Williamson in video hate rant in wake of election failure
2017 Labour voters who defected in 2019: 42 per cent (29 per cent Corbyn and the party; 13 per cent Corbyn but not the party).
Labour voters in both 2017 and 2019: 25 per cent (10 per cent, 15 per cent).
It’s clear from those figures that Jewhate was a huge problem for Labour — and that around 2.5 million people voted for the party despite Mr Corbyn’s stance. (This is consistent with other findings from Deltapoll’s survey: between one quarter and one-third of Labour’s voters comprised people who rejected a great many of Mr Corbyn’s views, but stuck by their tribe.)
What, though, of the 42 per cent of Labour defectors who considered Mr Corbyn to be antisemitic? This figure should alarm the party — as should the 52 per cent who think the current Labour Party is incompetent, 43 per cent who think Corbyn is unpatriotic and 60 per cent who distrust Labour’s ability to spend public money wisely.
This brings to the heart of the matter. The controversy over antisemitism did not take place in isolation. For millions of women and men, including a great many traditional Labour supporters, it was one of a range of factors that, together, made the party and its leader unbearably toxic.
Stamping out antisemitism will not on its own revive Labour’s support. It is not a sufficient condition for Labour’s recovery; but it is certainly a necessary condition.
Peter Kellner is a journalist and former president of pollsters YouGov
V CHRIS WILLIAMSON, the former MP Labour suspended over his interventions in the antisemitism crisis, has accused Israel of “mobilising its assets” in Britain to deny Jeremy Corbyn victory.
Mr Williamson released a video statement in which he called antisemitism allegations “manufactured” in the wake of his failure to win re-election to Derby North, where he stood as independent after the party did not lift his suspension to allow him to be its candidate. He called Israel “a hostile foreign government”, saying it had “mobilised its assets in the UK — which Israeli diplomats call their ‘power multiplier’ — in an attempt to prevent a Corbyn-led Labour government.
“Their secondary goal was always to blunt the internationalism in our movement and normalise Zionism in the Labour Party,” Mr Williamson said.
“They’ve done this by terrifying activists, coordinating with anti-Corbyn journalists and MPs, and using faith organisations, many of them charities, to promote the antisemitism narrative.
“First they said ‘anti-Zionism is antisemitism’, then they said ‘anti-capitalism is antisemitism’. In this election, they’ve sought to prevent dozens of anti-imperialist socialists from standing for Labour.”
Mr Williamson attacked “apologists for apartheid”, saying they waged a “concerted smear campaign” against the party.
He said Labour had “internalised the antisemitism narrative promoted by the far-right Israeli government... but we’ll not allow racists to dictate to us on the left what anti-racisism means”.
He said he would use money raised by crowdfunding for his own legal case against his old party to create a “Left Legal Fighting Fund” to defend others who Mr Williamson said were “maliciously smeared and harassed by the same allegations”.
Mr Williamson won just 635 votes in Thursday’s election.
His seat was taken by the Conservatives, who now have a 2,015-majority there.