Asa Winstanley – Middle East Monitor April 11, 2020
Jewish Chronicle front page on 20 July 2018. Click to enlarge
So that’s it. Jeremy Corbyn is out. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
With the media’s attention rightly focused on the coronavirus pandemic, coverage of Corbyn’s departure as Labour leader last weekend was muted.
In truth, the die had already been cast the moment Corbyn announced, after December’s election result, that he would be stepping down.
For all his flaws, Corbyn and the popular movement behind him, represented the single best chance for radical change in this country for a generation. Now, all that is gone, and this is a moment of woe.
This marks the end of an era in British politics – and, indeed in world politics.
Corbyn represented a serious challenge to 40 years of neoliberal consensus among political leaders in the West. In that respect, even in defeat, he has had some success. The national narrative has changed irrevocably – austerity has been utterly defeated.
It is now quite unimaginable for a British politician to talk about cuts to public services, especially to the National Health Service.
Corbyn played a pivotal role in bringing about change to the way politics is talked about in this country.
But let’s not beat about the bush, Corbyn lost the election in December. There’s no avoiding that fact, and it was a serious defeat for the left.
What was the cause of that defeat?
In the reams of post-mortems that have already been written on Corbyn’s political career, many have examined this question. But very few have acknowledged a major facet of Corbyn’s defeat, if not the greatest factor of all – Corbyn’s refusal to fight the Israel lobby.
Over the course of five years, the Israel lobby, in alliance with Labour’s own right wing, relentlessly smeared and defamed Corbyn and his movement as anti-Semites.
This is a decades-old strategy employed by Israel and its lobbyists, which they continue to use, because it continues to work.
Corbyn unfortunately had no strategy to counter this. Instead, betrayed by even some on the Labour left over the issue, he eventually began to concede.
He reluctantly indulged the smears, repeatedly apologising for anti-Semitism in Labour, when in fact it was virtually non-existent – as all empirical polling data showed time and time again.
These apologies were to no avail. The Israel lobby always demands more. They wanted him out, and they continued the defamation campaign until the bitter end.
A leader from one such pro-Israel group boasted in a bizarre video rant over the Christmas holidays last year, that they had “slaughtered” Corbyn.
“We defeated him,” proudly announced Joe Glasman of the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism. “They tried to kill us,” he ranted, but “we won.” The Campaign Against Antisemitism is very misleadingly named. A more accurate title would be The Campaign Against Palestinians.
Despite his lies about Labour anti-Semitism, Glasman was correct in one aspect: the Israel lobby did defeat Corbyn.
The success of the “Labour anti-Semitism crisis” smear campaign will have to be faced by the British left, if they ever want to succeed in changing the country.
It is not the case that the Israel lobby is all-powerful in objective terms – it is not, and that is the tragedy of the situation. If Corbyn had truly fought them, they would have crumbled.
Instead, he stood by, as good socialists and anti-racists like Ken Livingstone, Marc Wadsworth, Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson were purged from the party.
He even failed to stop Labour adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s appalling redefinition of anti-Semitism – which deliberately conflates Palestine solidarity campaigning with anti-Jewish racism.
Polling by Lord Ashcroft after the general election indicated that the smear campaign was indeed successful. It was one of the top five reasons that voters had turned against Corbyn, after his major advances in the 2017 election.
That poll also showed that almost three quarters of Labour’s membership thought that the anti-Semitism crisis had been “invented or wildly exaggerated”. The same figure was 92 per cent among Momentum members.
If only Corbyn and his team had listened to his own members, instead of attempting to embrace his own most bitter enemies within the party, especially such internal Labour pro-Israel elements such as the Jewish Labour Movement and right-wing MP Margaret Hodge.
If the British left hopes to avoid Corbyn’s fate in the future, they will have to learn this harsh lesson: never make concessions to the Israel lobby. It will never be enough, so they would be better served to reject their demands outright.
The faux antisemitism was undoubtedly a factor, but I’d suggest the coup de grace was the inexplicable putting back on the table of the spectre of overturning Brexit, placed there as it was by the execrable and treacherous Kier “trilateral commission” Starmer.
I live in Bury St Edmunds, i joined the white flight out of Luton as thousands of angry Muslims pushed out of their homes in the Middle east flooded in.
Lots of folk we know only voted Labour because the newspapers said Corbyn was anti semitic, we desperately need an anti semitic/pro British political party.
We must claim our country back, Brexit was just the start, Rothschild mouthpieces said we would be punished if we left his EU, is this what the virus is all about ?
