Labour’s Leaked Report: Who Is to Blame for Antisemitism in Britain’s Labour Party?

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Rich
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Media ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Disciplinary System ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

In April 2020, shortly after Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the UK Labour Party, an internal party report concerning the workings of Labour's internal disciplinary unit in relation to antisemitism was leaked to the media. This report was over 850 pages long and was intended to be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is conducting an inquiry into allegations of antisemitism in the Party. However, Labour's lawyers refused to allow it to be used, almost certainly because the content was so damaging to the Party's own defence. It confirmed many of the claims made by Jewish Party members and community organisations during Corbyn's leadership of the party, namely that the disciplinary system was not fit for purpose and cases of alleged antisemitism were ignored or delayed and punishments were too weak. When it was leaked the report caused a scandal because it claimed that Corbyn's efforts to deal with antisemitism were sabotaged by his own Party staff, who were mostly drawn from factions opposed to his left wing project. Furthermore, the report claimed that this was part of a broader conspiracy against Corbyn that even extended to Labour Party staff trying to prevent a Labour victory in the 2017 General Election. The leaked report is selective and inaccurate in many respects and ignores the role played by Corbyn and his close advisers in denying the problem of antisemitism existed. Nor does it address the reasons why people with antisemitic views were attracted to Labour under his leadership. It is most likely that it was written to allow Corbyn and his supporters to continue to claim that their project did not fail on its own merits, but was betrayed by internal saboteur

scholarly journals Labour’s Leaked Report: Who Is to Blame for Antisemitism in Britain’s Labour Party?

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Rich
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
The Media ◽  
Fit For Purpose ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Disciplinary System ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

In April 2020, shortly after Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the UK Labour Party, an internal party report concerning the workings of Labour's internal disciplinary unit in relation to antisemitism was leaked to the media. This report was over 850 pages long and was intended to be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is conducting an inquiry into allegations of antisemitism in the Party. However, Labour's lawyers refused to allow it to be used, almost certainly because the content was so damaging to the Party's own defence. It confirmed many of the claims made by Jewish Party members and community organisations during Corbyn's leadership of the party, namely that the disciplinary system was not fit for purpose and cases of alleged antisemitism were ignored or delayed and punishments were too weak. When it was leaked the report caused a scandal because it claimed that Corbyn's efforts to deal with antisemitism were sabotaged by his own Party staff, who were mostly drawn from factions opposed to his left wing project. Furthermore, the report claimed that this was part of a broader conspiracy against Corbyn that even extended to Labour Party staff trying to prevent a Labour victory in the 2017 General Election. The leaked report is selective and inaccurate in many respects and ignores the role played by Corbyn and his close advisers in denying the problem of antisemitism existed. Nor does it address the reasons why people with antisemitic views were attracted to Labour under his leadership. It is most likely that it was written to allow Corbyn and his supporters to continue to claim that their project did not fail on its own merits, but was betrayed by internal saboteur

scholarly journals Oh Jeremy Corbyn! Why did Labour Party membership soar after the 2015 general election?

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Whiteley ◽  
Monica Poletti ◽  
Paul Webb ◽  
Tim Bale
Keyword(s):  
Relative Deprivation ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Project Data ◽  
First Time ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

This article investigates the remarkable surge in individual membership of the Labour Party after the general election of May 2015, particularly after Jeremy Corbyn was officially nominated as a candidate for the leadership in June of that year. Using both British Election Study and Party Members Project data, we explain the surge by focussing on the attitudinal, ideological and demographic characteristics of the members themselves. Findings suggest that, along with support for the leader and yearning for a new style of politics, feelings of relative deprivation played a significant part: many ‘left-behind’ voters (some well-educated, some less so) joined Labour for the first time when a candidate with a clearly radical profile appeared on the leadership ballot. Anti-capitalist and left-wing values mattered too, particularly for those former members who decided to return to the party.

