This is an absolutely stunning admission about the IHRA definition in Owen Jones’ book, but lacking any moral explanation for years of Corbyn’s and Milne’s activism clearly violating an internationally agreed definition of antisemitism.

It actually doesn’t matter if that belief had no foundation in reality, Corbyn didn’t want to support a definition of antisemitism because he knew he had personally engaged in antisemitic behaviour by that definition. The fact that it wasn’t used to punish him doesn’t change that

As leader in charge of an organisation, Corbyn tried to change a definition of antisemitism, not to protect Jews, but to protect his position as leader of the Labour Party. That’s what direct responsibility for institutional racism looks like.

And while publicly the response was “it’s all a smear”, privately the response was “I’ve broken these rules so we shouldn’t pass them”, and as it turns out, the journalist reporting this as fact knew this at the time but was also dismissing it as smears.

If I ever get the chance to interview Owen, most of my questions will be “why didn’t you say this at the time?”, and judging from the reviews, that seems to be the overwhelming journalistic consensus.

Always felt like Owen’s pre-Corbyn career was summarised by a feeling that “if only more people knew the truth about socialism, they’d support it”. That sense of duty to informing and educating was seemingly replaced by an intention to keep certain truths hidden from public view.

It’s true that if Owen has admitted at the time said Corbyn was opposed to IHRA because he was afraid he had contravened it, Owen’s own side would have torn him apart. But it would have been the truth. What we were fed at the time was lies and spin.

I think of all the Jewish people who were smeared as hysterical malicious liars for complaining about situations that apparently everyone already explicitly understood at face value. They are owed a lifetime of apologies.

I haven’t even addressed the fact that fears of disciplinary action were dismissed by his allies reassuring him that they held too much executive power for that to ever happen. This is really damning stuff.