Jamie Stern-Weiner on Anti-Semitism and the British Labour Party
Published
by
Richard Kuper
JVL Introduction
Jamie Stern-Weiner, interviewed here, by Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, Mouin Rabbani, is well-known to readers of this website for his elegant and informed refutations of so many of the accusations of antisemitism causally flung around in recent years.
Here he provides a careful overview of the development of this saga from Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader to the present day.
This article was originally published by Jadaliyya on Thu 6 Aug 2020. Read the original here.
Quick Thoughts: Jamie Stern-Weiner on Anti-Semitism and the British Labour Party
[The newly-minted leader of the British Labour Party, Keir Starmer, recently fired a member of his shadow cabinet, Rebecca Long-Bailey, and reached a controversial settlement with seven former staffers who participated in a BBC program about anti-Semitism in the party, in order to put an end to accusations that it has become a bastion of anti-Semitic sentiment. These allegations first surfaced after Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, was elected in 2015 and quickly developed into claims that Corbyn and his senior associates presided over, tolerated, and encouraged widespread anti-Semitism within the party. To get a better understanding of the anti-Semitism crisis in the British Labour Party and sort fact from fiction, Quick Thoughts Editor and Jadaliyya Co-Editor Mouin Rabbani interviewed Jamie Stern-Weiner, editor of Antisemitism and the Labour Party (Verso, 2019) and a DPhil candidate at Oxford University. The Quick Thoughts series provides background, context, and detail to issues that are, or should be, currently in the news.]
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“Quick thoughts”?
More like a very well considered, comprehensive and convincing analysis from Jamie.
Brilliant!
An excellent, clear-sighted overview.
Congratulations.
Good report, well put together.
many thanks for this rational and clear set of opinions which MIGHT make me stay in the party and fight.
A thorough and comprehensive analysis by Jamie Stern-Weiner. Can’t argue with anything he says. At one time the Guardian would have been happy to publish such opinions. Sadly, it has been wedded to a very restricted view for many years now. Thanks JVL for enabling us to read alternative views.
A very good account, Jamie, showing among other things how Jeremy wavered in his principles and exacerbated the problem.
Jamie Stern-Weiner says the following at one point:
‘Senior Corbyn allies appeared to mistake the “antisemitism” controversy for a grievance rather than a pretext, and so made many concessions in an effort to appease critics who were probably unappeasable.’
I think we can safely conclude that the ‘critics’ weren’t ‘probably unappeasable’, they were DEFINITELY unappeasable. But as the LP knew, they had no choice but to make and agree to consessions, under threat of their ‘critics’ exploding with faux fury and outrage (via – and IN – the MSM), that it’s just further proof that the LP under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership has become institutionally anti-semitic if they DIDN’T make or agree to such consessions. In other words, Jeremy and Co were in a no-win situation, and their ‘critics’ knew it!
I thought that Richard Burgon didn’t sign the 10 pledges.Please correct me if l am wrong.
Excellent article.
Thank you, as always very informative.
Tried to, “appease the unappeasable,” succinctly sums up Corbyn’s chances of success in a rigged system. For those who were prepared to see what was actually happening the events surrounding the crushing of the Corbyn project have provided a sobering lesson in how very flawed is the UK’s democracy .
I’ll only do a brief comment here. The article sets out the situation regarding the controversy, but doesn’t cover a most important aspect.
Jeremy Corbyn is, in fact a deeply religious man. I have heard him declare that he was brought upon the Bible. His religion is that of Christ’s teaching, pure and simple, even simplistic. Love your neighbour as yourself. The message is peace and to talk, not make war. Love them that hate you (which might explain his restraint in the Hodge incident). He is not a bible-fundamentalist.
Clearly, the Establishment (widely defined) is not on that wavelength and the world is suffering as it heads towards climate catastrophe, with its tin-pot little rulers (which is most of them, some, actually, rather big) all trying to show what great guys they are.
In reply to Janet Crosley. Neither Richard Burgon nor Dawn Butler signed the ten pledges, but they were not “candidates to replace Corbyn” as they stood for deputy leadership.
Janet, Richard Burgon was a candidate for Deputy leader not leader, he did not sign the pledge, so both statements are true.
Where to now? How do we expose this injustice and attack on ordinary members? The establishment have control of the media. Corbyn brought hope- how do we keep this alive?
Thanks for putting my thoughts into word’s, the stupid thing is Jeremy Corbyn would be a great PM right now.
I can’t believe that the labour right and LFI (Israeli embassy) and our so biased press and media journalists have kicked the MANY in the teeth, when we NEED a left wing party so badly.
Anthony Speryn’s comment seems to join the dots re Jeremy Corbyn; he comes over to me a someone who took the practical teaching of Christ very seriously. But Christ never set himself up as a politician, but was set on course of self-sacrifice. He did not expect that “turning the other cheek” would win over his most implacable opponents.
Thorough analysis. I’m slightly concerned about the claim that “The British Left tends not to defend the right to express views it considers bigoted” This is the “cancel culture” narrative deployed the likes of “Spiked” against the left. I thought most of the left understood the need to engage in democratic debate to defeat bigotry.
