The inquiry into antisemitism and other forms of racism within the Labour Party is the best hope of pulling the Labour Party back out of the quagmire, the McCarthyite nightmare, into which it is in danger of being pulled. We need to make sure that the distortions of this remarkable, and so far remarkably successful, campaign of disinformation are thoroughly and powerfully exposed.
It’s encouraging that the inquiry is to be led by Shami Chakrabarti, with Professor David Feldman as her deputy. The former is a household name. At the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony she was one of those who carried in the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony alongside, among others, Doreen Lawrence, Daniel Barenboim, Ban Ki-Moon and Muhammed Ali. But she has this prominence and respect because of her achievements as a highly effective long-term leader of the civil rights organisation Liberty, which she left only this March. There, and as a member of the Leveson Enquiry she was a formidable defender of civil liberties.
David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck College in London, is less of a public figure. When the institute was set up, there were those who feared it might become something of a propaganda outfit for Israel. David Feldman, a notably open-minded man, has ensured that this has not happened, and he has earned broad respect among those who know his work. For example, in 2013 he organised and co-chaired a 3-day conference at Birkbeck on Boycotts – Past and Present, at which supporters of the boycott of Israel were among those who gave papers. As the Jewish Chronicle has noticed with distaste, he is a signatory of Independent Jewish Voices, an organisation set up in 2007 as a way of countering the hegemonic power of the ‘official’ institutions of British Jewry.
Millerian tragedy or Orwellian?
What has been going on in the Labour Party these last few months and especially weeks summons up literary ghosts. Which is the closer fit, Arthur Miller’s Witches of Salem – complete with tearful admissions of guilt under pressure? Or Orwell’s 1984, with its thought crimes?
Of course those historical and imagined future trials had the power of a malevolent and corrupt state behind them. The Labour Party doesn’t have a Witchfinder-General, only a General Secretary, a National Executive Committee, an Equalities Committee, and a Compliance Unit. Which of them is ultimately responsible for the current witch hunt for antisemites is unclear. But what does seem clear is that whoever has the power to stop it either isn’t aware of these literary/historical precedents, or is recklessly pursuing a political agenda regardless of its effects on internal democracy and freedom of expression.
The main chink of light in this grim situation has, therefore, been the commissioning by Jeremy Corbyn of this internal inquiry. Within this chink there are two distinct rays. One is the aforementioned quality of those appointed to lead the inquiry. The second is the inclusion of other forms of racism, so avoiding an exclusive focus on antisemitism.
Bracketing antisemitism with other kinds of racism helps to give balance. In society at large all the evidence is that, for example, islamophobia is far more prevalent, virulent and potent than is antisemitism. We don’t know how significant either of them is within Labour ranks. One can be sure that they exist, but one would hope that their prevalence would be small. However it is almost certain to be found that antisemitism pales into even greater insignificance besides its ugly big brother. That will hopefully restore some sense of perspective.
Absolutely!.. This witch-hunt is truly scary – and it’s even scarier when people whose politics I greatly respect(ed) seem to fall into the ‘crit. of Israel = anti-semitism’ trap. The Lab. Party (of which I’m a member)is hardly all we’d like it to be but the threat to its existence which seems to be building up is..scary indeed…Dot Lewis