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As Hodge starts the Starmer leadership with veiled threats of more wrecking from the PLP's intransigent racist wing, it's vital to remember: there was never a good-faith campaign against antisemitism in the Labour Party, at any stage in the past four years. 1/
There was a campaign to brand Corbyn and his supporters as antisemitic, which is a very different thing. From the very start, that campaign was spearheaded by bad-faith actors throwing mud in the hope it would stick, and it was riddled with anti-Palestinian racism. 2/
Over time it became a false narrative of unprecedented scale, culminating in the spectacle of people supporting Boris Johnson in the name of "anti-racism" last December, while saying nothing as a leading journalist promoted neo-Nazi propaganda. 3/ https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/12/the-sun-is-going-to-get-people-killed
Even official bodies got in on the act: the EHRC launched an investigation into Labour over allegations of "institutional antisemitism", but is still refusing to investigate the Tories for racism despite repeated requests to do so - a stark confession of its political bias. 4/
Here's the EHRC being asked to investigate the Tories in May 2019. 5/ https://mcb.org.uk/press-releases/muslim-council-of-britain-submits-formal-complaint-to-ehrc-over-conservative-party-islamophobia/
And in November 2019. 6/ https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/23/fresh-calls-equalities-watchdog-launch-islamophobia-inquiry-tory-party-11207328/
And in March 2020. The election was over by now, Johnson had his big majority, but the EHRC could only tell us it was still "considering what, if any, action" it might take over well-documented Tory racism. No such hesitation when it came to Labour. 7/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/05/300-allegations-of-tory-islamophobia-sent-to-equality-watchdog
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/05/300-allegations-of-tory-islamophobia-sent-to-equality-watchdog
In the middle of the election campaign, Newsnight reported internal concerns that the EHRC's chairman was too close to the Tory government: that story dropped like a stone from the media, however. 8/ https://twitter.com/bbcnewsnight/status/1199460578747568129?lang=en
Harriet Harman raised concerns about the EHRC chair when he was appointed, but that was quickly forgotten, too. Time and again, Corbyn's critics cited the fact that the EHRC was investigating Labour as a damning indictment of his leadership. 9/ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/01/nicky-morgan-under-fire-for-choosing-city-lawyer-to-head-equality-body
This meta-controversy will be kept on the boil by the people who opposed Corbyn for two reasons: for the excuse it could supply to purge left-wingers from Labour, and as a way to maintain pressure on Starmer to shift right (or undermine him if he doesn't). 10/
There's already been talk that Starmer's camp will try to oust Jennie Formby as general secretary by claiming that she tolerated antisemitism. Nobody should give an inch to that nonsense. Formby did far more to address genuine cases of antisemitism than her predecessor. 11/
As Jon Lansman argued here, there's good reason to believe that before Formby took over, anti-Corbyn Labour officials delayed the handling of real antisemitism cases (not the false allegations with which people like Hodge spammed the process). 12/
https://labourlist.org/2019/05/jeremy-corbyn-pushed-for-action-on-antisemitism-but-was-held-back-by-bureaucracy/
https://labourlist.org/2019/05/jeremy-corbyn-pushed-for-action-on-antisemitism-but-was-held-back-by-bureaucracy/
Formby had to take time out while recovering from chemotherapy to answer false and malicious claims by Tom Watson about her handling of antisemitism complaints. 13/
https://labourlist.org/2019/07/jennie-formby-and-tom-watson-exchange-letters-in-antisemitism-row/
https://labourlist.org/2019/07/jennie-formby-and-tom-watson-exchange-letters-in-antisemitism-row/
To stress a point that should be obvious: a narrative can still be false even if it contains elements of truth. The media narrative about the prevalence of welfare fraud a few years ago was still grotesquely misleading, even though there *were* genuine cases of fraud. 14/
Some background reading for anyone who wants to remind themselves of the facts (you'll search in vain for those facts in most media coverage of "Labour antisemitism"). A good piece by @jsternweiner from the early stages of the campaign: 15/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/jeremy-corbyn-hasn-t-got-antisemitism-problem-his-opponents-do/
Another excellent article by Richard Kuper from 2016 (which, incidentally, takes issue with the character assassination to which Shami Chakrabarti was subjected because she told the truth in her report that year): 16/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/crying-wolf/
I wrote this for Jacobin in 2019: 17/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/04/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-labour-party
And another piece for Le Monde Diplo last June: 18/ https://mondediplo.com/2019/06/09corbyn
Greg Philo describes the findings of a careful academic study in this interview with Jacobin (predictably, the British media ignored that study altogether): 19/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/10/labour-party-antisemitism-claims-jeremy-corbyn
The idea that Corbyn was personally antisemitic, or that he actively encouraged and enabled antisemitism in the Labour Party, will always be a shameful calumny. Corbyn is a decent, principled man and a staunch anti-racist. His detractors aren't fit to tie his shoe-laces. 20/
