Anti-semitism is an issue that could blow the Labour Party to smithereens

The fact that Jeremy Corbyn can no longer be counted on to defend Jews is hugely damaging

In his 1999 report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Sir William Macpherson produced a definition of a racist incident. He said it was “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”. The then Labour government accepted this definition. Today it is the standard for public policy.

The Macpherson definition is absurd and unfair. It has no objective criteria. It demands no proof. If you choose to “perceive” someone’s words or actions to be racist, you can accuse and thus ruin him without anything that a normal court would call evidence. This happens a lot.

Last March, Jeremy Corbyn was exposed as having personally defended a blatantly anti-semitic mural that depicted rich Jewish men playing Monopoly on a table held up by the naked backs of the world’s poor. It was an important moment. Mr Corbyn’s support for it was so appalling that it roused British Jews to take a stand against Labour anti-semitism under his leadership.

In response to the protests, Labour’s National Executive Committee produced its draft Code of Conduct on anti-semitism. The draft boasts that it employs the widely accepted working definition of anti-semitism agreed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) two years ago. It declares its acceptance of the IHRA’S examples of anti-semitism (eg “Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews”).

Without explicitly admitting it, however, Labour rejected four of the IHRA’S examples. These all referred to Israel (eg “Applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any democratic nation”), rather than Jews in general. Labour rejected the IHRA example that it is anti-semitic to claim that “the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavour”.

There was outrage from all the mainstream Jewish organisations. Sixty-eight rabbis wrote a letter to the Guardian in protest. One accusation was that Labour was breaking the Macpherson rule by not allowing racism to be defined by its victims.

It is indeed grimly hilarious that the party so zealous for the Macpherson definition refuses to apply it to itself. If you obey Macpherson, you must accept that if one single Jew (or one single person of any race) identifies an anti-semitic incident perpetrated by the Labour Party, that settles the argument in favour of the complainant.

But it seems to me that the attack on Labour’s Corbyn-era anti-semitism – which is wholly justified – should re-base itself, for two reasons.

The first is that the Jews could get trapped. One of the IHRA definitions of anti-semitism that Labour removed is: “Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.” No doubt many people who make such accusations are anti-semitic, but divided loyalties do sometimes exist among many groups, and can legitimately be pointed out.

During the Iraq and Afghan wars, it became apparent that several Muslim leaders thought that British Muslims should not serve in the British armed forces or fight against Muslims. This is a classic example of divided loyalties. If no one were allowed to say that about some Jews, how long before someone is convicted of “Islamophobia” for saying it about some Muslims? Islamists are masters at turning foreign policy debates into phobia accusations to prevent free speech: Jews should not be their allies.

The second reason is that Jews should not define anti-semitism by its victims’ sense of offence alone. If it is so defined, it loses objectivity and lets the rest of us off the hook. If anti-semitism is considered bad solely because it upsets Jews, it becomes easier for non-jews to tiptoe away. “Very regrettable,” we may say, “shouldn’t be allowed, but after all it affects only a few hundred thousand people in this country. It’s just a matter of good policing in hotspots like Hendon.” From there, it is a short step to wondering, sotto voce, whether it mightn’t be better if the Jews were to leave. That is the way it has gone in France.

No. Resisting anti-semitism is, of course and literally, a matter of life and death for Jews. But it is not much less than that for our civilisation. A pathology that used to lurk in the gutter has crawled out and has been welcomed at the top of the party which might form our next government.

Historically, the British Left was the natural home of Jews, escaping Tsarist pogroms and, later, the Nazis. Coming out of oppression, many wanted the workers of the world to unite and produce more wealth for all. Since Hitler destroyed the Jewish populations of most European countries, the British Labour Party became the most Jewish party of the European Left. Israel was a pioneer Labour nation. Our own dear TUC was best buddy with Histadrut, its Israeli equivalent.

As the years passed, the Left lost faith in its capacity to transform the industrial world into a workers’ paradise. Instead, it demonised that world – for colonialism, racism, nuclear weapons, consumerism, climate change – and stitched together a weird coalition against it. Gay rights activists linked arms with Islamists who believe that homosexuals should be thrown off cliffs. Mr Corbyn climbed on the rainbow in the late Sixties. Now in his own late sixties, he hopes soon to find his pot of political gold at the end of it.

Somewhere along the way, Israel got dropped. African liberation movements were in: the Jewish one went out, though many Jews were slow to see it. Israel seemed too close to the United States, too successful, too hated by some Muslims. It became inconvenient to remember that most of Israel’s population are refugees from the Soviet bloc or from Muslim countries such as Iran and Iraq. The David who, in 1967, heroically defeated vastly greater numbers of Arab invaders, was rebadged as a capitalist Goliath.

And while there is no necessary correlation between criticism of Israel and anti-semitism, the delegitimising and demonising of Israel on the Left gave global permission to antisemitism. If you were allowed to hate Israel, no one would ask awkward questions if you hated the Jews.

As Western European Muslim populations grew, and Islamist extremists stirred up anti-semitic feeling among them, the electoral imperative took over. In Britain, there are roughly 10 times as many Muslim voters as Jewish ones. If Mr Corbyn himself can’t count, his clever aides can. It may be quite useful for him to be accused of anti-semitism. Losses in Barnet will be much more than offset by gains in Bradford, Burnley and Birmingham. There are numerical as well as ideological reasons why Labour might not mind being thought an anti-semitic party.

Look at the Labour Code of Conduct in this light. Note that, two years ago, the Labour Equalities Committee adopted the entire IHRA of antisemitism definition without qualification. Then note the qualifications added this week. To the outside world, it presents as a virtuous new Code of Conduct. On Planet Corbyn, it presents as a move away from past constraints and a statement giving many attacks on Israel a free pass. This has become a subject on which Labour cannot be trusted – or rather, it can be trusted to get it wrong.

The numbers may look small, but that fact is big.