Time’s up for Corbyn over anti-Semitism

THE Mail on Sunday today produces shocking evidence of a carefully co-ordinated campaign by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, to punish and persecute those who dare to protest against anti-Jewish prejudice in the Party, or to denounce the Labour leader’s utter failure to tackle it.

Two MPs, Dame Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin, face what appear to be orchestrated operations against them.

But this crude, repressive behaviour is failing to halt a growing wave of disgust at such bigotry in Mr Corbyn’s party, disgust which last week found expression in a joint condemnation by all three of Britain’s major Jewish newspapers.

Mr Corbyn, who has survived repeated moderate rebellions, may finally have picked a fight he cannot win. His current, growing confrontation over anti-Semitism is stirring up so much revulsion and anger that he is at last in real danger.

But it seems he dare not climb down. Many of his supporters hate Israel, a position which has long been fashionable on the hard Left. While they claim this is because of wrong things done by that state, they somehow cannot seem to work up the same level of anger against other countries which behave as badly.

Mr Corbyn, it appears, would rather play along with this than fight it. This is the best available explanation for Labour’s refusal to agree with the careful definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and accepted by most serious bodies, and its failure to frown on those who equate that country with Nazi Germany or accuse British Jews of disloyalty.

But Corbynite zealots reject such limits. No wonder Dame Margaret, whose grandmother and uncle were murdered in the Holocaust, says she no longer feels comfortable in her own party. No wonder her colleague, Ian Austin, has protested furiously. Yet it is Dame Margaret and Mr Austin who face disciplinary action, not the anti-Semites.

As Dan Hodges argues in The Mail on Sunday today, this issue really is not one on which civilised people can compromise. This must be the breaking point for Labour moderates.

About time, too. Britain needs a civilised, responsible Opposition. Mr Corbyn’s capture of the Labour machine was a putsch, which increasingly insults Labour supporters and voters. Real radical action is needed to reverse it.