Corbyn’s Labour isn’t as bad as the BNP. It’s WORSE

Why? Because under his leadership, hateful racism has gained a mask of credibility, says our man who’s warned of it for years

AFEW days ago I was t alking to a longstanding Jewish Labour Party activist. Why, I asked him, was he sticking with the party. ‘It can’t be the Jews who are seen to destroy Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership,’ he told me. ‘If that happens, they will target the community. They will come for us.’

That is Labour today. Mention the party’s name, mention the name of its leader and the Jewish community shudders.

For those who have spent the past two-and-a-half years pointing to the anti-Semitic cancer eating away at Labour and demanding radical surgery, it has been a bittersweet week. We have been vindicated in our diagnosis, but it has come too late to save the patient.

Yes, there have been positives. One is that Corbyn has finally been exposed for who and what he is. Obviously the mask slipped a long, long time ago. But now he has been stripped bare. The avuncular, beneficent uncle has slunk away. In his place stands a venal, cowardly, anti-Semitic-enabling bully.

His supporters have been exposed as well. His social media storm-troopers. His altmedia black propaganda arm. His army of Shadow Cabinet and backbench sycophants and apologists. The camera shutter has snapped and captured them. They hoped they would be framed as a youthful, energetic, political new wave. But they will be remembered for a single week in March, when they roamed the internet, hunting down Jews and their supporters, attempting to terrorise, distort and deflect from the exposure of their rampant racism.

By far the biggest positive has been the actions of the Jewish community itself. The moment when – unlike Labour’s gutless elected representatives – they said ‘ enough is enough’ and meant it. Yes, there is fear among Britain’s Jews. But their overriding emotion now is one of anger. And the day will come when Jeremy Corbyn will regret provoking it. But it will not be today. Because it is here the positives end.

Over the past few days, Labour centrists have been patting themselves on the back. They have pointed to the 40 MPs, and thousand or so Labour activists, who courageously stood in solidarity with the Jewish community, and invited us to record the moment as a turning point.

Thank you, but no. It is not. As things stand, it is merely another waypoint on the normalisation of anti-Semitism in our country. Yes, those MPs such as John Mann and Ruth Smeeth who have consistently raised their heads above the parapet deserve praise, as do the hundreds of Labour activists who joined them in Westminster.

BUT we need to focus on the 220 Labour MPs who didn’t appear. Or the hundreds of thousands of Labour activists who still love to chant, ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn’ until they are hoarse. Where were they? Where have they been over the past two-and-a-half years?

I’ll tell you where they’ve been. They’ve been trying to magic Labour’s anti- Semites from the ghetto of opposition into the heart of government.

Indeed, that’s where they are this morning. As you read this, normal service within the party has been resumed.

Out on the doorsteps they are again rubbing shoulders – the moderates and the anti-Semites; those who proudly took a stand against racism last Tuesday, and the racists they purportedly stood against. Delivering their leaflets. Marking their canvassing forms. Working to usher the Labour Jew-haters ever closer to power.

Can someone please explain tome what exactly has changed? What exactly is supposed to change? What is the plan? What does ‘ enough is enough’ actually mean for the

Labour is the largest racist organisation in the UK

bulk of Labour moderates? A hint was given at Tuesday’s rally. ‘Come and join the Labour Party,’ pleaded Luciana Berger MP. Think about that for a second. It’s like saying, ‘I know how we smash the racists! We’ll join them, and, after a while, we might secure control of their national executive committee!’

The NF in the 1970s. The BNP. The EDL. When did a single person on the Left ever advocate beating racists by joining them?

But that is the extent of the plan. The ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ strategy.

Corbyn’s party isn’t as bad as the NF or the BNP or the EDL. It’s far, far worse. None of those repugnant organisations have ever held any prospect of securing office. Labour does. And as a result it has now become the largest, most high-profile racist organisation in the nation.

Despite the events of the last week, there are still those who deny that basic fact. They cling to the official ‘it’s just a few pockets’ line.

Well, those pockets are deep. Take the overt anti- Semites. Add the anti-Semites who hide behind the fig-leaf of anti-Zionism and those who hide behind the slightly larger fig-leaf of ‘ opposition to the policies of Israel’. Then toss in the ‘few bad apples’ brigade. The ‘Jeremy has spent his whole life fighting racism’ denialists. The ‘some of Jeremy’s best friends are Jewish’ cheerleaders. Add them up, and you have the overwhelming majority of the mod- ern Labour Party. Actually, ignore them. Simply look at the resignation of Christine Shawcroft. The woman who had prime responsibility for rooting out Labour anti-Semitism has been forced to resign – for turning a blind eye to antiSemitism. And she still stubbornly insists the whole thing is simply a plot to get at Corbyn.

Yet still the moderates prevaricate. Still they attempt to s quare t hei r part y’s a nt i - Semitic circle. Still they grope for compromises.

FULL implementation of the utterly discredited Chakrabarti report is one fantastical suggestion. Another is an ‘independent ombudsman’ to outsource investigations into Labour bigotry – presumably because Labour’s leaders cannot be trusted to do it themselves.

There is no need for such procedural sophistry. For ‘enough is enough’ to represent more than a self-indulgent soundbite, Labour’s moderates need only ask Jeremy Corbyn the following questions.

Can you give money to overtly anti-Semitic groups? Can you regularly praise anti-Semites? Can you lobby on their behalf? Can you anoint them your ‘friends’? Can you join and part i cipate i n virulently antiSemitic Facebook groups? Can you organise meetings on behalf of its members? Can you see a Nazi-style caricature of a hooknosed Jew daubed on an East London wall and defend it.

Can you do these things and still remain a member of the Labour Party?

For the events of last week to mean anything, the answer to that question should be a clear, resounding ‘no’.

Which is precisely why Labour moderates will not ask it. Because they know the man guilty of each of those offences is Jeremy Corbyn himself.

They simply cannot bring themselves to take the final step. To state clearly and publicly what every single person who is not part of the thuggish, cultish, Corbynite clique knows to be true. That Jeremy Corbyn cannot provide a solution to Labour’s anti-Semitism problem because he is the living embodiment of Labour’s antiSemitism problem.

So no, last week was not a turning point. For the simple reason t hat because when Britain’s Jews say ‘enough is enough’ they mean it. But too many of their self-styled allies within the Labour Party do not.