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A LITTLE over three years ago, shortly before Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, this newspaper set out seven questions for him to answer regarding people and organisations who he had supported, assisted or spoken alongside. It was a gruesome list of terrorists, Holocaust deniers and antisemites, and it was vital and urgent for Mr Corbyn to answer these questions satisfactorily, the JC urged, lest he “be regarded from the day of his election as an enemy of Britain’s Jewish community”.

Nevertheless, cautioned the writer of that editorial, “there is no direct evidence that he has an issue himself with Jews”. This was a question of who Mr Corbyn associates with and the causes he promotes, rather than his own personal attitudes or prejudices.

Three years on, that initial warning seems prescient; but the benefit of the doubt extended to Mr Corbyn personally has long run out. This is one reason why the new edition of my book, The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Antisemitism, outlook than the original version that came out in 2016.

Back then, it was possible to plot a way for a Corbyn-led Labour Party to navigate its way out of this problem. If the party leadership accepted that the antisemitism amongst its members was not just the result of random prejudice or ill-chosen language, but the product of a political mindset, then there was scope for the change that was necessary to turn around what was already a mounting problem.

If people at all levels in Mr Corbyn’s party, from the leadership to the grassroots, could take complaints of antisemitism seriously instead of dismissing them as smears designed to silence critics of Israel, then common ground could be found in understanding the particular nature of left wing antisemitism and taking steps to tackle it.

If other opinion formers on the left, including influential voices in the broader movement that propelled Corbyn to the leadership, led a process of learning and engagement with the Jewish community, and if those who attacked the community were vigorously and consistently called out for it, that might provide a platform for the party to rebuild its relationship with British Jews.

Instead, Labour has zigzagged from one false step to another, like a pinball bouncing its way towards the hole marked “Game Over”. From Oxford University Labour Club, to the supressed Royall Report, the Chakrabarti whitewash, the failure — twice! — to expel Ken Livingstone, the chronic failings of its disciplinary processes, and political interference at the highest levels to avoid taking action. Throughout all of this, we witnessed a constant stream of antisemitic statements, posts, tweets and comments from Labour Party members, councillors, activists and officials, past and present, all the while dismissed by Mr Corbyn’s most loyal supporters on social media and in party meetings as smears and lies invented by a coalition of Zionists, Tories and Blairites to keep Britain from reaching its socialist utopia.

Then there is Mr Corbyn’s own contribution to this sorry tale: his support for the antisemitic mural, his affection for the “brothers” of Hamas, his conspiracy theory about “the hand of Israel” being behind jihadist terrorism in Egypt, his backing for a campaign to rename Holocaust Memorial Day, his wreath-laying, his excuses and evasions and, most damning of all,

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