Labour is now described as having an antisemitism problem. But those who talk like this are neglecting the fact that for many Corbynites antisemitism accomplishes something very important. It helps to drive out of the Labour Party all of those Labour supporters who think that the badness of antisemitism ought to be publicly talked about, instead of these Labourites silently or vocally caving in, for now, to the Corbynite project. And that, as far as the Corbynites are concerned, is a feature rather than a bug.
We can see this process described in this piece, by “New Labour” (i.e. the kind of Labour that the Corbynites are determined utterly to destroy) Prime Minister Tony Blair’s senior shouter-down-the-phone, Alastair Campbell:
In a speech to centre-left campaign group Progress, Mr Campbell said: “All my life I have been tribally Labour. But my Labour tribalism is being pushed to the limit – by the return of Militant style nastiness in local politics; by my revulsion that any anti-Semitism has been allowed to fester; by the feeling that some in the leadership, and their supporters, feel much greater animus against other Labour supporters than against Tories.”
Campbell is right. The Corbynites do indeed hate Campbell and his ilk far more than they hate the Conservatives. The Conservatives, by allowing themselves to be lead by people like Theresa May, are bringing the day of glorious socialist triumph ever closer. Campbell and his sort are a far more immediate threat to Corbynism. So if antisemitism serves to cure Alastair Campbell of his tribal love of Labour, … good for antisemitism.
As of now, the Corbynites are far more interested in establishing themselves in unchallengeable command of the Labour Party than they are in merely winning elections. Their thinking is that, sooner or later, capitalism will be hit by another crisis, and that at that point they’ll win a general election, and then the question will be: will there be any New Labour Alastair Campbell type bastards around to prevent them from turning Britain into Venezuela or worse? Meanwhile, they can agitate, do local activism, recruit the right sort of unswervingly loyal cadres, on the internet and in real life, and generally speed up the arrival of that crisis of capitalism and be ready for it. Having helped to bring about their crisis of capitalism, they can then blame capitalism for it and sweep to power.
At some point during all this, Corbyn will step aside and be replaced by a younger, better dressed and better shaved personage, more emollient, more “centrist” in tone, in appearance more like Alastair Campbell. Britain as a whole will be fooled. That “crisis” general election will be duly won, and then the “project” can really begin. And an essential part of that process is clearing out backsliding scum like Alastair Campbell, who, if they hang about and continue to attend Labour events, might blow the gaff in time to stop all this. At the very least such persons will be an unwanted nuisance.
Personally, I think that this is all a very long shot. But I wish it was a whole lot longer than it is.
The other thing to be said about antisemitism is that eradicating it from the Corbynite clan will be impossible. The Corbynites may, any year now, once all the Blairites are flushed out or permanently silenced, tone it down in public, once that besuited and beshaven person steps forward. But they will still all be antisemites.
For two reasons.
One, antisemitism is intrinsic to all of Islam and most definitely to what is referred to as “extreme” Islam, i.e. the kind of Islam that actually thinks Islam should be done. And Corbynites love that kind of Islam especially, on an enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend basis, their enemy being Western Civilisation, including what most people think of when they hear the word “Britain”. The Corbynites want the Muslim vote and they want Muslims in on their project, and what they want to do to Britain is a lot like what extreme Islam wants to do to it. (At some point, there would presumably be a reckoning between the Corbynites and Islam. Well, I never said I agreed with all this insanity. I’m just describing it.)
But second, and far more fundamentally, the Jews, as has been clear for several decades now, have become the natural enemies of the Corbynites, by the very nature of Corbynism. This is not a way of thinking that can be “expelled” or “dealt with”, and Blairites who continue to say that it can be and must be are mistaken.
In retrospect, we can now see that the peculiar interlude during which the Left loved Jews was just that, an interlude. That interlude was unleashed by Adolf Hitler, and it caused Jews to stop being the supremely successful group that they had been before Hitler got into his stride, and instead to become one of history’s great victim groups. And the Left loves victims. For as long as Jews were still recovering from Hitler and his attentions, they remained victims. But now? Well, what Jews learned from the Hitler episode was never, ever to allow themselves to be victims, ever again. With that in mind they have now created one of the most extraordinarily effective nation states on the planet, the biggest single island of civilisation in that great sea of economic mediocrity and political savagery that is the Middle East. Economically, the Jews, both in Israel and elsewhere, have rebuilt their fortunes. The most serious rival in the world to Silicon Valley is now in Israel. Jews have become winners, again, the winners that they had been before Hitler got stuck into them, in fact even more so.
