Antisemitism exists in the Labour Party, as it does in all parts of society. More than any other political party, Labour has led the way in improving and implementing processes to address the issue effectively. This is not reflected in media coverage of the issue.
This article was originally published in February. As the BBC’s Panorama programme prepares what is expected to be a regurgitation of Murdoch press smears against Labour and its leader Jeremy Corbyn, it is being republished.
Labour members and supporters will be more than familiar with the scale, intensity and sheer volume of Establishment smear campaigns against Corbyn, but the latest campaign is expected to plumb new depths. The information below will help to correct the record.
Claims of ‘Labour antisemitism’ issue continue to appear in the media – including most recently comments from MPs about Labour and its general secretary Jennie Formby.
But only one side of the issue is almost exclusively presented – as the SKWAWKBOX reported, the media’s portrayal of last night’s meeting of the PLP (parliamentary Labour party) was described as skewed and inaccurate by attendees, who said it was a ‘disgraceful’, ‘bullying’ attack on Formby.
To correct the imbalance caused by poor mainstream journalist, below are forty facts about the issue that will rarely, if ever, appear in the so-called ‘MSM’:
1. In October 1936, Jeremy Corbyn’s mother participated in the battle of Cable Street indefence of British Jews after British fascists had staged an assault on the area. Corbyn was raised in a household passionately opposed to antisemitism in all its forms.
2. In 23rd April 1977, Corbyn organised a counter-demonstrationto protect Wood Green from a neo-nazi march through the district. The area had a significant Jewish population.
3. On 7 November 1990, Corbyn signed a motion condemning the rise of antisemitism in the UK
4. In 2002 Jeremy Corbyn led a clean-up and vigil at Finsbury Park Synagogue which had been vandalised in an anti-Semitic attack
5. On 30 April 2002, Corbyn tabled a motion in the House of Commons condemning ananti-Semitic attackon a London Synagogue
6. On 26 November 2003, Jeremy Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motioncondemningterrorist attacks on two synagogues
7. In February 2009, Jeremy Corbyn signed a parliamentary motion condemning a fascist for establishing a website to host antisemitic materials
8. On 24th March 2009, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising British Jews who resisted the Holocaust by risking their lives to save potential victims
9. Nine years ago, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising “Jewish News”for its pioneering investigation into the spread ofAntisemitism on Facebook
10. On 9 February 2010, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion calling for an investigation into Facebook and its failure to prevent the spread of antisemitic materials on its site.
11. On 27 October 2010, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising the late Israeli Prime Minister for pursuing a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine question.
12. On 13 June 2012, Corbyn sponsored and signed a motion condemning the BBC for cutting a Jewish Community television programme from its schedule.
13. 1 October 2013, Corbyn appeared on the BBC to defend Ralph Miliband against vile antisemitic attacks by the UK press.
14. Five years ago Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning antisemitism in sport.
15. On 1 March 2013, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning and expressing concern at growing levels of antisemitism in European football.
16. On 9 January 2014, Jeremy Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising Holocaust education programmes that had taken 20,000 British students to Auschwitz.
17. On 22 June 2015, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion expressing concern at the neo-nazi march being planned for an area of London with a significant Jewish population.
18. On 9 October 2016, Corbyn, close to tears, commemorated the 1936 Battle of Cable Street and recalled the role his mother played in defending London’s Jewish community.
19. On 3 December 2016, Corbyn made a visit to Terezin Concentration Camp when Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis. It was Jeremy’s third visit to such a camp, all of which were largely unreported in the most read UK papers.
20. Last year, a widely-endorsed 2018 academic report found ninety-five serious reporting failures in the reporting of the Labour antisemitism story with the worst offenders The Sun, the Mail & the BBC.
21. On 28 February 2016, five months after becoming leader, Jeremy Corbyn appointed Baroness Royall to investigate antisemitism at Oxford University Labour Club.
22. On 27 April 2016 Corbyn suspended an MP pending an investigation into antisemitism.
23. A day later, Corbyn suspended the three times Mayor of London after complaints of antisemitic comments. Party.
24. On 29 April 2016, Corbyn launched an inquiry into the prevalence of antisemitism in the Labour Party. In spite of later changes in how the inquiry was reported, it was initially praised by Jewish community organisations.
25. In Corbyn’s first seven months as leader of the Labour Party, just tencomplaints were received about antisemitism. 90% of those were suspended from the Labour Party within 24 hours.
