Anti-Semitism in the UK Labor Party

For those who have not followed the problem of resurgent anti-Semitism in the British Labor Party, Foreign Policy magazine recently published an excellent summary by James Bloodworth titled "Labour’s New Anti-Semitism Has Disturbingly Old Roots." Here is the gist:

Jeremy Corbyn is often credited with bringing new blood to the Labour Party. But it’s been exactly that influx that has mired Britain’s leading social democratic party in an ongoing crisis over anti-Semitism. Many of those drawn to the Labour Party since Corbyn’s election as leader in 2015 are not left-wingers in the traditional sense. They don’t have a set of recognizable ideological prescriptions for society but instead are driven by an essentially conspiratorial vision of how the world works.

This is not the emergence of a new left but the rise of the “cranks,” as Jade Azim has written for the activist website Labour List. The enemy is not so much capitalism as a system but a shadowy, malfeasant group of undesirables who pull the strings behind the scenes. As always, the vocabulary is the giveaway. The enemy is defined as “the elite” and “the establishment” in language sometimes indistinguishable from that of the alt-right.

This conspiratorial worldview inevitably lends itself to centuries-old tropes about Jewish power; anti-Semitism is the ultimate conspiracy theory. A mural that was removed from East London in 2012 encapsulated this outlook. It depicted hook-nosed Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor below the “eye of providence,” the symbol of the Illuminati, a long-defunct Bavarian secret society that is a favorite of conspiracy theorists. Corbyn, a backbench member of parliament at the time, backed the artist responsible for the piece, writing an encouraging comment on his Facebook page.

You can read the entire article here.

 

Comments

[Trump2020]

There is an inherent illogic to the bull$hit about the Jews and their supposed "working together" to control the world.
1 for many years, before Isreal, the jews we're beaten and persecuted, hardly an indication of power and control
2 Jews are not a uniform group and you can't say "they all.. ", some Jewish folks are
leftists and some are rightists, Democrat, Republican, capitalist, etc.
3 what the UK (and EU) Jew hatred indicates is that this bigotry remains below the surface but remains. I've got to say there is some meta spiritual aspect to hating the Jewish people. It makes no sense but is ever present.

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Environmental Justice]

Senator John McCain said it best, ...Some politicians "stir up the crazies," to get power. He also said, these are "not patriots, but traitors." Applies over the pond too.

[For to buy a firelock]

"Senator John McCain said it best, ...Some politicians 'stir up the crazies', to get power. He also said, these are 'not patriots, but traitors'. Applies over the pond too".

Typical American ignorance. If only you knew how many Tories and Lib Dems voted for Corbyn as party leader to sink Labour. Even the Guardian complained at the time about non-members voting in the party's leadership election. Corbyn has an almost forty-year public track record of insanity; he needn't engage in anything novel in order to stir up the crazies for his own advantage. Indeed, since taking the helm he has alienated a considerable number of Labour voters, whether or not they give a damn about the four-by-twos. (A moderate Labour candidate might very well have won the last UK election for the party). Despite this latest fiasco, everyone knows - save 'progressive', 'liberal' Americans, of course - that Corbyn is generally unelectable in the UK.

Meanwhile, good luck flooding your country with millions more unskilled, illiterate, illegal immigrants (helping to make your poor poorer), all whilst complaining abut the growing gap betwixt rich and poor and zealously accusing all opponents of the policy, and other such neoliberal delights, of 'ignorance' and racism.

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Environmental Justice]

I thank my lucky stars everyday that I am an ignorant American.