You’re shouting and making claims that are not backed up by reality
That’s not debating
It’s Trump style propaganda
For years you defended Trump and the Republicans against racism and anti-Semitismallegations despite them being far more clear cut and widespread than anything related to the Labour party
That proves you are only to willing to tolerate racism incuding anti-Semitism when it suits your political agenda
Should Michael Gove and Boris Johnson resign over their racism in your view
If only a study, backed by rigorous academic research, into anti-Semitism in Labour existed
Oh wait, it does
And it blows the smears of the party being institutionally anti-Semitic out of the water
‘At last! Here is a book that rigorously examines the facts behind the allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party. The reality is more shocking, and more surprising, than the headlines in the press would have you believe. Here is the evidence - read it.’ – Ken Loach
‘The essays in this book provide evidence and arguments that are deeply troubling for all concerned, and demand careful attention.’ – Peter Golding, Emeritus Professor, Northumbria University
‘What the careful research reported in this book reveals is a successful disinformation campaign. Anyone who cares for facts needs to read it.’ – Colin Leys, honorary professor at Goldsmiths University of London; author of ‘Market-Driven Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest’, and, with Stewart Player, ‘The Plot Against the NHS’
‘This compelling, thoughtful text is essential reading for everyone on the left wanting to confront antisemitism. It provides a benchmark for future research and strategy when tackling this explosive issue of our time.’ – Lynne Segal, author of ‘Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy’
‘Reading this timely book convinces me that the media campaign against antisemitism in the Labour Party is similar to the media onslaught on the ‘loony left’ in the 1980s. Both campaigns connected to some disturbing truths: and both inflated and weaponised these truths for political purposes.’ – James Curran, Professor of Communications at Goldsmiths University of London, co-author of ‘Culture Wars: The Media and the British Left’
‘A necessary corrective to widespread media distortions. Scholarly and persuasive, it rescues the facts from a storm of misinformation.’ – Raoul Martinez, author of ‘Creating Freedom’
‘Full of fascinating research and compelling evidence. This is a serious and timely piece of work.’ – Francesca Martinez, comedian and author of ‘What the **** Is Normal?!’
‘Shines a bright light on the real reasons behind this manufactured crisis and the truth at the heart of it. Recommended.’ – Alexei Sayle, comedian, actor and author
‘This carefully-executed study uncovers and explores a propaganda exercise of astonishing scale and effectiveness: the relentless effort to tar Corbyn’s Labour Party with anti-Semitism. The impact is revealed by the fact that public estimates of the number of Labour members investigated on the charge is literally hundreds of times the actual number. And other perceptions have been comparably manipulated. A very revealing inquiry, yielding much to ponder.’ – Noam Chomsky
I never said that there weren’t some anti Semitic Republicans or Conservatives. What I said was that your statement on Trump voters (the 10s of millions of them out there) was without evidence. You brandished them as anti Semites as part of your overall meltdown on Trump and calling people Nazis.
I also never said Labour voters were anti Semites. What I said was that the LP have an institutional problem and that’s Jeremy Corbyn tolerates many anti Semites. This is borne out by;
scores of Labour MPs speaking out on the problem. This included the Deputy Leader of the Party. This also included a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn and the Shadow Chancellor
MPs and members quitting the party in pretty significant numbers. Boris Johnson has driven many moderates out of the Tory party and anti Semitism has driven out many decent Labour people. Your response, without irony, is to point to people being Israeli shills.
Jeremy Corbyn has actively promoted and said kind things about virulent anti Semites, that’s from speakers to terrorist organizations, to rogue States
As I said before, I believe that Corbyn’s worldview is coloured by an anti capitalist and anti western viewpoint first and foremost. This blinds him to anti Semites. That wouldn’t be a problem if he simply renounced these people, but he has continually kept associations up long after it was acceptable. Why did he take £20k from Iran TV for example? You’ll hop up and down about RT and Russia for example with the right for, but ignore it here. Corbyn was not some leader who has to sometimes thread the difficult moral tightrope of international relations, he was a bog standard MP who made the decision to go on a Rogue states TV station and call terrorists and anti Semites his friends.