26. In September 2017, Corbyn backed a motion at Labour’s annual conference introducing a new set of rules regarding antisemitism.
27. In the six months that followed the introduction of the new code of conduct, to March 2018, 94% of the fifty-four people accused of antisemitism remained suspended or barred from Labour Party membership. Three of the fifty-four were exonerated.
28. When Jennie Formby became general secretary of the party last year, she appointed a highly-qualified in-house Counsel, as recommended in the Chakrabarti Report.
29. In 2018, Labour almost doubled the size of its staff team handling investigations and dispute processes.
30. Last year, to speed up the handling of antisemitism cases, smaller panels of 3-5 NEC members were established to enable cases to be heard more quickly.
31. Since 2018, every complaint made about antisemitism is allocated its own independent specialist barrister to ensure due process is followed.
32. The entire backlog of cases outstanding upon Jennie Formby becoming General Secretary of the Labour Party was cleared within 6 months of Jennie taking up her post.
33. Since September 2018, Labour has doubled the size of its National Constitutional Committee (NCC) – its senior disciplinary panel – from 11 to 25 members to enable it to process cases more quickly.
34. Under Formby and Labour’s left-run NEC, NCC arranged elections at short notice to ensure the NCC reached its new full capacity without delay.
35. Since later 2018, the NCC routinely convenes a greater number of hearing panels to allow cases to be heard and finalised without delay.
36. In 2018, the NEC established a ‘Procedures Working Group’ to lead reforms in the way disciplinary cases are handled.
37. The NEC adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and all eleven examples of antisemitism attached to it.
38. A rule change agreed at Conference in 2018 means that all serious complaints, including antisemitism, are dealt with nationally to ensure consistency.
39. Last year, Jennie Formby wrote to the admins and moderators of Facebook groups about how they can effectively moderate online spaces and requested that any discriminatory content be reported to the Labour Party for investigation.
40. Since last year, no one outside Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit can be involved in decision-making on antisemitism investigations. This independence allows decisions free from political influence to be taken.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Antisemitism exists in the Labour Party, as it does in all parts of society. More than any other political party, Labour has led the way in improving and implementing processes to address the issue effectively, This is not reflected in media coverage of the issue.
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Brilliant. Thank you for this.
It would be entirely reasonable to put together 40 facts about BBC, there reporters and editors
Not least academic reports backing up this particular shitfest
Let’s see how the party handles it and more importantly who steps up to take it on,
All I want for Christmas is Labours John McLane
‘As Hunt the Neo-Liberal Globalist Reaper.
In selfish search for fame.
Stabs Fake Neo-Libereral Nationalist Johnson.
King of Nastie lies waiting in the frame.
And Tory Neo-Liberal Magic Money Tree state intervention.
Brings forth our howls and derisions.
But stands not alone, a decent man (JC).
With a pocketful of visions.
Elect the first REAL HUMAN BEING to be the Prime Minister of the UK.’
Solidarity!
Thanks for squawky who help us all in keeping us informed of the real news,They are not perfect but help us in trying to politicaly educate the general public in Whats realy going on in the political sewer that we are all exposed to!.Truth in our society is a rare and valued currency.
John Ware’s documentary next Wednesday will be a farce. Ware has form: https://ducksoap.wordpress.com/2019/07/01/bbcs-john-ware-is-at-it-again/
Useful article and background, thanks DS.
Please sign and share as widely as possible:
https://www.change.org/p/jeremy-hunt-mp-jeremy-hunt-must-apologise-for-linking-jeremy-corbyn-to-the-holocaust
Isn’t it time the LibDems and the Green Party and the SNP etc started calling out this despicable black op smear campaign! I would suggest it’s WAY past time!!!
Good links thanks Allan – I see the petition is Chelley Ryan again.
Allan:
When I signed that petition it had 18,000 signatures whereas now it has none.
Any thoughts?
Roma rights group slams Hunt for linking Corbyn to the Holocaust
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/roma-rights-group-slams-hunt-for-comparing-corbyn-to-the-holocaust
The Daily Mail ALSO went with this abominable piece of black propaganda:
Mr Hunt said: ‘When I went to Auschwitz [in 2007] I rather complacently said to myself, ”thank goodness we don’t have to worry about that kind of thing happening in the UK” and now I find myself faced with the leader of the Labour Party who has opened the door to anti-Semitism in a way that is truly frightening.’
(ends)
What I would like to know IS are there any witnesses that heard him say this to himself! It is of course complete and utter garbage lies, and of course he didn’t say such a thing to himself and, as such, has just concocted it whilst trying to think of a way to capitalise on the anti-semitism black op being perpetrated and waged against JC and the left during the past nearly four years.
