Jackie Walker suspended

Jackie Walker has been suspended from the Labour Party for saying that 'she had not found a definition of antisemitism [she] could work with' and, seemingly also for calling for the inclusion of other genocides in Holocaust Memorial Day celebrations (something that has already happened). Many people within the labour movement are applauding the suspension, including figures from its left-wing. In fact, a spokesperson for Momentum is reported as saying that the organisation is looking to exclude Walker - as a Momentum member myself, I am keen to know how this has been decided, who these spokespeople are, and to whom they are accountable. If nothing else, this sorry episode serves as a reminder that Momentum stands in urgent need of democratisation.

I do not support Walker's suspension. This will no doubt prove controversial, and that is entirely understandable. People are rightly worried about anti-Semitism on the left and in wider society, and do not want to be seen to be sitting lightly to this growing and grotesque racism. This case however stands at the complex intersection of two racisms and the internal politics of the Labour Party and deserves careful thought.

Jackie Walker, a lifelong and courageous campaigner against racism who has written a moving and very personal account of one woman - her mother's - experience of the Windrush migration, is herself of Jewish heritage. She has a consistent history of taking a stand against the far right and their targeting of Jews and other minorities. She is in no way an anti-Semite. In the current pressure cooker environment of the Labour Party that truth, which should be obvious, requires stating firmly. Does that make her comments wise? Not in my opinion, although I'll say something about context in a moment. Nor, however, were those comments anti-Semitic. To say something else that should be obvious, Walker's claim that she had not found a good definition of anti-Semitism is not an assertion that there is no such thing as anti-Semitism. And a context in which the charge of anti-Semitism is quite cynically and disgraceful being used as a weapon in the internal politics of the Labour Party, definitions matter. Nor does tactlessness or ignorance regarding Shoah commemorations constitute anti-Semitism. Jackie Walker is not a professional politician; mistakes made in a tense and hostile situation deserve to be treated with sympathy.

It matters, you see, who is speaking; the power relations which frame a context of speaking cannot be ignored. Jackie Walker is a black woman who has been subject to vicious invasions of privacy, press intrusion, and hostility in recent months. She is not a powerful person; she is an activist trying to work through the relationship between two racisms, each of which is not an abstract matter for her, but rather a threat to be both feared and fought. She was speaking to a hostile audience. This last point might not be obvious, indeed the suggestion that something called the 'Jewish Labour Movement' is a hostile audience might sound problematic in itself. Now, the Jewish Labour Movement is not, as its name might suggest, an organisation for all Jews within the labour movement. It is an affiliate of the World Labour Zionist Movement and an enthusiastic supporter of the state of Israel. Anti-Zionist Jews are effectively excluded from the organisation, which has a particular political agenda, and one to which Walker is opposed. Good socialists disagree about the issue of Israel, and I don't want to rehearse that particular debate now. But Walker was not amongst political friends, and was facing hostile questioning of a type she lacks the professional training to face.

The accusation of anti-Semitism is being mobilised by the right as a way of attacking Jeremy Corbyn and the movement that supports him. A dangerous and cynical tactic, this undermines the fight against anti-Semitism. The left should think very carefully before helping in this; we should at least make ourselves more sensitive to the possibility of alternative perspectives.

There are weeks when decades happen

There's nothing like a popular vote to remind you where power lies in society; spoiler - not with popular votes. Thus, the hands of any British government wanting to operate within broadly mainstream economic constraints were today tied, not by the electorate, but by the ratings agency Standard and Poor, who cut the UK's credit rating. Expect others to follow. More generally, those most curious of creatures known as 'the markets' have not responded well to Thursday's Leave vote.

It would have been possible for a determined Leave campaign with a co-ordinated economic plan, prepared to stray beyond both mainstream constraints and the interests of capital, to manage a Leave vote in a way that didn't promise widespread poverty and public spending cuts whilst keeping the, uncertainty averse, forces of global credit capital and those irksome markets sufficiently content to spare it the coup de grace. However, that is not the Leave campaign we had: that was a monstrous concotion of xenophobes, British nationalists, economic reactionaries, and oddballs: an assembly of grotesque misfits wrapped in the Union Jack, who could only appeal to anyone on the basis of a widespread discontent, disaffection and desperation in search of an outlet. They had no plan, other than to 'Take Back Our Country' and 'Make Britain Great Again', all the while defending the sectional interests of a narrow part of British capital with no sense of a broader picture.

