being a “post Holocaust lifeboat state” to a distinct, unique , Hebrew speaking Jewish national grouping . By the definition of these “Israel must be utterly destroyed” maximalists , about 98% of our Party membership are “Zionists” or “social Zionists” , and probably about 95% of the UK population !
The quite obvious fact is that a small, but obsessed, minority on the Left have , no doubt originally motivated by deep sympathy for the Palestinian plight, crossed a line from hostility to the Israeli state’s many disgraceful actions and unwillingness to reach a workable territorial deal with the Palestinians , to an obsession with that slippery word “Zionism” which segues into a much older crude anti-Jewish(“fools socialism”) ideology which has always existed on the Left in Europe , and becomes hard to distinguish from “Strasserism”.
The UK Jewish community are currently being dangerously duped into being the demo-attending footsoldiers of the anti-Corbyn and general anti Left, Tory, Labour Right, and billionaire mass media-owned propaganda offensive. If we on the Labour Left are to bridge that vital gap in understanding and trust with the wider Jewish Community, we have to do some genuine soul-searching about the alliances we have sometimes made around Palestinian Solidarity with VERY dodgy anti-Semitic groupings , and the tolerance that has been shown to the most vicious manifestations of anti-Semitism (eg, well recorded appearances, unchallenged on many pro Palestinian demos of clerico-fascist Daesh supporters with their flags – and fundamentalist Islamicists carrying placards announcing “Hitler was Right” – oh yes they were), all justified because of “solidarity with the Palestinians”.
No doubt there will be a flood of self-justifying abuse from the self-described Left, extreme “anti-Zionists” at this post. But I say , anyone who utter posts lies like ” Jews were the chief funders of the sugar and slave trade ” , or , by complex misrepresentations of history, blames the Jews themselves (sorry , “Zionists” ) for the WWII Holocaust, or tars them with “collaboration with the Nazis” , has so lost the plot from being genuine socialists that they should have no place in our Party, or on the Left.
How was the pool of “Labour members” chosen, how were individuals selected and how was their membership confirmed genuine?
What Labour members would even agree to complete a poll by Times/YouGov on anti-semitism in Labour?
Who couldn’t anticipate questions from that rag to be of a “when did you stop beating your wife?” nature intended to discredit Labour?
I ask because I’d tell them to fuck off sharpish – wouldn’t you?
Unfortunately the party is still plagued with gobshites who support the likes of greasy & phillips, who atually boast of socialising with toerags, or field who writes columns in the s*n.
Therefore you’ll still get them responding in droves to this sort of bullsh*t in full knowledge that it is indeed bullsh*t and will be spun out to become even stinkier bullsh*t.
‘JohnP’
Your comment is the type of drivel designed to obscure and obfuscate.
First, as shown by the blog from SB, anti-Semitism in the Party under Corbyn has reduced not increased. If it was higher in the past, why wasn’t there the same frenzy then? The answer is simple, Zionists and the right wing have joined forces to get Corbyn out.
Secondly, it’s mainly Zionists, because of their allegiance to Israel, who are now stirring up the anti-Semitism garbage. Jews who do not put Zionism at the centre of their faith support Jeremy Corbyn in large numbers but they hardly get a look-in in our biassed media.
Thirdly, It’s people such as yourself who are trying to muddy the meaning of ‘Zionism’ i.e. the belief that Palestine is the God given home for Jews and that Jews from any area of the world, as long as they are not black apparently, have a right to colonise Palestine and displace the Palestinians. Jews who are not Zionists reject this belief completely and campaign against it.
Fourthly, You mentioned the Holocaust as many Zionists often do as some sort of justification for setting up the State of Israel. In fact the colonisation of Palestine began way before the Holocaust or even either of the world wars for that matter!
So please, before you continue spreading your Zionist propaganda do a little research, you could start by getting yourself a copy of Miko Peled’s book ‘The General’s Son’. He is the Israeli writer and peace activist born and brought up in Jerusalem in a staunchly Zionist household. If he doesn’t know what Zionism and its evils are, no one does.