Great post, Corbyn is a vile individual and not very bright, hence the likes of glas buy his bullshit
Maajid Nawaz absolutely nails the issues here:
"I’m getting rather tired of the equivocation around this Labour antisemitism issue, so here’s a thread for confused pundits & voters. Some smart people out there have been hoodwinked by dishonest political hacks, or are simply too tribal to accept the difference in the following (written on twitter so apologies for the choppy style)
People of any political persuasion must acknowledge:
Every party will have some policies you don’t like
Every party will also have rogue members, or leaders, who said nasty things too
usually, if a party has policies you disagree with, you simply don’t vote for them
for Britain’s Jews & their allies, the issue with Labour Party is none of the above. I repeat: it is none of the above. So Corbynists, pls stop obfuscating, strawmanning &deflecting.
the issue is Labour Party stands accused of being institutionally antisemitic (racist)
this is very different to finding individual policies you hate, or representatives who utter bigotry
for a body to be institutionally racist (ironically, a phrase coined by a 90s Labour gov. inquiry) not every member is necessarily a racist,nor necessarily is the leader
8 ) for a body to be deemed institutionally racist, intention & individual behaviour isn’t primary issue. Rather,outcomes are considered. If the totality of this body’s procedures, institutions& structure lead to racist outcomes, then sincerity &individual intent is no defence
This is why 90s Lab government’s McPherson inquiry (rightly) deemed police ‘institutionally racist’ after unpunished racist murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. They were not calling all police officers racist. Nor did it mean that other UK orgs didn’t suffer racism too
so, back to the Labour Party: British jews and their allies are accusing this Labour Party under Corbyn of being ‘institutionally antisemitic’. This means precisely that the party’s mechanisms, procedures and institutions lead to racist outcomes against its Jewish members
this does not mean every Labour member is racist. It also does not necessarily imply that even Corbyn is (he might be). Rather, it points to the failure of Corbyn’s ship, with him as captain,to steer away from antisemitism. Sincere individual intent is not a condition here
what British Jews are (correctly) alleging is that the Labour Party discriminates against them, as a party machine. That the outcomes in that party no longer protect them against racism. This is an institutional failure
So, back to my opening line about political tribalism: any instinctive defence, “Whataboutery” response,or even allegations of hypocrisy,like “why aren’t you doing more to address racism in your own party?” entirely miss the nature&seriousness of what is (accurately) alleged:
British Jews and their allies are not in a state of alarm because Labour has individual racists in it (which is bad enough as it is). No. The Tories, Lib Dem’s, Brexit party & others all have bad apples. I repeat: the issue isn’t the existence of bad apples
the issue very precisely & seriously is under Corbyn, Labour seems not only to have ignored the problem, or denied it, but in many cases doubled down on it & worse even blamed the victims for reporting it. In other words: the Labour Party machine has been co-opted by racism
if one understands the nature& seriousness of the allegation, then one would never reply by saying, by way of example: “but what about Johnson and niqabi Muslim letterboxes?” Bad thing to say, but not evidence that the Tory party machine discriminates against Muslim members
Also, it’s very important to recognise that criticising ultra-Conservative Muslim dress is a political right, because the ‘choice’ to adopt fundamentalist dress is a valid societal choice that must equally be subjected to scrutiny - like any religious conservativism must be
No. Racism is not the same as criticising my religious choices, or lack thereof. You can (politely) criticise my religion, because it’s an idea. All ideas must be scrutinised. But one cannot insult another’s race, without being rightly deemed a racist.
Jews are both a people and a religion. European antisemitic tropes against Jews concern their supposed habits as a ‘people’, not their religion. So, its racism to suggest that all Jews are secret greedy capitalists, or have large ugly hooked noses, for example.
no serious Jewish voice or organisation has ever said it’s racist to criticise Israel. None. I repeat, none. This is a complete Strawman. I criticise Netanyahu’s policies regularly and know many Jews and Israelis who do so too.
The issue is about
a) traditional European antisemitism flooding back into Labour (eg: East London ‘greedy capitalist’ mural that Corbyn defended)
b) holding Israel’s Jews to higher standard than the world
c) an obsessive focus on Israel for errors that are far worse elsewhere
d) supporting or otherwise praising genocidal, jew-murdering terrorist groups
So, people like Tory Baroness Warsi, who seems to have made a career of late out of deflecting over this antisemitism issue in Labour, to attacking her own party instead over “Islamophobia” (sic) totally miss the point:
Johnson, or any rogue Tory MP or member, can and do say racist or proto-racist things, but does the party with a Muslim-origin Chancellor really discriminate against Muslims institutionally? Does it then double down & deny its racism (I repeat: blasphemy is not racism)
this Muslim believes not. And I have never voted Tory in my life, and will not do so this time either. There are problems in the Conservative party, yes. I disagree with them, yes. But they are yet to meet the test of being institutionally anti-Muslim.
truth is, there is only one major political party right now that has had senior former cabinet members resign over this (correctly) alleged institutional racism. There is only one party that is being investigated by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission over said racism. That party is the Labour Party
AND THIS IS WHERE I GET UPSET: if Boris Johnson, Jo Swinson, or anyone other party leader, let alone individual MP, had SHARED A PANEL in Parliament with members of the now banned violent NEO-NAZI UK-based TERRORIST group National Action, you would all be going ballistic now
yet Corbyn not only shared platforms with jew-killing Hizbollah &Hamas TERRORISTS,he not only called them friends,but took £20K from their sponsor: holocaust denying theocratic dictatorship of Iran. Now…imagine you’re Jewish,and then imagine Corbyn in No.10 as PM. Precisely.
