Antisemitism on the far left is so insidious. I joined the SWP when I was 14 in 2001, it was my first real introduction to politics, after growing up in a non-voter household. I was a child, obsessed with 9/11 which had just happened, and was desperate for an explanation 1/

I met the SWP at a rally about sweatshop work, and suddenly I was given the explanation for bigger world events I'd been seeking. I felt like they had answers for the why, where the news was only telling me the what. I got sucked in fast 2/

As a 14 yr old, a child, I'd never heard of Israel until I joined the SWP. I was fed so much shit about Israel and capitalism, and Jewish power over finance and the media etc. It was the first time in my life I'd been offered a (seemingly) coherent world view 3/

After two years as an activist for the SWP and their various fronts, in particular Stop the War, I started to realise that these people were toxic, they were bullies, and they really didn't care about working class people like me 4/

But during those two years, as a child, I'd been fed so much shit it was hard to break away from all of it. In the SWP any Jewish person on the left who was remotely critical of the party was denounced as a Zionist, even Jewish anti-Zionists who just didn't like SWP 5/

And of course, Zionist was the worst thing you could be called in those circles. It was synonymous with racist, which we all thought we weren't. We used to hold a regular stall outside of Marks and Spencer, when people called us racist for doing so, I would look to the party 6/

And the party would explain it all away with a lecture on Imperialism and the connections between the banks and the importance of Israel to America. It was incredibly racist, but, as I say, I was a child 7/

So anyway, to the insidiousness of antisemitism on the far left. I quit the SWP and Stop the War when I was 16. I could see through everything they'd taught me. I was older and had my own ideas about socialism, based in my own working class experience 8/

But I carried that antisemitic crap around for years. Once learned, it stuck. I could see through the revolutionary rubbish, I could see through the personalities of the far left. But the horrible racist stuff they'd filled me with from the age of 14, I carried that 9/

I was in my mid-twenties, after years of being very anti-trot, before I began to really question the antisemitism they'd taught me. The thing is, at no point in all those years would I have considered myself antisemitic or racist. But I was 10/

Far left antisemitism tells you that you're not a bad person, that you're definitely not a racist. You're one of the good guys. It comes with endless academic lectures connecting every decent cause to a hatred of people who just *happen* to be Jewish 11/

It's so toxic, and honestly it seems so mad to me now that I fell for it, and I can excuse it as being a child, but it was the very last thing from that party that I shook off, and it was years later. I'm in my mid thirties now so been free of it a long time 12/

But it was among the far left that I learnt it, and tbh I can't really articulate properly how toxic and insidious it is when you get into it from that source, but I started the thread hoping I would be able to, cos so many others get sucked in that way 13/

Anyway, I'm just rambling now, but my basic point is, there are people who learn this shit in these spaces, and even when they reject those spaces, crap like this can linger for years if it's not challenged. Fuck the SWP and fuck antisemitism