And the Corbynite Left hates – hates – winners. The only people they want winning are themselves.
The reason that antisemitism and “anti-Zionism” are impossible to separate is that they are but different aspects of the same mind-set.
Am I generalising, somewhat? Yes I am. But Corbynites have such generalisations built into their thinking. They now think in collectivities like: Gays! Women! Ethnic minorities! Transgenderists! All of whom must be unswervingly devoted to Corbynite opinions or be publicly destroyed.
And: Jews! All of whom are now suspect, simply because they are Jews. And as are all those who are now speaking up from within the Labour Party on behalf of Jews. The Jews and all their defenders must now be chased out of the Labour Party, and if a few otherwise impeccably Corbynite Jews and otherwise Corbynite anti-antisemitic non-Jews fall through the cracks, well: omelettes, eggs, and so on.
As I say, there will come a time when the Corbynites start seriously lying about all this, instead of continuing to scream at Jews and shrugging their shoulders at the rest of us, as they are doing now. But this sort of thinking is never going to go away, and if the Corbynites ever get the chance, they will act upon it. The only way that Corbynite antisemitism will be expunged from Britain is if the Corbynite project itself is utterly destroyed as a serious force in British political life.
The electoral disappointment that Labour got handed to them in the recent local elections was a start, but only a start.
Great Britain has few Jews and lots of Muslims, same with the rest of post-Christian Western Europe. If you have more than a 3rd grade education and you can count votes, you cater to your Muslim constituency and dump your Jews. In fact you import as many Muslims as you can. Then you propose laws like this Orwellian garbage:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/05/uk-proposes-six-year-prison-sentence-for-criticizing-islam
Your girls are systematically raped by Muslims, your elites do nothing about it whatsoever and this is your response? Get a hold of yourselves or you are Eloi waiting to be slaughtered and eaten.
Driving out the Labour people who are not anti-Semitic is a tactic which is already backfiring.
It makes the anti-Semitic Labour members feel more free to speak out about their prejudice as they see their racism as normal and even laudable.
And that has been bad for the party.
Brian,
Excellent post. Yes, and it is hardly news to me, but the Corbynites hate success and therefore must hate Jews. The one hope we have is (as you hint) that the intrinsic incoherent idiocy of general victimology will collapse in utter chaos. I sincerely hope that happens. Apart from anything it will be fun to watch. But if the likes of Corbyn get anywhere on the basis of trying to appeal to groups like the LGBT+ and those who would gladly murder the LGBT+ then we’re fucked.
I think at root part of this from Labour is that Jews are an ethnic/religious/cultural minority that doesn’t look like one. Yes, it is that level of pignorance.
You can also perhaps see a reflection of this in the treatment of Sajid Javid and him being mercilessly trolled as an “Uncle Tom” and a “coconut”. That he also did well for himself (from humble origins) in banking merely compounds his sins.
There has long been a lot of attention to the small minority of Jews who become collectivist “intellectuals” (I dislike the use of the word “intellectual” for people who spit on human intellect – but we are where we are with language) – it is often forgotten that these “Jewish leftists” reject Judaism and, most of the time, reject “Jewish culture” as well.
Karl Marx came from a Jewish family but a lot of his ranting against the Jews sounds much like Richard Wagner – and for the same reasons. “The God of the Jew is MONEY” and all the rest of the anti commercial, egalitarian stuff one gets BOTH from proto Nazis (remember that means National Socialists) such as the philosopher Fichte or Ricard Wagner (remember Wagner, like John Ruskin in Britain, wanted to abolish money and establish a society where everyone had all their “needs” met by the collective), and from Marxists – including Marxists from Jewish families.
The Nazis famously wanted to get rid of Jews physically – by killing them. But Marxists have their own “solution” to the “Jewish Question” – when “capitalist society” is destroyed, Jews will cease to exist as Jews. Karl Marx is perfectly clear on this matter.