But whilst the vast majority of Nazi victims were Jewish, in much, much smaller numbers, socialists, communists, trade unionists, LGBT, disabled people, people with mental health difficulties and Learning Disabilties, gypsies & Roma etc were victims also – so the Left were victims too which seems to be currently forgotten!!
The bulk of the Nazi support came from rural areas, the middle class, some argue the most dangerous class? (petrified re inflation of falling into the working class) and sections of the upper class capitalists afraid of Communist Nationalisation (though capital only poured into the Nazis – I REPEAT BIG BUSINESS CARRIED THE NAZIS OVER THE LINE – only after Hitler had slaughtered the Stasserites – a kind of virulent anti-semetic ‘Left’ of the Nazis) plus millions of 1WW ex-soldiers embittered by defeat and sold a lie.
Oh and remember the anti-Semite Capitalist Henry Ford gave all the profits of Fords in Germany to make the Nazi thugs look respectable!
So Mr Hunt you demonstrate your political ignorance and perhaps you need to read a few books and to look where Barbarianisn REALLY comes from?
I see Noam Chomsky has just come out in support of CHris Williamson , see link below to his statement
https://twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1147064458537263104/photo/1
. More over on The Canary re this development .
Re Right Wing Tory Barbarian Hunt and his JC holocaust slur (Johnson’s a Right Wing Barbarian too).
“Say not for whom the bell may toll.
It tolls for you!”
It is typical that, as the problem that is the Tory party grows more extreme with every passing day, that the lies and black propaganda against Labour become more vicious and strident.
But we have to ask some serious questions about Labour not exactly helping itself.
In the first instance, it really does spend too much time avoiding the best form of defence, which is to attack the sources of fake news when they venture forth.
Adopting a seriously flawed definition of anti-Semitism that only serves the party’s opponents, when a loyal group, the Jewish Voice for Labour was offering much wiser counsel in this matter, and then appeasing and not, more properly, disciplining that group of MPs who regularly do their best to undermine the leadership also creates the wrong impression.
It is clear that strategy needs reviewing, with the twin aims of clearing up any confusions where they exist, and re-invigorating the morale of the membership.
And Noam Chomsky is, as always, spot on!
Not always.
He was wrong about the JFK assassination. It was a coup and did lead to a change of policy. It is, therefore, a significant event. LBJ, the man who ordered the assassination, changed US policy on both Vietnam and Israel.
I sense that Chomsky is now shifting his position on JFK which is the right thing to do.
He also may have been just a tad wobbly in some of his commentary on Syria, depending on your point of view; still it’s very heartening to have a figure of international standing voice his support for Chris Williamson. Nice link to Cook in the thread after this Tony, thanks – a writer who is invariably spot on!
.. and now that I’ve read about the bind Chomsky got into over Faurisson I’m suddenly less “heartened”.
Yes, LBJ was about as malignant as they come. And the infamous wink said it all!
By now no antisemite in Labour can be unaware of the Party’s revulsion for antisemitism.
Leaving out the falsely accused majority, it’s possible that some of the remaining few might wrongly believe their behaviours or statements to be acceptable or justified.
The alternative is that they either don’t care what harm they cause us or they positively intend us harm.
Ignorance can often be cured but ill intent is a cancer requiring radical excision.
The BBC earlier reported on Johnson being kept in the dark on security issues while Foreign Secretary – I’ve heard it before but a little surprised to hear it repeated by the BBC during the Tory hustings.
“Er-er-it’s not true – but – aah – I obviously can’t comment any further on intelligence matters…” to GALES of laughter.
As if the vapid, blabbermouthed bubblehead would ever know that secrets were being kept from him by professional diplomats and secret-keepers.
Acting the fool to hide imbecility obviously works at Eton and for as long as you can remember the poems you learned to cloud the issue of your intellect – when you were given the benefit of any doubt and ‘potential’ was a given.
Even as an adult you can skate by on breeding and entertainment value in media situations – but mix with genuinely smart people doing serious, challenging and important work and the first few sentences you speak or write will give you away. The FO’s most junior will have had the measure of him on the first day.
I detest Hunt & Johnson equally but Johnson’s potential to embarrass and ruin the UK is off the scale.
we often only really find out whats happening in politics when the establishment fall out with themselves over something. Brexit, whatever your views is a hotbed of disagreement.