We must fight back against Rothschilds jews, Corbyn was a god man, i cant belive people actually buy and read Rupert Murcoch/Rothschild newspapers.
wake up for gods sake, look at what we are leaving for our children and their children.
More tosh, Jews are not a race. As hard as our political classes and fake news media try, the Jews will never be a race. As for Corbyn, he was an MI6 backbench sleeper who activated in order to get Brexit done. I can’t recall a single Corbyn effort to damage the Tories. Remember when Frank Bruno knocked Mike Tyson out on his feet? Bruno should of won, but what did Bruno do? He backed away. Brexit was just a small part of the UK’s deep state imperialist agenda and we can see this with Covid. The Tories massive budget spending plan (completely out of character) has been gazumped by the Covid corporate lush.
Corbyn was warned by MI 5 10 years back that the jews were gunning for him
my cousin worked in John Prescotts office, we knew back then that the jews would
programme some vulnerable person like Mark Chapman or Sirhan Sirhan to kill him.
Prescott said ” its the way of the world i am afraid”
Prescott was the only Old Labour politician allowed into New Labour
for one reason, he knew where the bodies were buried,
John Prescott was a seaman while at sea he studied masonics and went right up the tree,
he knew that New Labour was a Mossad front, John would joke he was the only heterosexual in the party which had a remit for a British war on iraq, and to grow the homosexual community by 5% per year.
John disliked the funding of homosexual marches, pervert magazines and its subsidising of PIE.
John was not allowed to do any work, he swanned about on 5 course lunches
chased women, gambled, played cricket and croquet, naked at times
and made jokes about Tony Blairs past as a teenage rent boy.
When Tony okayed the murders of Princess Di Dr David Kelly and Robin Cook,
it was a very sobering moment, John liked Robin and we saw him close to tears.
John beleived Corbyn was walking a tightrope, and that the jews would possibly kill him
Corbyn lost because he betrayed the people over Brexit.
I was never a fan of Corbyn, no differently though to any other politician, self serving, sycophants that they are, however, it was clear that out of all politicians, the Jews certainly wanted to destroy him.
Hmm…..I wonder why? Possibly because of his support for the Palestinians, whom the Jews are genociding and stealing their land, while the west does nothing? They are an apartheid state, but unlike South Africa, they’re allowed to do whatever they want, to whomever they want.
That all stated, Corbyn was weak. He was a pathetic individual. Had, for example, Corbyn NOT distanced himself from Paul Eisen, who correctly pointed out that 6 million Jews NEVER died in the holohoax, he would have gained a lot of respect, from many people and woken up the eyes of the public. Corbyn, in this instance, showed his weakness, his capitulation to Judaism and promoting lies over truth. That was no doubt duly noted by many people.
Then of course, the fiasco with Ken Livingstone, who correctly pointed out that Hitler worked with Zionists to ship Jews into Israel. There was even a commemorative coin made, to signify this. However, if it paints Jews in a bad light, regardless if it’s the truth, it has to be attacked and destroyed. As much as I also never like ‘Red’ Ken, I did note that he did have some integrity in his life, but sadly, was a fool in supporting communism, diversity and multiculturalism.
Both of these showed the British public, that Corbyn was going to like the arse of Judaism, regardless and do nothing to them, while they raped and pillaged the world. Sure, he would support Palestine, but at what cost? It’s somewhat ironic, but Corbyn epitomizes the foolish Shabbos goys, who do 99.9% of what the Jews want, but that will never be good enough. To the Jew, you do whatever they want or they’ll destroy you and Corbyn was foolish not to see this. Slaves don’t get to choose. They simply do.
And as to the rag, the Jewish chronicle, it’s a Jewish, supremacist (as Jews are) rag. If there was a white equivalent, it would be called the ‘KKK’ chronicle, but that would never be allowed would it? Blatant, in-yer-face supremacism and the west doesn’t bat an eyelid, but a video of some British woman, having an argument with black people, on a train will go viral and everyone will be screaming racism and that she should be hanged.
The disconnects are shocking, proving how pathetic European peoples are in general. They’re good, obedient shabbos.
No person in the right mins would hand over their country for jewish banks to run through the EU, surely even the traitors and socialists can see this.
We had to get out,
Its now common knowledge that edward Heath was black mailed over young boy sex scandals, Mosad whistelblowers have even admited this.
Part of the EU, no thanks, in time even the numpties will acknowledge this
Corbyn was defeated by people who should never have been elected by Christian communities.
UK NOT JewK
One day the English will “slaughter” Glasman…
Corbyn going against Brexit and the Noses…Duh!!
…almost like he was meant to lose…a strawman??