{"id":3197,"date":"2020-02-27T22:05:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=3197"},"modified":"2020-02-27T22:10:19","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:10:19","slug":"the-never-ending-saga-over-antisemitism-and-the-labour-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=3197","title":{"rendered":"The never-ending saga over antisemitism and the Labour Party"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The seemingly never-ending rumpus over antisemitism in the Labour Party has been capturing headlines for over four years now. This controversy is closely entwined with personal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, which began during his victorious leadership campaign in the summer of 2015. The topic of antisemitism on the left, and above all in Labour, has become the overwhelming focus of British public debate on Jewish-related matters, and has to a large extent crowded out discussion of other forms of hatred and prejudice. Several recent books on the subject have contributed to this chorus of accusation. Bad News for Labour<\/em> at last provides a non-polemical, thorough and scholarly study of this terrain. The core of the book is based\u2014in the excellent tradition of the Glasgow University Media Unit\u2014on a calm and detached analysis of broadcast, online and print media coverage of antisemitism and Labour, and its impact on public perceptions of the party. Sober and judicious throughout, and providing multiple perspectives on the topic as well as a useful thirty-two page timeline of its many episodes, this book raises very important issues for anybody who cares about the Labour Party or about the state of the British news media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nintensity of the journalistic coverage on this issue has been extraordinary.\nOver the three and three-quarter years to March 2019, almost 5,500 national\nnewspaper articles, or approximately four per day, have mentioned antisemitism\nand either Jeremy Corbyn or Labour. The interview-based research of Greg Philo\nand Mike Berry, presented in the opening chapter of Bad News for Labour<\/em>,\nsuggests that this relentless focus has dramatically skewed public beliefs on\nLabour antisemitism. Asked in March 2019 to estimate the proportion of Labour\nmembers who had been accused of antisemitism, the mean answer of their\ninterviewees was 34 per cent (and among voters under thirty-five, 42 per cent).\nIt is not straightforward to assess the actual extent of these accusations, in\nlarge measure because there has been considerable obfuscation on this matter,\nincluding multiple counting and the inclusion of allegations against\nnon-members of the party. Philo and Berry discuss these difficulties carefully\nand authoritatively, concluding that there is no good reason to doubt the\nfigures supplied by Jennie Formby in February 2019 which, if extrapolated,\nimply a true figure of 0.3 per cent of the membership over three years\n(including accusations that have not been upheld). The mean estimate of their\ninterviewee sample, then, is inflated by a factor of over 100. This is far\nbeyond business-as-usual \u2018bad news\u2019. British media reporting has resulted in\nthe entrenchment of a public perception of antisemitism in the Labour Party\nthat is demonstrably wildly out of proportion with the available evidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsecond half of the book focusses on the controversies and confusions over the\nInternational Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) \u2018working definition of\nantisemitism\u2019, which Labour\u2019s National Executive Committee adopted in full in\nSeptember 2018, having for several months been under intense pressure to do so.\nThe IHRA definition, as Antony Lerman forensically shows, is itself deeply\nproblematic. It consists of a thirty-eight word definition that is so vague as\nto border on meaninglessness, followed by eleven \u2018examples\u2019 of antisemitism,\nseven of which relate to Israel and\/or Zionism. The status of these examples is\nunclear, but some of them could be interpreted to place considerable\nconstraints on expressions of support for Palestinian rights: the example that\nmentions the \u2018singling out\u2019 of Israel has been cited, for instance, to cast the\nBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as intrinsically antisemitic.