It is appalling the way that Jeremy Corbyn’s character has been deliberately destroyed by his critics and the MSM.
In 2015 he was seen as a popular backbencher,and after his election as leader he was portrayed as a bit vague and serious with the demeanour of a geography teacher.
During the 2016 coup we were told he lacked leadership qualities and was unelectable. Nearly every one of the plotters are on record as saying “Jeremy is a decent man but he is not a leader/is unelectable/ does not inspire confidence etc. Not one of them said he was an anti semite.
In 2017 he proved he was a leader, was electable and inspired confidence in 13 million Labour voters at the General Election. It was then that he was accused of not doing enough to combat anti Semetism.
He started 2018 being called an enabler of anti Semetism and ended it by being condemned as an anti Semite himself.
This slur has continued despite all the evidence as contained in your article and the wholehearted support for Jeremy of Orthodox and Socialist Jews, Jewish intellectuals and Jewish peace campaigners such as the late Walter Wolfgang and Hajo Mayer a Jewish concentration camp survivor who was also falsely accused of antisemism and whose reputation and life’s work for peace was trashed after his death.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the BBC will try its hardest to do further damage to Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation in the coming programme. However I don’t think it will succeed except perhaps among the very ignorant. Most people know about BBC bias and have seen it in action too many times to be fooled by their pretence of impartiality.
With Jeremy Corbyn what you see is what you get. He is first and foremost a good man. He is also a statesman who towers above his critics ,a man of integrity, honest and caring -qualities rarely found in politicians. Jeremy Corbyn our PM in waiting.
P.S. I see this morning that Gordon Brown has joined in the chorus – clearly a General Election is in the offing and the Stop Corbyn brigade are going into overdrive
In the final analysis, Jeremy has led to the fascists having to reveal themselves to all with eyes to see in their quest to destroy him. And it’s really quite staggering how many of them there are, but then again, the ruling elite are inherently fascist, as are their minions/praetorian guard.
They can slander him left right and centrist but they all agree on one thing, we cant have a GE because that will let Corbyn in
FFS and Bob’s me aunty
I just did a search re the ‘secret dossier’ that was passed on to the metropolitan police commissioner last November by the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism to see if I could ascertain what developments there had been. I recall at some point in the weeks afterwards a police spokesman being quoted as saying that FOUR of the cases were regarded as serious.
Anyway, when I did a search, I came across articles saying that three people had been arrested in relation to the dossier in March (reported on March 28th), and then in May, that a fourth person had been arrested (reported on May 1st). In other words, it took the police investigating the cases detailed in the dossier around FIVE months to conclude that THREE of the cases WERE anti-semitic, and then a further four weeks or so to conclude that a fourth person should be charged. In the real world it would take a matter of days at the very most!
Funny, isn’t it, that the fourth person should be arrested and charged JUST prior to the local council elections on May 2nd, and of course in their coverage of the FOURTH person charged they reminded their readers etc about the three that had been charged a few weeks earlier at the end of March.
Hmm:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-6980927/Fourth-arrest-Labour-anti-Semitism-probe.html
That last bit should have read:
‘….and of course in their coverage of the FOURTH person charged the MSM reminded their readers etc about the three that had been charged a few weeks earlier….’
NB In actual fact, the dossier was passed on to the Met Police Commisioner on September 4th, so it was in effect SEVEN months before the initial three were arrested and charged at the end of March. In the following article (posted on November 2nd) – as no doubt in many others at the time – it mentions one of the anti-semitic comments:
LBC had in its possession an internal Labour Party dossier that detailed 45 cases involving social media posts by party members, including one post that read: “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all.”
(ends)
Now I don’t know if the person who posted the comment was one of the three that was arrested and charged at the end of March, but I think we can ALL agree what they said is tantamount to hate speech AND that it would be unbelievable if they WEREN’T one of the three that were arrested and charged, but assuming that they WERE – and given that the comment was cited widely in the MSM at the beginning of November (as in the following article) – then why wouldn’t the police (who were dealing with the matter) have arrested and charged the person concerned at the time – ie within weeks of receiving the dossier. AND the other blatantly obvious cases! It is of course inconceivable that it would take seven months to conclude that such-and-such was hate speech and arrest and charge three people, and then a further month – EIGHT months altogether – to arrest and charge a fourth person (on May 1st, the day before the local council elections!):
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-police-launch-criminal-probe-of-labour-party-anti-semitism/
Anyway, my MAIN point in mentioning all of this is that if the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism REALLY believe that Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson – to name but three – are guilty of hate-speech, as they have asserted on numerous occasions, then how come they haven’t reported any of them to the police.