There is much still to say about the campaign, the EU, and the British economy. There is even more to say about what the referendum result shows about class. And there is still more to say yet about the petulant arrogance of much liberal reaction to the result. A strand of opinion in broadsheets, academia, and the Waitrose-shopping end of social media thinks that what last Thursday showed was that the swinish multitude should not be trusted with big decisions.

I will write about those things at some point. More urgent than any of them is the foul upsurge in open racism that has followed on the referendum campaign and result. Make no mistake, it wasn't that these things caused racism. Britain is, whatever the panglossians who inhabit Guardian columns might imagine, a racist society through and through. However, racism often lies buried - waiting nervous and Gollum-like in the shadows, consumed with self-hatred and unwilling to show its face. That it does is one of the greatest political achievements of recent decades. Yet, it's still there: hidden behind the remark that 'the area has changed', disguised as patriotism (if the two can ever be disentangled), implicit in a choice of friends. Once mainstream political discourse gets racialised, as it was by the immigration-focus of both main referendum campaigns, racists gain confidence. Things usually unsaid are spoken aloud. Combine this with the jingoistic upsurge that followed the result, the general flag-waving feel of Jubilee year, and most noxiously the ever-present threat of the far-right, and you have a toxic mix.

Jo Cox was its victim. There have been others. Since Thursday, racial abuse soared. Eastern Europeans were a particular focus: with cards reading 'go home Polish vermin' distributed outside a Cambridgeshire primary school. In West London, a Polish cultural centre was attacked. In East London two Polish men were beaten unconscious. The list of incidents goes on and horribly on:

But at least there's a political party in Britain, committed to equality and anti-racism, that will make the case strongly against racism, and build a cohesive movement in solidarity with its victims, right? Enter the Labour Party, glorious and ready to do battle against injustice and bigotry. Well, ordinary party members have been doing this. The PLP, however. Well, as the far-right roars and the economy falters, their priority is obviously to try to topple a popular leader who has increased Labour's share of the vote and presided over modest, but real, by-election successes.

The line is, of course, that Jeremy's weak leadership was responsible for the Leave vote. This is nonsense on several levels. Never mind the fact that Corbyn is not a weak leader - although this would not appear obvious to those whose idea of political leadership looks as though it has been cobbled together from a few evenings watching The Thick Of It - but that the bulk of the PLP don't want to be led by him, or by anyone with political ideas remotely similar to his. Never mind the fact that Corbyn was not in a position to persuade key Labour constituencies to vote Remain: one of Blairism's besetting sins is the reduction of politics to campaigns and soundbites, whereas all of those Leave votes in the north-east of England were about decades of feeling forgotten, being stripped of hope, crushed economically, and mocked culturally; not matters that can be set right with a broad grin. Never mind the fact that the only thing that would have been achieved by Corbyn going in all guns blazing on behalf of Remain would have been a Scotland-style meltdown in Labour support in parts of the north of England. None of this matters.

It is irrelevant because the coup is not actually about the referendum campaign or Corbyn's leadership style. It is about politics. A sizeable chuck of the PLP, Blairite clones imposed during the years when Labour had the imagination of Jeffrey Archer and the conscience of Dr Crippen, do not want a left-wing leader. You understand nothing about New Labour until you understand that it is about making the Labour Party permanently safe for capitalism. Most of its warriors, not being the most cerebral of souls, would be a bit hazy about what the word 'capitalism' means, preferring instead to wax lyrical about 'a dynamic, modern, economy'. For sure, New Labour is about winning elections, but not at any cost. Their lord and master Tony Blair let the cat out of the bag in this respect when he said that he would not take the 'route to victory' if it were a left-wing one.

In actual fact, the quisling tendancy in the PLP may not have to choose between power and principles. It is not inconceivable by any means that we will see some kind of National Government on a somehow-managing-to-Remain basis - composed of Tories, Lib Dems, and an SDPesque rump of Blairites - after an autumn election. Whether the split will come before or after this election will depend on the right's tactics, and whether they have the front to let unions and party activists pay in time and money for their election. (Incidentally: this scenario should be anticipated and pre-empted. Bold thinking about Scotland, up to and including the possibility of an electoral pact with the SNP in exchange for the promise of a second independence referendum, should be considered).

