We welcome Jeremy Corbyn’s fighting spirit in his letter to the Board of Deputies. As usual, the BoD reacted with fake outrage to the ‘news’ that Corbyn wrote a foreword to the hugely influential book ‘Imperialism – a Study’ by AN Hobson.
We particularly agree with this paragraph:
This accusation is the latest in a series of equally ill-founded accusations of anti-Jewish racism that Labour’s political opponents have made against me. I note that the Hobson story was written by a Conservative Party peer in a newspaper whose editorial policy, and owner, have long been hostile to Labour. At a time when Jewish communities in the UK, and indeed throughout Europe, feel under attack, it is a matter of great regret that the issue of anti-Semitism is often politicised in this way.
John A Hobson did not only develop a theory of underconsumption to explain capitalism’s devastating cycles of boom and bust – but he was also the first writer to explain that capitalism, with its need to constantly expand, requires governments to constantly open up new markets to exploit: imperialism.
And while there is a now much-quoted paragraph in the 400 page work that does indeed reflect how anti-Semitism was prevalent and acceptable within the ruling class at the time, this hardly makes it a “deeply anti-Semitic book”, as The Times and The Guardian now claim. Incidentally, in 2011 The Guardian praised the work as “the definitive book on imperialism”. This just shows you how the political narrative around the issue of anti-Semitism has been utterly manipulated and changed in the last few years.
But Corbyn’s two-finger salute comes late, very late. Hundreds of Labour Party supporters have been suspended, expelled or remain under investigation for exactly the same kind of “politicised” and “ill-founded accusations of anti-Jewish racism”, among them Chris Williamson MP, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth, Tony Greenstein and many, many more. Why won’t he come out in their defence, too? The charges against them have been just as ridiculous.
We also hope that Corbyn will criticise the Jewish Labour Movement in similarly strong terms. After all, they have – once again – used the opportunity to continue their campaign of sabotage: They have called on him to “consider his position” and accused him of having “endorsed antisemitic propaganda”. “Any other member would have been suspended after this. This is why JLM members overwhelmingly passed a motion of no confidence in him and his leadership at our AGM two weeks ago. A fish rots from the head.”
And the Jewish Labour Movement clearly is rotten through and through. For a start, it does not represent “Jewish members of the Labour Party”: you do not have to be Jewish to join it and you certainly do not have to be a member of the Labour Party. Adam Langleben, for example, the newly elected campaigns officer of the JLM, has left the Labour Party with much fanfare in February and is, we hear, supporting Chuka Umunna’s Tinge Party.