In the House of the Hangman One should not Mention the Noose: Jewish Voice for Labour’s Attack on the Equality and Human Rights Commission

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-92
Author(s):  
Derek Spitz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Bad Faith ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Epistemology ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn ◽  
Do So

Abstract In May 2021 Jewish Voice for Labour (“JVL”) published a combative document entitled How the EHRC Got It So Wrong-Antisemitism and the Labour Party. The document criti­cises the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s October 2020 Report of its investiga­tion into antisemitism in the Labour Party. The Commission found the Labour Party responsible for antisemitic conduct giving rise to several unlawful acts in breach of the Equality Act 2010. In addition to its legal findings, it also made critical factual findings, identifying a culture of acceptance of antisemitism in the Labour Party, which suffered from serious failings in leadership, where the failure to tackle antisemitism more effectively was probably a matter of choice. The essence of JVL’s attack on the Commission’s Report is as follows. First, it is said that the Commission did not and could not lawfully investigate antisemitism as such; to the extent that it purported to do so, its findings of unlawfulness are purportedly meaningless. Secondly, JVL claims that the Commission made no finding of institutional antisemitism. Thirdly, by failing to require production of evidence referred to in a certain leaked report, probably prepared by Labour Party officials loyal to Jeremy Corbyn, the Commission is accused of nullifying at a stroke the value of its own Report as a factual account. Fourthly, JVL claims the Commission’s Report is not just legally unten­able, but purportedly a threat to democracy. Finally, JVL claims the Commission’s analysis was not just wrong, but that it exercised its statutory powers in bad faith. This article offers a response to each of the five pillars of JVL’s attack, all of which collapse under scrutiny. As to the first pillar, the article identifies the disappearing of antisemitism as the linchpin of JVL’s argument and shows how JVL’s criticism is underpinned by a political epistemology of antisemitism denialism. As to the second pillar, it shows that the absence of the term “institutional antisemitism” in the Commission’s Report is a semantic quibble. In sub­stance, the Commission found that the conduct under investigation amounted to institu­tional antisemitism. As to the third, the article demonstrates that JVL’s complaint about the Commission’s failure to call for production of the leaked report is perverse because that report constitutes an admission of the correctness of the complaints put before it. More­over, the Corbyn-led Labour Party itself decided that it did not want the Commission to consider that material. As to the fourth pillar, the article shows that far from being a threat to democracy, the Commission’s Report grasps the nettle of antisemitism denial. It con­cludes that continuing to assume and assert that Jews raising concerns about antisemitism are lying for nefarious ends may itself be, and in at least two cases was, a form of unlawful anti-Jewish harassment. As to the fifth, the article rebuts the extraordinary charge that the Commission exercised its powers in bad faith. Rather strikingly, neither JVL nor Jeremy Corbyn was willing to take the Commission on judicial review. The article concludes by considering how the poverty of JVL’s reasoning, coupled with the extravagance of its accu­sations, invites a symptomatic reading of Antisemitism and the Labour Party as a disap­pointing illustration of left-wing melancholia.

The Brexit Elections, 2017–19

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-239
Author(s):  
David Denver ◽  
Mark Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn ◽  
Theresa May ◽  
The Eu

The years immediately after the 2015 general election were dominated by another vote, held in 2016. In 2013, the electoral challenge from UKIP had forced David Cameron to promise an in–out referendum on the EU should his party win the next general election. Cameron fulfilled his promise, after negotiations with the EU which only partially addressed the grievances of Eurosceptics in UKIP and within his own party. The chapter discusses the narrow victory for ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum, arising from divisions within the UK which cut across previous party allegiances and introduced a new element of volatility in an electorate which was already barely recognizable from that of 1964. The situation was complicated further by the election of the radical left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader after his party’s 2015 defeat. By contrast, when David Cameron resigned as Conservative leader and Prime Minister after the referendum he was succeeded by Theresa May, who was regarded as a pragmatic centre-right politician who could negotiate a compromise ‘Brexit’ deal with the EU. The chapter examines May’s failure to carry out this promise, marked in particular by her inept attempt to secure a convincing parliamentary majority in the 2017 general election. When May was forced from office in 2019 she was succeeded by Boris Johnson, a far more controversial and divisive character who nevertheless was able to lead the Conservatives to a comfortable electoral victory, not least because their pro-European opponents were hopelessly divided. However, the victorious Conservatives had no reason to feel complacent; even if Johnson’s government could deliver the favourable Brexit deal which it had promised, over the years since 1964 the British electorate had become far more fickle and parties were increasingly vulnerable to events outside their control. Within a few months of the 2019 election, party competition in Britain, which had seemed so stable back in 1964, was exposed to a new and deadly source of disturbance—the outbreak in China of the Covid-19 virus—which presented the most serious challenge faced by any UK government since 1945.

