Anti-semitism

This  is the English version of a piece of mine that was first published in DIE WELT on 4 August 2018, in which I attempt to explain to German readers why anti-Semitism, of all things, is dominating politics in Britain, of all places. Germans visiting Britain before Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour party in 2015 would have struggled to find anyone who believed anti-Semitism was worth discussing. I and a few others had warned that the collapse of socialism had allowed a strange post-Marxist left to emerge that endorsed ideas previous generations of socialists would have dismissed as fascistic. There appeared to be no reason for the rest

It is August, so perhaps it is inevitable that parts of the left are getting somewhat over-heated. But it can’t just be the weather. Take this segment from the bottom of a story in Sunday’s ‘Observer’ which was about something else (comments by Labour’s Deputy Leader on that party’s Leader): ‘[Tom] Watson’s intervention came as Corbyn was forced to “entirely disassociate” himself from an organisation whose website lists him as a member of its international advisory panel and which openly supported a prominent writer convicted of Holocaust denial. In 1996, the Just World Trust, an international NGO that has been a trenchant critic of Israel, wrote a letter defending the

As I’m writing this, I can’t stop thinking about my sixteen year old self: a naïve, optimistic teenager who had just joined the Labour party, sure that Ed Miliband was going to put the country to rights, and that being one of the party members who would help him do that was an honour and a duty. How times have changed. In the wake of Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal, I’ve now left the party. Here’s why. I should start by saying I’m Jewish. When I was growing up, I thought that that meant that I belonged to the religion of Judaism, and that I couldn’t eat bacon. More recently, I’ve learned

Being a Jew on the Corbyn left is soul- crushing. In the name of the cause, you must excuse racism in all but its extreme forms. The presence of a real Jew in its midst provides the left with cover. But stray from the party line, and you are not a comrade having a legitimate disagreement. You are a Jew and only a Jew, a corrupted and illegitimate voice that has no place in left-wing discussions. The compromises Jewish leftists must swallow can be seen in the faintly pathetic career of Jon Lansman. In theory, there is nothing pathetic about him. The founder of Momentum is the third most powerful

Labour’s anti-Semitism row reached boiling point this week thanks to a leaked recording from a meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee. In it, Corbyn ally Peter Willsman suggests that Jewish ‘Trump fanatics’ are behind ‘duff’ accusations of Labour anti-Semitism and warned that ‘they can falsify social media very easily’. This comes at a particularly bad time for Jeremy Corbyn as Willsman is currently standing for re-election on to the NEC and is one of nine Momentum-backed candidates, known as the #JC9 (see Mr Steerpike’s guide to the candidates here). Moderate Labour MPs – including deputy leader Tom Watson – have been quick to condemn the comments along with a

You don’t have to read too much of the tweets and other comments directed at Margaret Hodge and other Jewish Labour MPs to appreciate that Labour has a very big problem with anti-Semitism. But is the party’s refusal to adopt the full working definition of anti-Semitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance an example of its failings? Absolutely not. Firstly, on a general point, it is never a good idea to allow pressure groups – however worthy their intentions – to lay down the rules on language. The same mistake has been committed with the official definition of ‘poverty’ which, thanks to left-wing campaigning groups, now includes people with

The House of Commons breaks for recess on Tuesday, and accordingly the Sunday shows will be taking a break. For his last show until September, Andrew Marr was joined by the Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, who has taken over the reins after David Davis’ resignation and has already made the headlines by insisting that the UK could tear up the agreed £39 billion ‘divorce bill’ if the two sides do not reach a trade deal. Raab told Marr that he was ‘striving every sinew’ to get the best deal for the United Kingdom, and insisted that his government was on course to agree a deal in the timeframe they expected:

When Jeremy Corbyn attended a Passover dinner hosted by Jewdas, it was the first that many Jews had even heard of this fringe outfit. But the meeting proved to some of Corbyn’s supporters that concerns about anti-Semitism within the Labour party were overblown. After all, Jews at the event were happily speaking up for Jeremy Corbyn, so what was all the fuss about? One of those who attended the dinner and was keen to defend Corbyn was Charlotte Nichols, a 27-year-old Young Labour committee member. Nichols’ impassioned defence of Corbyn’s presence at the event in which she argued that ‘it is not for non-Jewish people, in criticising Corbyn’s attendance, to determine what is and

Another word which has gained a new meaning in the present decade, along with ‘vulnerable’ and ‘diverse’: survivor. Once it meant a person who had been transported to Auschwitz but somehow came out alive. Or a person who had been involved in a terrible car crash but had escaped with only a broken neck. Today it means someone whose nipple was perhaps gently tweaked by a light entertainment star 40 years ago. Or someone who was mildly and almost certainly justifiably bullied at school. I’m also getting a little weary of the elephant in the room. It has become for me, when talking about transformative grammar, the elephant in the

Oh dear. On Tuesday evening, Jeremy Corbyn met with Jewish leaders to discuss his party’s anti-Semitism problem. The meeting didn’t sound as though it would be the most harmonious affair what with the Labour leader accused of not taking the concerns of the Jewish community seriously – and his decision to meet with the ‘radical’ fringe group Jewdas first. So, there was much relief when Corbyn issued a post-meeting statement heralding a ‘positive and constructive’ meeting: ‘We will continue to engage and work with Jewish community organisations to deal with this issue. Our party will not fail our Jewish brothers and sisters.’ Only, it seems the Jewish representatives at the meeting

Yesterday, Parliament debated anti-Semitism. It is hard to get over the oddness of the situation. It is 150 years ago since the Conservatives produced their first Jewish leader: Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister on 27 February 1868. If the Tory party in the 21st century had a leader who was seen as tolerant of anti-Semitism, and was backed by its most anti-Semitic factions, the scandal would bring him and/or it crashing to the ground. Yet with Labour, this is not so. Mr Corbyn is a bit uneasy with his predicament, but not fearing for his political life. How have we got here? This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes. The

When I lived in the Soviet Union in my early twenties, I developed a personal hostility to socialism. I saw the misery it had visited on that society – the political, spiritual and economic harm. I understood at first-hand how the secret police corrupted personal and public life, how state propaganda denied freedom of thought and how the regime hid the slaughter and imprisonment of millions of its own people. I came to the conclusion that whichever totalitarian power had survived World War II – Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union – they would probably have looked much the same by the time of their demise. I never understood why Westerners did not

None of this is normal. It’s important that we cling to that. It’s not normal that British Jews are forced to protest for their fair treatment and safety. It’s not normal that four-fifths of the Labour Party think such protests are a political tactic or a Zionist plot. It’s not normal that the man who would be Britain’s next Prime Minister has to delete his Facebook account because he cannot be sure how many hate groups he is a member of.  Anti-Semitism is a historical constant but it is not normal. We decide our norms and if we are still a just and civilised people we ought to regard it