JCA 2020 (DOI: 10.26613/jca/3.2.54)

Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party Editorial

I am pleased to publish an open-access online project to retain its self-image of ideological preprint of two articles and a research note that and political purity. Dr Dave Rich is the will appear in the forthcoming issue of the director of policy at the Community Security Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism 3, no. 2 Trust and an associate research fellow at the (Fall 2020). This preprint is a new and exciting Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, development for the Journal. It has been made Birkbeck, University of . Dr Rich’s possible by the generous donations of Mr David latest volume, The Left’s Jewish Problem: Jeremy Cohen and Mr Richard Jankel, whose support Corbyn, and Antisemitism, was published for the work of the Journal allows for timely by Biteback in 2016, with a second edition scholarly analysis to be put into the public released in 2018. sphere. In “Conceptual Vandalism, Historical Our first preprint is of a themed section, Distortion: the Labour Antisemitism Crisis and “Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party.” the Limits of Class Instrumentalism,” Matthew Although ’s replacement as Bolton examines the arguments put forward by Labour , Sir Keir Starmer, has prom- left academics and activists who seek to refute the ised to draw a line under the issue of antisemi- charge of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn’s tism in the Party following his inaugural vow to Labour Party. Focusing on a set of essays written “tear out this poison by its roots,” the Corbyn-era over the course of the Corbyn era and published controversies continue to drag on as one by Verso as a free e-book during the 2019 elec- antisemitism row after another hits the head- tion, Dr Bolton argues that the roots of the crisis lines. can be traced to a tendency within the contem- In April 2020, shortly after Keir Starmer porary left to reduce the question of antisemitism took over from Jeremy Corbyn, an internal to that of “class interests,” with antisemitism party report written by the old Corbyn regime depicted as an “instrument” used by the powerful was leaked to the media. The report claimed to divide the “oppressed.” Dr Bolton suggests that Corbyn’s efforts to tackle antisemitism in that while such a reductive approach assures the the Labour Party were sabotaged by internal left of its own innocence by making left antisem- factional opponents. The contents of the report itism a contradiction in terms, dissolving the caused a scandal and are now the subject of an particularity of antisemitism into a general internal Labour Party inquiry. In “Labour’s concept of “oppression” leaves the left unable to Leaked Report: Who is to Blame for comprehend the possibility of exterminatory Antisemitism in Britain’s Labour Party?,” Dave antisemitism as an end-in-itself, and leads to a Rich assesses the report’s claims, set against the worldview in which the modern histories of wider context of Labour’s internal divisions and antisemitism, the Jewish people, the Holocaust, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s and the State of Israel, are radically distorted.Dr (EHRC) ongoing inquiry into antisemitism in Matthew Bolton is an associate lecturer in Politics the Party. He concludes that the report was and Philosophy at the University of Chichester. written not with the purpose of defending the His latest edited volume (with Frederick Harry Party from the EHRC’s inquiry, but to provide Pitts), Corbynism: A Critical Approach, was a myth of betrayal that allows the Corbyn published in 2018 by Emerald. Editorial

In “Judeophobic Antisemitism among British voters—while among Labour voters, they rose Voters, 2016–2020,” Daniel Allington examines to a peak in 2018 before declining back to some- survey data collected for Campaign Against thing close to their original 2016 level in 2020. Antisemitism throughout the Corbyn years. As he observes, this may reflect vote-switching, Those years saw Britain’s famously stable polit- changes in attitudes, or a combination of the ical system go through an extraordinary level of two. Statistics for antizionist antisemitism are upheaval, with two parliaments dissolved after provided for the years 2019 and 2020, but are only two years in power. They were also unavailable for 2016–2018. Dr Daniel Allington extraordinary in that they saw one of the coun- is a senior lecturer in Social and Cultural try’s two main political parties taken over by a Intelligence at King’s College, London. Together movement that faced repeated and credible accu- with Matthias Becker, he is carrying out a major sations of antisemitism. Because the same survey study of online antisemitism with funding from questions were asked year after year, direct the Landecker Foundation. comparisons can be made. Allington finds that My team of dedicated editors and hope that levels of Judeophobic antisemitism stayed you will find this timely collection of articles, roughly constant among Conservative voters, yet “Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party,” to be of fell consistently among Liberal Democrat interest.

Lesley Klaff Editor in chief

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