We cannot stop the right being right-wing. Nor can we make them loyal to the leadership: the strategy of a 'kinder, newer, politics' has been tried, in good faith, and has failed. The co-ordinated spotaneous resignations of shadow ministers throughout today put that beyond doubt. Now is the time to fight for the Labour Party. This, to be sure, should not be at the expense of defending communities against racism, nor at that of arguing for an alternative strategy on the economy. However, the remaining strangehold of the 1990s on Labour in parliament is a barrier to doing both these things. Words like 'accountability' and 'deselection' have now to be uttered openly. At constituency level the left has to plan so that the Labour Party in parliament in future looks more like the Labour Party at large.

The immediate priority is to support Jeremy. He is under attack, facing a vote of no confidence as I write. See Momentum here for a petition, and keep an eye out for more ways of offering support. These are desperate times within the Labour Party. Yet there is some hope. Here is Parliament Square this evening:

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.

We need to talk about Jeremy

A wag on Facebook suggests that, with Jeremy Clarkson's suspension leaving the future of Top Gear in doubt, the programme's title could be re-used for a show that samples and rates legal highs. In a similar vein, I suggest, 'top gear' might well be the explanation for why the powers-that-be at the BBC weren't sufficiently compos mentis to get rid of Clarkson several years ago. After a series of racial incidents, and a bizarre call for striking public sector workers to be shot, it seems that in punching an underling Clarkson has gone too far.

What deserves comment is not the man's arseholery. Arsholes, like the biblical poor, are with us always, and the law of averages means that from time to time one or two of them will find their way into the broadcast media. Rather, what's interesting is the amount of support this particular arsehole has found in his adversity.

Top gear runs through this story like a thread, for a former prime mover in the acid house scene, Guido Fawkes, or Paul Staines as the man is in fact called, has started a petition calling on the BBC to reinstate Clarkson. In itself this is to be expected. There is honour even amongst aresholes, and it is almost touching to see one member of the arsehole community prepared to help out another who has got himself into a bit of a scrape. No, what demands attention is the fact that over half a million people to date have signed the thing. What on earth is that about?

It is not, one assumes, that half a million people are so devoid of any moral sensibility to think that it's OK to go around hitting staff who fail to supply you with hot dinners on demand. Instead, what the petition reflects is Clarkson's popularity. The man is well-liked by a significant proportion of the British population, much though it might pain the more pollyannaish kind of liberal to admit it. Why?

Well, since the 1960s British society has changed for the better, as well as for the worse. The past half century hasn't just been all about closing coal mines and selling council houses. There have been strides forward in opposing racism, in securing gains for women, for LGBTQ people, and in many other ways the adoption of more humane approaches to a broad spectrum of human situations. This is in no small part owing to the victories of liberation campaigns. And, guess what? Not everybody likes this.

However much I might be, and I am, signed up to the views that patriarchy is bad for men as well, that racism damages white workers by dividing them against black workers and so on, these positions are true  only, as they say, in the final analysis. Prior to that, men - #yesallmen - benefit from sexism. We are more likely to get jobs, and be paid more than women. We might well find ourselves in situations where we benefit from women's unpaid domestic work, and so on. White people - yes, all of us - benefit from racism. And so on. You get the idea.

Now it's by no means inevitable that someone who benefits from oppression in the short-run seeks to defend that oppression; things like experience and politics can play a part here. Never the less, it's entirely unsurprising that a good number of people who in various ways have done rather well out of unequal relations to others resent the fact that those relations have been eroded. Hence the backlash against feminism, hence the rallying cry 'political correctness gone mad', and hence Jeremy fucking Clarkson. He is a standard bearer for reaction against the trendy view that foreigners aren't all that bad, or the bleating communist insistence that women can drive sports cars too. He provides a voice for the unspoken resentments behind many a suburban front door. He is the arsehole of all our hearts.

And the fact that he is so popular serves as a timely reminder that there is a job to be done defending the gains of the last fifty years.