In the past few weeks, the British Labour party has refused to adopt the accepted British definition of antisemitism, defended leader Jeremy Corbyn’s use of conspiracy theories about the State of Israel, and attempted to silence moderate Labour MPs who criticize this approach. These deliberate actions are often called a “scandal.” But that’s wrong: They now appear to be an active political strategy on the part of Labour’s leadership.
The “scandal” broke in 2015 with a series of stories about abhorrent antisemitic comments made by Corbyn’s close associates. Corbyn has shared numerous platforms with antisemites, including his address to an anti-Israel rally attended by members of the now banned extremist British organization al-Muhajiroun. His association with these dubious individuals came as part longstanding membership of virulently anti-Israel groups. These included the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, where he was once chairman, and Deir Yassin Remembered, whose founder Paul Eisen once wrote that being a Holocaust denier was an “entirely honorable thing.” Corbyn had also hosted an event at the British Parliament in 2009 where he called invited representatives from the terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends.” In 2016, the revelations widened in scope as Labour Member of Parliament and close Corbyn ally Naz Shah was found to have shared a Facebook post calling for all Israeli Jews to be deported to America. Then, former mayor of London Ken Livingstone came to her defense while making explosive assertions of his own; that Hitler’s Nazi party had been engaged in active support of Zionism in World War Two.
These ‘scandals’ broke almost successively. It should therefore be surprising that all the while, Jeremy Corbyn did not flinch—not even once. Political scandals can vary in nature, but a common result is that the public figures implicated will express deep embarrassment and regret for their actions in a bid to save their careers. Or they step down entirely. Corbyn and his associates did nothing of the sort, despite widespread media condemnation and outrage from the Jewish community. Corbyn’s response was to deflect any responsibility or acknowledgment of the scale of the problem. He occasionally issued vague apologies; admitting that calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends” had been a mistake. He eventually conceded that there were “pockets” of antisemitism within the Labour party.
Yet Corbyn never showed any desire to take concrete action to distance himself from antisemites or to mend relations with the Jewish community. Naz Shah has now received a promotion to the party frontbench as shadow Equalities Minister, after only a brief suspension. Ken Livingstone was never expelled from the party at all, despite continuing to publicly promote his assertion that Hitler was a supporter of Zionism. And Jeremy Corbyn continued to spend time with anti-Zionists, alienating the overwhelmingly pro-Israel UK Jewish community.
Now the Labour party leadership appears to have taken deliberate action to sow discord with both the Jewish community and moderate Labour MPs. The Labour National Executive chose not to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism used by the British government, Metropolitan Police, and many other institutions around the globe. They opted instead to omit examples of antisemitism relating to Israel from their definition, including guidance that calling the creation of Israel a racist endeavor is an antisemitic claim. After reacting to the Jewish community’s longstanding pleas for change with empty promises, the adoption of the IHRA definition in full was a prime opportunity for the Labour party to achieve an easy win. The choice to reject it should be seen as nothing less than a deliberate snub of British Jewry.
As well as snubbing the Jewish community, Jeremy Corbyn appears to be actively seeking the silencing of his internal political opponents. Margaret Hodge, a veteran Jewish Labour MP, recently publicly confronted Corbyn about his attitude towards antisemitism, accusing him of being a “racist and anti-Semite.” Ian Austin MP, supporter of the parliamentary Labour Friends of Israel group, also stood up for his values and made his disagreement with Corbyn’s rejection of the IHRA definition known. They are now both under formal investigations by the party and were sent letters threatening “disciplinary action.”These investigations seem to be moving suspiciously more swiftly than those initiated by the party against Corbyn allies Ken Livingstone and Naz Shah.
Finally, an old video recently resurfaced of Jeremy Corbyn linking a terror attack in Egypt to “the hand of Israel.” The 2012 interview on Iranian-owned Press TV saw him pedal anti-Israel conspiracy theories in a discussion of a bombing where 16 Egyptian policemen were killed in the Sinai desert. His comments from 2012 were defended last week by a Labour party spokesperson, who asserted that his “speculation” had been factually based on previous Israeli actions in Egypt.
Many focus on the question of whether Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite himself. He may or may not be. However, his deliberate actions to reject the Jewish community’s concerns, silence his moderate Labour detractors, and pedal anti-Zionism as central to his political image show that he is more than happy to utilize antisemitism for political purposes.
Anti-Zionism—and by extension, giving credence to antisemites—is fundamental to the worldview Corbyn has cultivated on his journey to political stardom. For most of his political career, Corbyn was a fringe socialist politician and supporter of the USSR, Syria’s Assad, the Iranian Ayatollahs and Maduro’s Venezuela. After becoming Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn toned down some of this support for radical anti-Western groups. Nonetheless, he has consistently maintained his support for anti-Zionist causes. What’s undoubtable is that throughout his career, his ultimate goal has remained the same; rejecting Western values and embracing the alliance between radical socialists and Islamists in a strategic bid to normalize and implement socialism in the UK.
Politically, Corbyn’s strategy is working: According to a recent YouGov poll, 61 percent of the party believes Corbyn is handling accusations of antisemitism well. And 80 percent of the party deems him a good leader overall. The events of the past few weeks indicate that the Labour leadership has been able to build on their apparent success to formally distance themselves from the overwhelmingly Zionist British-Jewish community. This perhaps became most apparent last Friday, when Jeremy Corbyn published another article in The Guardian disregarding his part in normalizing antisemitism in the party. The piece came out at 5pm, when the majority of Jews in the country were busy preparing for the Sabbath.
The reality is that support from the Jewish community is no longer an indispensable part of the Labour party. In fact, Corbyn’s foreign policy—a large aspect of his political differences to Blair’s Labour—rests on weakening UK-Israel relations. Corbyn has constructed a successful strategy for claiming the Labour party as his own socialist vehicle for disruption of the Western liberal order. Labeling recent events a “scandal” greatly underestimates the strategic nature of his leadership.