Thank you Jamie for pointing this out:
“It was not Starmer, but Corbyn, who accepted as the litmus test for opposition to antisemitism the readiness to suspend or expel members alleged to have expressed anti-Jewish stereotypes. It was not Starmer, but Corbyn, who instituted a “fast track” for expulsions notwithstanding the risks this posed to due process”.
Because of Jeremy Corbyn’s eagerness to appease, he must accept some of the blame for Labour’s loss of electoral support. He failed to stand up for those such as Chris Williamson, Mark Wadsworth, Jackie Walker and others who went out on a limb to support him. He gave more support to his enemies than to his friends.
Having said that, Jeremy was unique, he was probably the only person who could and did unite all the various factions within the Party, except of course for that tiny Zionist contingent who from the outset were determined that they would not let him succeed. They had only one aim and it was to deflect all criticism and attention away from the apartheid actions of Israel. As soon as they saw he was weak in his opposition to them, they drove the knife in even deeper.
I’m not sure he was very religious as one commenter seemed to think. He once said his favourite song was ‘Imagine’, an anti-religion song by John Lennon.
Once again I must correct this bland and inexplicable assumption that Maxine Peaks original comment was inaccurate in ANY way!!! Does no one else, apart from me have internet access???
It takes no time to research these vital links!!
KRAV MAGA, the Israeli counter-terrorism method taught to American personnel
JONATHON FADER krav maga expert`s video SHOWING knee on neck restraint.
JINSA an American Jewish security group with numerous references to American personnel training in Israel.
The references to all the points made by Maxine are so frequent that I cannot see how anyone can miss them.
Are none of you going to actually look for yourselves???
I suspect that the underlying reason Jeremy Corbyn did not create a big fuss and try to sue Hodge is that he may have realised how little support he would get from the NEC and the party bureaucracy etc at the time and so he didn’t want to waste time on that endeavour. He concentrated on taking his message to the people, where he was widely popular and respected. His policy has been a quiet reductio ad absurdum, whereby the Board of Deputies have got themselves i a twist about racism and have shown themselves up for their worthlessness, quite apart from the disrespect for the law of the saboteurs in the Party.
The effects of this AS attack have destroyed all respect for the Labour Party for many members, and many of us have left.
The sinister effect of there being a range of things which cannot be mentioned by a member without the threat of suspension, is that telling the truth about an important topic is punishable. That’s completely untenable.
The lack of humanity shown to clearly innocent victims of the purge, the lack of solidarity with them, the lack of empathy for their situation, and (apart from Chris Williamson) the lack of any sign by a member of the PLP that they recognise, or care about any victim of injustice. That was unbelievable.
And even more inhumanity among ‘socialists’, the resulting ex-communication, loss of job and reputation, for the only MP speaking the truth, Chris Williamson, for trying to enable a victim to clear her name by hosting a film in the HoC, for saying publicly that Cyril Chilson should never have been expelled, for showing support for Wadsworth. No support from Corbyn or anyone.
The party now punishes humanity and speaking the truth? And the surreal purge, with ridiculous accusations against supporters of the Palestinians continues. The cull continues. This horrible story is NOT over. Too much has been revealed, and too much destroyed. And there seems no sign of a happy ending.
The leadership should have said at the begining: “We don’t have a problem with anti-semitism, but we do have a problem with (settler-colonial) Zionism”, and then gone on to describe what they didn’t like about restricted in where and when one could travel etc etc etc. This would have nailed that anti-zionism is not anti-semitism especially as many supporters of this manifestation of Zionism are CHRISTIAN, and opponents Jewish!
Jack, and what do you think would have happened if Jeremy HAD stood up for Chris and Jackie and Marc and anyone else who was falsely accused of anti-semitism – ie how do you think the conspirators and their MSM chums and the Jewish newspapers and the BoD and the CAA et al would have reacted!
And I’m not quite sure what you’re alluding to when you say that they went out on a limb for him. They were on and of the left and, as such, supported Jeremy of course, and THAT – as with Ken – is why they were targeted AND accused of A/S of course.
I have not seen anywhere on jvl a comment on the irony (ooops!) of the pseudo-comparison between the grossly offensive thesis of the denial of the Nazi judeocide (aka holocaust) – evidence for which is plentiful – and the alleged offence of denying the prevalence of AS within the LP; not only is evidence for such alleged prevalence almost nonexistent, but the GS’s thought police boast about the secrecy of their proceedings – that is, they obstruct any genuine investigation into the alleged problem.
This is the epistemology or the jurisprudence of the paranoia madhouse – systematic dishonesty could hardly go further, though no doubt it will soon. The libellous allegations against Chris Williamson for daring to question this ‘orthodoxy’, culminating in the grotesque lynching in direct and immediate contradiction of a court finding in his favour, Is but an extreme example.
More generally, the Blairites, their hands still dripping in Iraqi (and plenty of other) blood, must be expected to lie on any other matter of political importance to them. You have been warned.