In short socialists such as Mr Jeremy Corbyn are not making a cynical calculation “there are more Muslims than Jews – so we will go for the Muslim vote by supporting wiping out the Jews”, on the contrary – Mr Corbyn and co are being quite sincere and are going back to the roots of the socialist movement. When socialism is “achieved” there will be no “Jews” as such – just the Collective of humans.
“Socialist Zionism” did exist – but it never really made any sense. If one is an egalitarian how can there be a distinct people called “the Jews” and why would they need their own country?
The ideas of (for example) Simon Schama, at least when he was a young man, of Judaism being redefined as living in a commune (a bit like a Christian monastery – but without any real tradition to back it up), do not make sense – any more than the idea (which he also held – and perhaps still does hold) that Israel can be friends with the forces of Islam.
Nations exist whilst their people are strong enough to defeat their enemies – and the forces of Islam very much want six million more dead Jews, after all did not a Jewish woman poison Muhammed causing him years of agony before he finally died cursing the Jews? Yes she did that because Mohammed murdered her family after promising their community peace and friendship (a surprise attack after promising peace and friendship was his most favoured tactic), but there is no need to go into such “details” – a Jewish woman poisoned Muhammed and Jews today deliberately try and prevent the forces of Islam driving them into the sea. Every other effort to resettle the land between “the river and the sea” (and there have been many of the centuries – that is often forgotten today) has ended in the massacre of the Jews – so why should this 19th and 20th century effort be any different? Well yes the Jews are armed this time…… but that can be fixed by the right use of treachery, promising peace and then attacking at the right moment. So the Islamic view makes good historical and tactical sense – the “socialist Zionist” view, makes no sense at all.
“Socialist Jews” are going to have to choose whether they are socialists or whether they are Jews – for they can not be BOTH. As Mr Jeremy Corbyn and the real socialists are reminding them – as are the Islamists in the Middle East.
Of course Islam and socialism have their own differences – but on the “Jewish Question” they are in agreement, just as they are in the agreement on Western Civilisation. Whether one is a socialist or an Islamist – Western Civilisation must be destroyed.
In a way the Jews, those “calculating folk with a strong idea of the value of money” as Tolkien called his “Dwarves” (who are Jews – even the language is based on Hebrew) in an uncharitable moment. are a metaphor as well as flesh and blood human beings – a metaphor for those elements of the West that “intellectuals” (going all the way back to Plato – with his contempt for commercial concerns, and his desire for society to be planned and controlled in unchanging perfection by wise and selfless “Guardians”) do NOT like – greedy, obsessed with making things and inventing new, and beautiful (“perhaps in unconscious contrast to their own unloveliness”) things, inventing new wonders even as they are obsessed with old customs and traditions, filled with anger when their stuff is taken for “fair distribution”, brooding on long grudges and the desire to avenge ancient wrongs.
I do not know how it will end – perhaps with “Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!”.
But perhaps it will end with some Gandalf reading….
“Here lies Balin son of Fundin, Lord of Moria” – so he is dead then, I feared it was so. And Gimli cast his hood over his face.
For idealogues such as momentum and indeed fundamental Islam, ideological purity is very important. Just wait and they will split into factions.
Despite what politicians tell us British tolerance is a feature of Britain, not brought about by the sundry laws requiring it. Were that not so it would have been impossible to pass those laws never mind implement them. So I seriously doubt that a party expressing great intolerance for any group will get a majority- unless that group has done something pretty terrible to deserve being cast out.
The comparison to Venezuela is interesting, but it should be remembered that Chavez took over an economy dominated by oil at a time of high oil prices. This gave him the funds to entrench his regime. If it is Corbyn or more likely someone else from momentum who takes power in a non-petrostate during a crisis there will be no funds available for entrenchment. So the government will not last.
Alastair Campbell and New Labour? Bunch of Trotskyite counterrevolutionary running dogs.
The Stalinist Corbynites will soon put paid to them.
And I’m looking forward to watching every gunshot, every plot twist, every ice-pick thrust. Pass the snacks and booze.
Finally, a war where both sides can be cheered on to their losing deaths – figuratively and politically of course, though with Corbyn and his vicious little enforcer Seumas Milne, one never knows.
So the anti-semitism is explained as a way of kissing up to Muslims, who outnumber Jews. Are there really that many Muslims? And won’t they vote labor anyway? The way American blacks always vote democratic.
Good post Brian. (I could not agree more.)