After all the above has been digested & recognised as a unique problem only with Labour right now, then add that Corbyn is a Brexiter too & may bargain away the UK with SNP (allowing Scotland another vote) just to become PM, you’ll get why we say #NoToAppeasement & #NeverCorbyn
After the holocaust we vowed in Europe #NeverAgain - then Bosnia happened. Europe is not immune to repeat-offending. We must never be too arrogant to think we are. Brexit or Remain, we do have choices other than Labour. We must not betray our Jewish cousins over a tribal vote
After all this,if we still choose Labour, at least let’s stop pretending we are “progressives”, or that we care about racism & minorities or that we “listen to victims when they tell us we’re hurting them”. It’s all BS. Just admit that you really don’t give a damn about Jews.
There’s no evidence of Trump or Trump supporters being anti-Semites?
Wow
This gets better
The denial on your part is absolutely astonishing - Trump said Nazis at Charlottesville were “very fine people”, and you wonder why I mention Nazis
Yet you and they still can’t produce evidence to back up your and their assertions
This is sort of a basic thing you’d ask for
Did you read up about the evidence in the stiidy I linked to above?
Did you fook
This is an actual anti-Semitic statement
Why did you associate anti-capitalism with anti-Semitism? Seriously? That’s a classic anti-Semit trope
Appearing on Press TV years ago doesn’t make you an anti-Semite, same as anybody who appears on RT doesn’t deserve to be automatically classed as an anti-Semite, though I have no time for RT
@Tim_Riggins if could answer any of my points raised on this thread over the last few hours that would be great
But if you could address the question about whether Michael Gove should resign over his categorically anti-Semitic tweet on Wednesday and whether Boris Johnson should resign over his consistent racist utterances, that would be even better
You could perhaps also explain why you consistently support/supported a blatant anti-Semite in Trump and his anti-Semitic Republican party
You said Trump voters. Again you can never back it up.
On the contrary, I have. Numerous times.
See below;
You have never engaged in those points. You simply ignore them.
Interestingly when someone quits the LP for anti Semitism or self criticises the LP for their approach to anti semitism, you’ll point to them being an Israeli shill. Does that include Jon Lansmann and John McDonnell though?
When the BBC aired a programme on it you attacked them. This is something you’ve done more recently on Brexit (we have I, thought I’ve always criticised certain journalists). A few years ago you would have pilloried the right for complaining about the “biased BBC”.
Do I really need to post all the resignations on the issue? The number of complaints? The ongoing HR investigation into the party?
Not being aware of the odd anti Semitic trope happens. But it happens to Corbyn a bit too often, a man who has been evidenced to be in social media groups and followed accounts with anti Semitic material a bit too often.
Hanging out with and promoting people with anti Semitic and holocaust denial views, is not fine.
Enjoying the company of Hamas and calling them friends is not fine.
Going on Iranian State propoganda tv (and engaging with anti Semites) for a fee is not fine.
I will reiterate what I have said before though. I do not believe Corbyn is an anti semite. I believe he is a dullard who will always listen to anti Western viewpoints with sympathy and refuses to look under the hood on these people. That is a personal failing of bias. What is not defensible though is leading a political grouping that, by even its most vocal supporters admit, had had an emerging anti Semitism issue.
You’re saying there’s no evidence of Trump voters being anti-Semites?
This just gets better
Denialism on steroids
Absolutely
It was a ludicrous programme which contained interviews with 17 members of pro-Israel lobby groups
It had zero balance and zero counterpoints
It was a shameful piece of “journalism”
Bogus anti-Semitism smears are Kafkaesque - if you say they’re falsified or exaggerated - you then are bogusly smeared as an anti-Semite
So of course Lansmann and McDonnell have to be seen to say certain things in public or more smears are aimed at the party
Chris Williamson was actually spot on when he said the party was too apologetic - because there is no evidence that Labour has a problem with institutionalised anti-Semitism
What he said in that instance was not remotely anti-Semitic
Nor what Kate Ramsden said
The guy in Clacton was rightly stood down because what he said was anti-Semitic
But that’s a very rare instance
Why has Gove not stood down when what he said was anti-Semitc
People with a brain can seee through this stuff and can see what is going on
Now, deal with your own apologism for anti-Semitism