We ALL know the answer of course!
Here is a typical example of their despicable and vile black propaganda disinformation:
https://antisemitism.uk/readmission-and-resuspension-of-chris-williamson-echoes-ken-livingstone-case-and-shows-that-labours-due-process-is-a-sham/
Sorry about this, but:
As I related above, the so-called ‘secret dossier’ led to FOUR people being arrested and charged by the police, and I think we can assume that that’s probably it, but was this so-called ‘secret dossier’ – which was very publicly passed on to the Met Police Commissioner at the beginning of last September – actually ‘derived’ from the thousands of documents that were shredded by right-wing NEC staff prior to them leaving, who took copies with them to later pass on to the media, as Skwawkbox revealed in an article on May 20th (see link below)?
As stated in the SB article, around 9,000 of those cases related to cases of people suspended during the infamous mass administrative suspensions [during the Labour leadership elections] under Iain McNicol, and they had nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism, but surely if any of the documents WERE related to anti-semitism – as in alleged cases of anti-semitism – then surely THEY – as with the ‘secret dossier’ – should have been handed over to the police, and anyone found to have committed a criminal offence arrested and charged. But as far as I am aware, no one HAS been, which appears to indicate that there wasn’t a single case of anti-semitic hate speech contained in the ‘leaked’ documents.
Anyway, IF the ‘secret dossier’ WAS derived from the stolen documents, then the cases contained there-in would pertain to cases from the McNicol period. The fact that whoever stole the stolen cache of documents – ie the ‘leaked documents’ – waited until around three weeks AFTER the fourth person was arrested and charged in respect of the ‘secret dossier’, leads me to believe that IT – the ‘secret dossier’ – WAS derived from the large cache of documents stolen by former right-wing NEC staff members. And if it was, then the conspirators sifted out the handful of actual blatant and obviously criminal cases of anti-semitism, and then included a few dozen other cases for effect (probably made up mostly of bogus accusations), and then gave them to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, who then very publicly passed them on to the Met Police Commissioner.
So what we have is a situation where the corrupt corporate media and the BBC have ‘transformed’ FOUR cases of anti-semitic hate speech into hundreds – if not THOUSANDS – in the minds of their readers etc!
It’s convoluted, I know, but it always IS trying to unravel the machinations of the saboteurs/plotters:
https://skwawkbox.org/2019/05/20/excl-departing-right-wing-labour-staff-shredded-1000s-of-disciplinary-docs-but-gave-copies-to-press/
Allan, thanks for the research. I suspect that the huge delay in the police investigations is because of a combination of lack of resources and it not being high priority for them. I presume that most of the arrests were based on rather old social media comments which had only come to light because of intensive trawling by organisations with an agenda.
Those doing the trawling will doubtless have come across many more equally antisemitic posts by non LP members from the political right. I wonder whether those have been reported.
Do you know what the four you mention have been charged with?
And, perhaps, to keep the issue alive for as long as possible to do maximum damage!
Yes, exactly! The saboteurs/plotters ALWAYS make as much capital as they can out of any given episode related to anti-semitism.
Anyway, I just came across the following, and it would appear that even at the outset it’s all more-or-less sorted. As I said before, it would take a matter of a few days at the very most to determine who has committed a criminal offence, and who hasn’t:
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/labour-21-cases-of-alleged-antisemitism-to-poice/
And then TWO months later! What a joke:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/02/met-police-opens-criminal-inquiry-into-labour-antisemitism-claims
And then a month after THAT:
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/police-commissioner-on-labour-antisemitism-dossier-we-believe-crimes-may-have-been-committed-1.473465
I meant to post the following earlier, but then ended up posting another abhorrent piece from their website…. the CAA, that is. Notice how in true black propagandist fashion they repeat the main ‘message’ they want to inculcate in readers TWICE, at the beginning of the second paragraph, and then again at the beginning of the fifth paragraph, with just a teensy weensy change, in true Josef Goebbels/Sun tradition:
https://antisemitism.uk/police-open-criminal-investigation-into-secret-internal-labour-party-antisemitic-hate-dossier-following-report-by-caa/
40 Facts! MSM aren’t interested in Facts.
I have seen this very list being used in debate. Great to pull out when needed. Has anyone said you would be amazing advising head office with social media and training?
Trump’s Fourth of July: The militarist bombast of a crisis-ridden system
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/06/pers-j06.html