Anti-Semitism, Labour, and the cynicism of the Right.

There are certain phrases that immediately make me get my coat and leave the party: “Oh look, there’s Richard Littlejohn in the corner!” “Let me tell you about our holiday at a nudist camp.” “You’re Jewish? Cool. I’m a lifelong philosemite, you know."

So wrote Hadley Freeman a couple of years back, in a piece whose relevance to the present blogpost will become clear in due course. All the talk at the moment is not, however, of philosemitism, but of its apparent opposite.

Anti-Semitism is a problem. It is a problem in British society, shot through as it is with racism and religious intolerance. It is therefore no surprise that it is present to some extent in institutions that exist within that society, including the Labour Party. To be sure, it is unlikely that the Corbyn-led party could muster the levels of suspiciously anti-Jewish looking goings on achieved by the British Right. After all, it is no small thing to have one of one's most prominent youth organisations singing Nazi songs, or a tabloid ally running scare stories about Jewish areas of London. But then, few of us can aspire to the levels of the Conservative Party.

Aidan Burley - Google him

Nor am I convinced that the disturbing anti-Semitic strand running through some of the odder bits of the Left has any real hold within the Labour Party. This is not least because the Party has actually been fairly good at dealing with genuine cases of anti-Semitism. Luton councillor Aysegul Gurbuz, who praised Hitler, was rightly suspended. Gerry Downing, a veteran member of revolutionary socialism's batshit tendency, spoke about Labour's 'Jewish problem': as a consequence Labour no longer has a Downing problem, and I will be shedding no tears as a consequence. Similarly, dear reader, I can't get worked up about the plight of Ken Livingstone. For all that he has done over the years, and for all that I don't think he is an anti-Semite, he has at the very least a case of foot-in-mouth disease. Some time for quiet reflection will do him good.

If anything the Party machine has been over-zealous. This is not just through the troubling growth of a culture in which criticism of Israel is equated with anti-Semitism: witness the case of Jewish activist Tony Greenstein. The altogether eyebrow-lifting brief suspension of Jackie Walker, a long-time anti-racist of Jewish heritage, makes the machine look less guilty of the too strict application of decent principles as of a politically-motivated witch-hunt.

This suspicion grows once the case of Rhea Wolfson is considered. Chosen to replace Livingstone on the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance slate for Labour's NEC, Wolfson is a young Jewish woman, and an active synagogue-goer. Party rules mean that she needs the nomination of her CLP to make the ballot. She takes up the story on her Facebook page:

Over the past few weeks, I have been delighted to receive support for my candidacy for Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) from a broad spectrum of opinion within the party, including nominations from dozens of Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs). It is clear that many members want to see me elected to the NEC.However, I am now concerned that a faction of the party are trying to take that option away from the membership. To appear on the ballot I needed to secure, amongst other things, the nomination of my home CLP.

Last night Eastwood CLP, where my family home is, met to nominate candidates for the NEC. It was proposed that, given I am currently a member of the CLP, there would be a straight vote for or against my nomination. I made my case and answered questions from the room. I was then asked to leave the room while they discussed my nomination further. Once I had left, the ex-leader of Scottish Labour, Jim Murphy, appealed to the CLP to not nominate me. He argued that it would not be appropriate to nominate me due to my endorsement by Momentum, which he claimed has a problem with anti-Semitism. The constituency has a large Jewish population. The CLP then voted to not endorse me, before re-inviting me back into the room.

Needless to say, this is hugely disappointing. It is disappointing because I am the only Jewish candidate in this election, because the wide range of organisations endorsing me includes the Jewish Labour Movement, and because I have a long record of challenging anti-Semitism and have in fact faced it on a daily basis since my candidacy was announced. But above all, it is disappointing because I know there are many members who want to vote for me, who could now have lost that opportunity. I am considering my options going forward.

