The racism in Labour’s ranks
AJewish Labour MP attending a party disciplinary hearing about alleged anti-semitism yesterday was protected by 40 colleagues from Left-wing activists who had gathered to heckle her. Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn was accusing the Prime Minister of presiding over a policy “hostile” to immigrants when she was home secretary. The implication was that the Tories were indifferent to the concerns of immigrants and the recent debacle over the residency rights of the Windrush generation was proof of their attitude.
Ahead of local elections next week, the two main parties face the most toxic charge that can be levelled against a political group: racism. But the Windrush mess, which has left people who have lived here for decades in serious difficulties, while lamentable, is clearly an administrative blunder by the Home Office, not a deliberate policy.
By contrast, what is going on in Labour is of a different order of magnitude. As we report today, the Left does not take the allegations of antisemitism seriously at all. They think it is all a plot by moderate MPS to undermine Mr Corbyn by smear. Len Mccluskey, leader of the Unite trade union and therefore the party’s most powerful benefactor, has even gone so far as to encourage activists to purge five MPS who have been prominent in their criticism on this subject.
Yet Ruth Smeeth, the MP whose colleagues accompanied her yesterday, told the Commons just days ago of the vile anti-semitic abuse she has received, much of it from people claiming to be supporters of Mr Corbyn. Another Jewish MP, Luciana Berger, said that “within the Labour Party, anti-semitism is now more commonplace, it is more conspicuous and it is more corrosive”.
The Windrush issue is a blot on the Government’s copy book, though successive governments are guilty of failing to clarify the rights of the people affected. But the anti-semitism evinced by the Momentum wing of Labour is tied into an anti-american and anti-israel worldview whose most prominent proponent is Mr Corbyn himself. He is unwilling to move against those who should be kicked out of the party, like Ken Livingstone, because they are his supporters and friends. He has made the required noises against anti-semitism without doing anything about it. Before Mr Corbyn points to the mote in the Tory eye, he should consider the beam in his own.