Finally, if you are a member of the Labour Party become a true Socialist, it’s fundamentally incompatible with Zionism.
The usual slippery , ahistorical, apology for the all-too frequent slippage of very well justified hostility to so many the policies of the state of Israel, into a crude , generalised , carelessly vague “anti-Zionism ” which seeks to deny the core role of the European WWII Holocaust in the massive Jewish migration of its European survivors to Palestine , and the formation of Israel as a “Jewish Lifeboat state” (still facing pogroms in Poland from fellow Poles AFTER the war was over when they tried to return “home” ), is indistinguishable from anti-Semitism.
You just keep on smugly wallowing in your self-denial about your dodgy , juvenile simplistic posturing politics, Jack T. By the way, Jack, “Zionism” as a political philosophy has many strands, which your crude reductionism, and ignorance of history, sadly fails to grasp.
Who turned out to be sadly correct in the long, fractious European political debate on “socialism v the political philosophy of Zionism (ie, the need for a distinct Jewish state homeland) during WWII ? Socialists, including many Jews, who insisted that the way forward for European Jews was to ignore the lesson of unceasing periodic pogroms, and throw in their lot with socialist parties to build a non discriminatory multi ethnic socialist state/s in Europe ? Or those gloomy Zionists (including many socialists too) who said that past history showed there was no future for Jews in the culturally embedded anti-Semitic culture of Europe – and therefore a need to establish a Jewish state elsewhere ,( not necessarily Palestine at first )? I’m afraid the murder of 6 million Jews , during a racial frenzy in which the German Nazis enlisted willing volunteers from all the states they conquered, decided that old “socialism versus Jewish nationalism” argument pretty comprehensively for most surviving European Jewish communities ! That is the real root of the eventual mass adoption of Zionism as a political philosophy by a majority of Jews – not some strange ahistorical desire to colonise Palestine by previously long-settled European Jewish communities – independent of the brutal reality of the WWII Holocaust.
No doubt you are yet another of those “anti-Zionist ” zealots who deny the right of Israel to exist at all, – in company with only the most extreme Muslim Fundamentalist groups . The Labour party, most governments across the globe, and even the PLO, support a “Two States negotiated solution” . By your extreme viewpoint pretty much everyone in our Labour Party is therefore a “Zionist” , Jew, and non-Jew alike. You have totally lost the plot Jack T. Time you left our Party.
JohnP, your whole response is a pathetic attempt to justify the colonisation and illegal occupation of Palestine by a bunch of European Zionists – yes, it’s that simple.
Einstein didn’t support it and neither do thousands of peace loving non-Zionist Jews.
Hello John, I would seriously like to hear whether you think this Rabbi is also anti-Semitic or perhaps from a Zionist perspective a self hating Jew??
This issue It is being used as a big stick to beat Jeremy Corbyn and I speak as someone who took part in the 1945 General Election and have held many posts with the Labour Party but never came across anti-Semitism in all those years. In my view some of the people who should be kicked out of the Labour Party reside within the PLP as they pursue their vendetta against our elected Leader..
Were ALL or a vast majority of Labour Party members surveyed?
If not, the whole thing is worthless.
96% of ? = ?
I think life is about stories, hearing them, sharing them but most importantly learning from them. So here’s one of mine, it may be useful or it may be not.
I used to work at an adult education centre at a university and in the mid to late 1990’s I was lucky enough to go to an international adult education conference in Tunisia (where the PLO were based at the time) and as a working class young male from an inner city council estate it was exciting to mix with Sandinistas and PLO reps and others from around the World.
To our surprise Yasser Arafat addressed the conference and being a good observer I noticed that the front two rows were taken over by PLO reps and some of their wives and I was embarrassed; the women were dripping in diamonds (and I later found out the PLO Leaders all lived in luxurious villas – we went to one) whilst thousands of Palestinians lived in squalor in camps.
