Of the many extraordinary aspects about the Jeremy Corbyn’s surging campaign for the Labour leadership, one of the most noteworthy is how far his supporters and critics appear to have wildly different views about what the crucial issues are.
An important example of this is the repeated criticisms of Corbyn for his ‘friendship’, or at the very least convivial contacts, with Islamist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, with (if some allegations are to be believed) antisemites and holocaust deniers, and with the Putin oligarchy in Russia. Although Corbyn is rarely accused of being an active supporter of such figures (as George Galloway is regularly accused of being), it is a central concern of a section of his critics that he appears, at the very least, to have an unacceptably high degree of tolerance for the totalitarian.
Yet although repeated evidence is offered as to the dodginess of Corbyn’s choice of friends, there is no evidence that such revelations are eroding his support. I’ve been struck on social media both by the increasing frustration of Corbyn’s critics that they are not gaining traction, but also by the lack of response to such criticisms from the man himself and his supporters. For example, in an open letter to Corbyn on Left Foot Forward, Alan Johnson, who expressed sympathy with Corbyn’s social and economic policies but could not relate to his foreign policy, concluded ‘I want to cheer you on. Can you respond in such a way that I can?’ As far as I can tell, no response has been forthcoming. There is barely even a ‘debate’ here – the passionate concerns of one faction appear to be of trivial interest of others.
