Image: Protestors at the Enough is Enough demonstration this month, Dominic Lipinski/PA Images. All rights reserved.
There is no more antisemitism in the Labour Party than in the rest of society, but there should be much less. There has been a lot of excellent commentary published over the past few weeks discussing this issue, as well as the broader socio-political relationships between the Labour Left, different sections of the Jewish community, and the pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian lobbies. I’m not going to rehearse those discussions again here. Some essential examples include Richard Seymour’s article in Jacobin, detailing the political sociology and social history underpinning these shifting relationships and Rob Abrams on his relationship with controversial left-Jewish group Jewdas. Jamie Stern-Wiener’s painstaking research provides essential background information.
However, very little attention has been paid so far to the specific question of why the Labour Right has been so vocal on this issue in particular. This is a crucial issue and thinking about it carefully can shed considerable light on the current state of Labour Party politics.