Back to the past? Labour’s return to opposition, 2010 to the present

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Jobson
Keyword(s):  
New Labour ◽  
General Election ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
The Past ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

This chapter examines Labour’s return to opposition after the 2010 General Election. It argues that, within the party, the period since 2010 has witnessed a nostalgic resurgence. When compared to the New Labour era, elite discourses have become less hostile to nostalgia. To varying degrees, all of the candidates in the 2010 leadership contest articulated memories associated with the party’s nostalgia-identity. Under Ed Miliband’s leadership, intraparty groups and movements that exhibited a sentimental attachment to the past grew in strength. Following Labour’s 2015 election defeat, Jeremy Corbyn obtained and consolidated his status as party leader by making nostalgic appeals to the past that resonated with party members. Within Labour, Corbyn’s political opponents have largely been forced onto his nostalgic terrain. Therefore, this chapter concludes by suggesting that, far from representing a ‘new kind of politics’, Corbynism represents an acute political manifestation of Labour’s historically orientated identity.

Accession, Renegotiation, Referendum, 1973–1975

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-137
Author(s):  
Stephen Wall
Keyword(s):  
Labour Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
First Year ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
The Press ◽  
Oil Crisis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Year Of Europe

The first year of Britain’s EEC membership did not run smoothly. The Americans unilaterally declared it ‘the Year of Europe’. Heath was accused by Kissinger of destroying the special relationship. The Arab–Israeli war caused an oil crisis in which the UK, relatively unscathed, did not help her partners. Early in 1974, Heath lost a General Election and was replaced by Wilson. Wilson and Foreign Secretary Callaghan faced a divided Cabinet and Labour Party as they set about renegotiating the terms of Britain’s EEC membership. The improvements they secured, after a second General Election in October 1974, were slight but enough to get the deal through the Cabinet. Labour Ministers campaigned in the referendum on opposite sides, but support for remaining from all the main Party leaders and the Press helped secure a significant majority for staying.

Good Result or Bad Deal?

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
Stephen Wall
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
Party Voting ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Enoch Powell

Poised to begin negotiations for EEC accession, Prime Minister Wilson called a snap general election and lost to Edward Heath’s Conservative Party. Heath was a life-long pro-European but there were opponents of EEC entry, led by the disgraced rebel, Enoch Powell, within Tory ranks. The Conservatives adopted the Labour government’s accession strategy. But, out of government, the Labour Party turned against membership. Pro-EEC Labour rebels, led by former Chancellor of the Exchequer Roy Jenkins, voted with Heath to secure parliamentary approval for accession. To prevent the Labour Party voting to take the UK out of the EEC, Wilson promised that he would renegotiate the terms agreed by Heath and put them to the electorate. The EEC countries, especially France, struck a hard deal with the UK and Heath was obliged to accept disadvantageous terms for UK accession.

scholarly journals Journalistic transgressions in the representation of Jeremy Corbyn: From watchdog to attackdog

Journalism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart Cammaerts ◽  
Brooks DeCillia ◽  
João Carlos Magalhães
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
British Press ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

This research critically assesses the press coverage of Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership bid and subsequent first months as the leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party. A content analysis ( n = 812) found that the British press offered a distorted and overly antagonistic view of the long-serving MP. Corbyn is often denied a voice and news organisations tended to prize anti-Corbyn sources over favourable ones. Much of the coverage is decidedly scornful and ridicules the leader of the opposition. This analysis also tests a set of normative conceptions of the media in a democracy. In view of this, our research contends that the British press acted more as an attackdog than a watchdog when it comes to the reporting of Corbyn. We conclude that the transgression from traditional monitorial practices to snarling attacks is unhealthy for democracy, and it furthermore raises serious ethical questions for UK journalism and its role in society.

scholarly journals Agenda setting and the political economy of fear: How crime news influences voters’ beliefs

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 520-533
Author(s):  
Paolo R Graziano ◽  
Marco Percoco
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
Crime News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
Silvio Berlusconi

In this article, we analyse the mechanisms of agenda setting by focusing on the determinants of individual attitudes towards crime and investigating the role played by the media. After a brief literature review supporting the relevance of the selected topic of inquiry and the presentation of our analytical framework, we study the persuasion effects of mass media. More specifically, we investigate how TV exposure can shape individual perceptions of specific issues such as crime, and then focus on the effects of exposure to crime news on voting decisions. Using the Italian 2001 general election as an important case study of TV power concentration, we provide evidence that media-induced agenda setting enhanced the salience of the crime issue in voters’ minds during the 2001 Italian general election and contributed to the victory of the coalition led by Silvio Berlusconi. Interestingly, our results are partially driven by the switch of previous left-wing voters to voting for the centre right because of exposure to crime news.

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