\nDebate within the Labour Party over the definition was almost entirely focussed\non those supporting examples that had been widely criticised as potentially\nendangering free speech. Justin Schlosberg\u2019s illuminating and alarming media\nanalysis reveals the persistent unprofessional inaccuracy and distortion in the\nmedia coverage of this debate. The IHRA definition was routinely presented as\nconsensual and even commonsensical, with authoritative critiques of it\nubiquitously ignored. MPs alleging antisemitism in the context of this debate,\nsuch as Margaret Hodge, were treated much less critically than those offering\nmore moderate or nuanced perspectives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\nhas this come to pass, and what prospects are there for a return to a more\nsensible public conversation? The response of the Labour Party to media\nexaggerations and distortions, Philo and Berry comment, was \u2018weak\u2019, in part owing\nto public relations shortcomings. They also note, though, that the story was\nrepeatedly stimulated by interventions both from within and outside the party,\nsometimes seemingly driven primarily by political motives such as the toppling\nof Jeremy Corbyn. The forces spurring the media focus on alleged Labour\nantisemitism are not amenable to exposure through the transparent methods of\ndiscourse analysis that these scholars apply to the output of British\njournalists. The prominence of conspiracy theories in the history of\nantisemitism further complicates the discussion of the strategic use of this\nissue against Corbyn and his allies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe Israeli media, where this history does not have an inhibiting effect, there\nis quite open commentary on the role of that country\u2019s Ministry of Strategic\nAffairs in influencing the climate of public debate on Israel and antisemitism\nin Europe and beyond. Philo and Berry briefly discuss the case of Shai Masot,\nan official at the Israeli embassy in London with links to that ministry, who\nwas captured on film in a 2017 Al Jazeera documentary plotting to \u2018take down\u2019\nBritish politicians regarded as hostile to Israel, including the Conservative\nForeign Office minister Alan Duncan. Bad News for Labour<\/em> steers clear,\nhowever, of any speculation on the possible links between this agenda and the\nLabour Party\u2019s travails. This is a wise decision: the value of this book rests\non the objective rigour and empirical tightness of its arguments, which will\nsurely convince any reasonably-minded reader that media coverage of\nantisemitism and the Labour Party has been alarmingly tendentious,\ndisproportionate, careless and biased. The place of this story within the\nbroader context of message manipulation and the undermining of fact-based\ndemocratic debate in the digital era still awaits, however, systematic\ninvestigation. The failure of the media on this issue is just one aspect of a\nwider and still very inadequately understood crisis, in Britain and beyond, in\nthe quality of the information shaping the perceptions and voting decisions of\ncontemporary electorates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also need a deeper explanation of the intense emotions stirred on the left in particular by the issue of antisemitism. Various agendas\u2014interpersonal, factional, presentational and geopolitical\u2014are undoubtedly at stake in the Labour antisemitism \u2018wars\u2019, but they alone do not explain the particular propensity of this issue to cloud judgments, inflame passions, and preoccupy both journalists and their audiences. Why, for example, has The<\/em> Guardian<\/em>, especially online, been particularly obsessive and problematic in its coverage? On the IHRA definition, according to Schlosberg, The<\/em> Guardian<\/em>\u2019s online coverage was less balanced even than that of the Sun<\/em>. This is certainly to a large extent owing to editorial views at The Guardian<\/em>, but given the important role of click-counting in shaping online news content, it also reveals something about the interests of The<\/em> Guardian<\/em>\u2019s left-liberal readership. A commitment to overcoming all traces of racism is of course a thoroughly laudable cornerstone principle of the British left. With respect to antisemitism, this commitment has somehow become mired in profound confusion. This muddle, from which no escape is in sight, continues to be extremely damaging\u2014not only to the Labour Party, but also to the important battle against all forms of serious racism and antisemitism, which are politically located overwhelmingly on the nationalist right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief,<\/em> by Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller is published by Pluto Press. 272 pp. \u00a314.99<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The seemingly never-ending rumpus over antisemitism in the Labour Party has been capturing headlines for over four years now. This controversy is closely entwined with personal attacks on Jeremy Corbyn, which began during his victorious leadership campaign in the summer of 2015. The topic of antisemitism on the left, and above all in Labour, has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":3202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1393,1396,1403],"tags":[2436],"coauthors":[2527],"class_list":["post-3197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reviews","category-uk","category-inequality","tag-antisemitism"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/The-never-ending-saga-over-antisemitism-and-the-Labour-Party-4744.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}