Quite apart from the unwarranted slur on Momentum, there is more than a hint here of the suggestion that Rhea is the wrong sort of Jew for Murphy. Put in those terms the scrutiny to which she, along with other Jewish Labour activists, has been subjected cannot itself be absolved of participating in a certain kind of anti-Semitism. It would be noteworthy enough were it an isolated case, but it isn't. It is partnered by a peculiar trend amongst the liberal commentariat. At the absurd end of the spectrum here lie Julie Burchill's various interventions on behalf of her bizarre understanding of Judaism, culminating in her sending poison pen-letters to a synagogue. Burchill is joined in her cause by a supporting cast of acolytes from the creepier regions of the internet, to whose various social media accounts and webpages I can't bring myself to link. Meanwhile Nick Cohen is an altogether more serious, and therefore more dangerous, arbiter of acceptable Jewishness. Sam Kriss' take-down, here, is compulsory reading.

This strange current deserves more critical attention to be directed towards it. In the meanwhile, Rhea's candidacy can be supported here.

Jim Murphy : forerunner of the death of labourism?

Well, the votes are in, and the remaining few members of the Labour Party in Scotland have voted for Jim Murphy as their leader. As did, pretty enthusiastically, the MPs and MSPs. The affiliates, which is mainly to say unions, didn't - of which more presently. Cue obligatory comment about Turkeys and Christmas.

I have form with Jim Murphy. He was president of the NUS and a big thing in Labour Students when I was an undergraduate. He didn't seem to like me. In fairness to our protagonist, the feeling was mutual; I thought he was terrible then, and he is beyond terrible now. Be quite certain, this is the most right-wing person ever to be elected to a leadership position in the Labour Party, and I include Blair in that reckoning. An unpleasant political fixer avant la lettre, he is, quite incredibly, a member of the Henry Jackson Society. The immediate consequence of his election will be Labour haemorrhaging votes to the SNP next year, when the now certain strategy of opposing them from the right will go down like a lead balloon with the Scottish electorate.

Murphy did not win amongst trade unions, in spite apparently of some SNP trade unionists voting for him as an act of political euthanasia. Calls are already being made for unions to disaffiliate from the party in Scotland. More intriguingly, there are rumours of significant unions - I've heard Unison named - taking this call seriously. 

Working class politics in Britain has been dominated for over a century by the unique phenomenon of labourism. The dual premises of the labourist settlement are the link between trade unions and the Labour Party and Labour functioning as the 'natural party' for working class voters. The correct answer to the question, "is labourism a good or a bad thing?" is a resounding "yes and no". On the one hand, labourism has kept class allegiance in focus in British electoral politics, given a certain political voice to trade unions, and won reforms, most notably the welfare state. On the other, labourism has undoubtedly functioned as a political brake on the working class, at once forcing a division of labour between the political and industrial wings of the labour movement whilst making trade union bureaucracies unhealthily beholden to Labour leaderships. Either way, labourism is real, and has needed to be reckoned with by anyone serious about socialist politics in Britain. The two word answer to the question why I remain in the Labour Party is "labourism persists".

But for how much longer? Labourism is under pressure throughout Britain. It was deliberately targeted in the New Labour era, and faces a renewed threat from the implementation of the Collins reforms. Meanwhile we're witnessing a certain fracturing of traditional party allegiances, with the rise of what has been misleadingly christened 'anti-politics', the Jeckyl and Hyde personae of which are Nigel Farage and Russell Brand.

What is somewhat true throughout Britain, however, is true with a vengeance in Scotland. The SNP has already undermined Labour allegiance in a layer of the working class, and the impact of the referendum, and the major parties back-peddling on their 'vow' to implement devomax will hasten this. With Jim Murphy, who opposed even a referendum on independence, behind the wheel the acceleration will be great indeed. Labour will be fighting the next election in Scotland as the major opponent of the SNP from the right, and this will push their status as a party of reform to breaking point. Meanwhile, the union link is threatened north of the border with more immediacy than in England and Wales. Remember that the disaffiliation of the RMT from the Labour Party throughout Britain was a product of Scottish politics; history could yet repeat.

It is foolish to make predictions in this area, but it is not beyond the bounds of imagination that yesterday's election result was a decisive moment in the death of labourism.