I also remember that all the delegates had their individual photos taken with Arafat and mine was included in a university magazine when I got back but I always remember a Jewish woman in the office was not too happy, but I never got to tell her.
If you studied the photo you may have noticed something was missing: Yasser was wearing a bloody gun in its holster so as I was a little taller than him (he was quite small) I positioned my body to hide the gun (I think Yasser thought I was just being friendly) but as a peaceful left wing democratic socialist I got the picture I wanted.
But I also noticed that Right Wing Hamas were clever, they got in with the poor and offered services to win hearts and minds. I later read that when they got some power they also created a lot of jobs (as their fighters). Some may see Hamas as progressive but I remember reading that during the Israeli bombing of Gaza some brave (too brave) young Palestinians held a protest to try to get Hamas to stop sending their rockets into Israel which they felt was causing the massive Israeli overreaction and loss of Palestinians lives – Right Wing Hamas turned up and promptly shot them all!
I will not tell people what to do from thousands of miles away but call me niave but I just wish there were more left wing democratic socialist forces on all sides to help to find a peaceful solution.
I worry that with the 70th Anniversary of the Nakba coming up a violent strategy may cause an unnecessary further loss of Palestinian lives.
With the current Tory Defence Minister being “Too stupid to be Defence Secretary” the World I would argue needs more Peacemongers like Jeremy!
Solidarity!
Must say, in all three of the general election victories I worked for Blair’s New Labour, I never caught the slightest whiff of anti-semitism, except as a cudgel against Old Labour used to justify stitching up the party, as now. Same people, doing the same thing, over and over. At the time, I found it weird and insulting as a visiting Yank. It suggests a real anti-semitism in the accuser more than anything else – the assumption that ANY criticism of capital, or Israel, simply must spawn from hate.
This smear is so predictable, even Jerry Seinfeld (famed Jew) 20 years ago was laughing at it.I call it the Uncle Leo routine, link to Seinfeld reference below. I find Jezza’s response a bit too self-accusatory, as there is likely no more anti-semitism in Labour than in the wider population as a whole. Eventually, in my opinion, the British voter will laugh this all off, too, as rigged capital can only deflect a mass movement’s awakening for so long. This is all desperation at the growing realization a Labour government is coming and won’t be stopped.
http://www.timrusso.org/2016/10/davos-men-bring-the-uncle-leo-anti-semite-routine-across-the-pond/
It is time to put this insane antisemitism slur to bed. We should just be ignoring the whole fuss because there is absolutely nothing that can be done to placate the accusers. They don’t want the ‘problem’ to be dealt with they want to get rid of Corbyn. Tell them to get lost and leave all counter attacks to LVL. Otherwise just don’t have anything to do with it and just let them scream because they will be doing that anyway.
IRA terrorist, Czech spy, Kremlin stooge, antisemite – what is to come – paedophile?
Spot on Ray.
“– what is to come – paedophile?”
No! The odious John Mann has already played that card.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11758612/Jeremy-Corbyn-accused-of-inaction-over-paedophile-scandal.html
Jeremy Corbyn became an MP in 1983, and the scumbag John Mann asks why he did nothing between 1970 and 1980s when Thatcher held all the dossiers on her own party’s involvement. He’s so concerned when he can do as much damage to the Labour Party as he can.
JVL
The headline in the ‘recent post’ on the left hand side of the blog for this article needs to be corrected — it substitutes 96% for 66% —
No, it doesn’t – check the article. 96% is correct
Meanwhile after the Tory vans ‘Illegal Immigrants go home” letters are dropping on Black citizens doors who have been here many years (and contributed to society) saying go ‘home’!
So those who attack Labour – like us will you fight for these citizens?
Footnote – diverse young people in London – stop stabbing each other – the racists are laughing at you!
Anything to discredit the leader because the right know they do not have the NEC,nor the machine anymore.
Richard Dennis