Ken Livingstone, Labour, and Anti-Semitism
2. But Ken is not an anti-semite. Without wanting to predetermine the Shami Chakrabarti inquiry (not that an occasional blogger from the backwoods can), I am virtually certain her investigation shall reach the same conclusion. Ignore the people who fell over themselves on Twitter yesterday calling for his head and focus on the facts. Here are the transcripts of everything said over the last couple of days. It would be a stretch to describe any of those comments as racist towards Jews.
3. That isn't to say Ken isn't bloody stupid. Leaping to a Nazi analogy as soon as issues around Jews, Israel, and Zionism are raised is just so crass and offensive. Yes, it is a matter of historical record that there were links between leading Nazi figures and the Zionist movement in the 1930s. Yes, as Zygmunt Bauman establishes in his seminal Modernity and the Holocaust, the murder factories of the Third Reich were an outcome the Nazis evolved toward as the most expeditious "final solution" to the "Jewish Question". But there is a time and a place for discussions of these kinds, and I would suggest in the middle of a highly-charged political row about anti-semitism isn't one of them.
4. It's worth noting at this point that anti-semitism in the Labour Party is vanishingly rare. Considering the efforts journos and opponents of the leadership have gone to to find Jeremy supporters sharing dodgy memes and saying deeply unpleasant things, all they've turned up is a swivel-eyed Trot entryist and a couple of no marks from places even more obscure than my beloved Stoke-on-Trent. In other words, what we might call fringe people on the fringes of the movement. The idea that anti-semitism is endemic to our party is bullshit.
5. There is an issue when it comes to some of the hard left. As with the case of Malia Bouattia, there are activists who use sloppy language and clumsy tropes when talking about Israel and its lobby operations overseas. This can be and is construed as anti-semitic, is sometimes interpreted as dog-whistling, and is exploited by cheerleaders for Israeli policies. Matters aren't helped when the same sections of the left indulge Islamists who have no such compunction about framing their opposition to Israel in racist terms. The left is still capable of being its own worst enemy.
6. And the enemies of Corbyn are exploiting this row. John Mann's public rant at Ken Livingstone for the lunch time bulletins yesterday screamed contrivance. Mann knows very well that Ken is neither a Nazi apologist, nor that anything said is supportive of their crimes. But it ratcheted up the volume, feeding a confected mythology that everywhere you look in the Labour Party, on every committee and underneath each pile of leaflets is an anti-semite hiding. This is being whipped up and exploited by those who wish to see Jeremy turfed out of the leadership, and they will use any means to do so, no matter how damaging it is to the party and its immediate electoral prospects. That doesn't let Ken off, nor those bits of the left whose rhetoric sails close to the wind, nor those actual anti-semites who got kicked out. It is quite possible for the left to shoot itself while presenting a big red bull's eye to its enemies.
7. The sad truth is that while anti-semitism isn't a really existing problem for the Labour Party, it has become more so for society at large. Attacks on Jewish people in London last year increased by 60%, with a 200% jump in Tower Hamlets alone. However, nationally there was a 22% fall from the 2014 peak of incidents (924 vs the preceding 1,179). This is set against a resurgent anxiety among British Jews. What people whipping up this hysteria for factional advantage have got to ask is how do they think portraying the Labour Party as a hot bed of anti-semitism will play to Jewish communities that have supported Labour in the past, but feel anxious, increasingly marginalised, and under threat? Thankful the community have insincere windbags like Mann sticking up for them? Or more alienated from our party and perhaps a touch more fearful in general?
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