Britain’s Labour Party is riven by anti-Semitism. So riven that it views complaints of anti-Semitism as conspiracies against the leader, as fables made up by troublemaking Jews.
That’s my takeaway from a damning new BBC report on how the party has been handling its anti-Semitic crisis. Because the BBC makes clear that far from working to root out the rot, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s inner circle are obsessed about covering up anti-Semitism.
Here are a few examples.
Labour Party general secretary Jennie Formby interfered with a case involving a notorious anti-Semite, Jackie Walker. An email from Formby shows her arguing that anti-Semitism investigations “cannot be allowed to continue in the way that they are at the moment and I will also be challenging the panel for the Jackie Walker case.” Helpfully letting us know that she knew the malicious nature of her efforts, Formby added another email explaining that she had “deleted all trace of the [original] email, too many eyes still on my Labour [e-mail] address.”
It gets worse.
Suggesting that her cover-up was not without higher support, Formby’s “email chain was copied to [Seamus] Milne, Karie Murphy – Mr. Corbyn’s chief of staff – and Mr. Corbyn’s personal email address.” The Labour Party’s top ranks, folks.
Another example: Corbyn’s right-hand man, the Marxist zealot and Soviet Union ally, Seamus Milne, complained that Labour investigations into anti-Semitism were “muddling up political disputes with racism.” The BBC notes what happened when Labour’s former disputes team chief met with Milne. Mike Creighton argued that high-profile anti-Semitism cases had to be dealt with “much more swiftly and much more robustly.” He added that Corbyn should make a speech on the Middle East and explicitly say “that Israel had a right to exist.” How did Milne react to these eminently sensible suggestions?
“Mr. Creighton claimed Mr. Milne’s response was to laugh at him.”
What of Corbyn himself?
Well, “Officials also told the [BBC] Mr. Corbyn’s office had on one occasion ordered batches of antisemitism complaints to be brought to them to assess.”
Sadly, we shouldn’t be terribly surprised by any of this. Corbyn is an anti-Semitic Israel-hating fanatic who surrounds himself with like-minded fanatics. Are we really shocked that the party treats anti-Semitism as it does?