Socialists are returning to their roots. J.A. Hobson’s pre-WWI book “Imperialism” was a bible to marxists. It stated:
A century after it was published, this intellectually-phrased assertion that Jewish financiers cause the wars and other other troubles of the world is regaining the popularity it lost when the national socialists made it unfashionable for other socialists.
Dom – as I have already explained, the socialist hatred of Jews is nothing to do with “kissing up to Muslims”, although it is true that socialists such as Mr Corbyn do see Muslims as exploited and oppressed “Proletarians” and the Jews as the “Capitalists”.
A view of Jews held by Karl Marx (who was from a Jewish family) and by the proto Nazi Richard Wagner.
Jeremy Corbyn and others are simply taking socialism back to its roots (and it would make no difference if every Muslim vanished tomorrow). And radical “liberalism” is the same – after all “Lenin” took his “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism” from the “liberal” Hobson – for whom the British Empire was an evil plot by “Jewish Capitalists”.
In my experience, Muslim immigrants are much like Hispanic immigrants. They reliably vote on the left until they have established themselves financially. Once they have money, they turn more conservative.
It is really not that simple. There are quite a few prominent Tory muslims, such as the new Home Secretary Sajid Javid and MEP Syed Kamall (I know the latter & he is very much one of the good guys).
What Perry said.
There are social and demographic differences: about 7 times as many Muslims as Jews in England. There are very few places with concentrated Jewish communities, rather more with concentrated Muslim ones. Upmarket Muslims are more diffused than poor ones, both naturally following professional and entrepreneurial career paths and because they often come from different traditions. Labour (mostly, occasionally other parties too) does have an interest in the lumpen-Muslim vote to be found in concentrated Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, and that they can control using a form of Tammany Hall politics.
However, I don’t think leftist anti-Semitism is at all about sucking up to the Muslims. The specifically Muslim vote is tackled by community politics. Anti-Semitism may be common in those communities but it is not a necessary appeal. The anti-Sematism is welded to the revolutionary tradition among Labour activists, who see an uncritical attachment to Palestinian causes as de rigeur, and Israel as a colonial, capitalist, American-sponsored enterprise. For them there is a semiconscious equation of Jews who support Israel = capitalism = the imperial West, corrupting and subjugating the other prelapsarian cultures. Rosa Luxemburg (paradoxically Jewish) is the ideological spirit here.
In my experience Conservative Muslims are not Muslim – they do not believe in Islam.
Obviously I will not give names – as under Islamic law someone who has once claimed to be a Muslim (even as a child) who then no longer believes, is UNDER SENTANCE OF DEATH.
Muhammed was very clear on this – anyone who has once claimed to be a Muslim, must be killed if they no longer believe.
It is not Corbyn. Corbyn is just a symptom of Marxism.
Anti Semitism is naturaly endemic with Marxists since Karl Marx started it with “The end of Jews” and other anti semitic texts much earlier than Hitler because Marxism hates individualism and he saw Jews are not “conformable” to his ideology of Social Supremacism.
The reason there is Corbyn is that most journalists are Marxists. Including those of The Telegraph.
I have mixed experience with that. Some are (Syed Kamall is) some not so much (Sajid Javid for example). Like so many things, people are complicated things.
I concur. Corbyn is indeed a symptom not a root cause.
Some fundamentalist Christians do not believe that less fundamentalist Christians are true Christians. Lutherans view Catholics as misguided. Catholics view Baptists as misguided. Every sect views every other sect as not being true to the faith.
There are many versions of Islam, each of which has its own adherents. Some are a danger to us, others are not. Just as all of the above-listed groups are Christians, adherents to the various interpretations of Islam are Islamic.
Conservative Muslims have simply settled upon interpretations of Islam that make sense to them. They remain Islamic, just as the varying sects of Christianity remain Christian.
bobby b (May 14, 2018 at 10:36 pm), while your point is valid – for example, IS sometimes called apostate on faith-professing muslims IIRC – I think both Paul and Perry were talking about people they knew who were ethnically and familially from the muslim world. Even today’s conservative party probably lacks faith-professing muslims whose interpretation of Islam is IS-like. What Paul said was that the members of the Tory party he knew from muslim regions do not profess faith in any variant of Islam. Perry then named one confirming example and one contradicting example.
My own acquaintance from the region are all coptic Christians so I cannot comment either way.