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How the Labour Party became engulfed by accusations of antisemitism

The scandal is seen by many as part of a wider problem for Labour's left wing

Friday 29 April 2016 07:21 BST

After a day of controversy Ken Livingstone leaves Millbank Labour HQ (Getty)

British politics is in chaos after a scandal over Israel and anti-Semitism devolved into a vicious fight over the views of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The scandal had already seen Naz Shah, one of the UK's few female Muslim members of Parliament, suspended from the Labour Party on Wednesday. On Thursday, Ken Livingstone, the controversial former mayor of London, was also suspended from the party and publicly accused of being a "disgusting" Nazi apologist by a Labour colleague.

For many, the scandal is seen as part of a wider problem for Labour's left wing, which has come to dominate the party after Jeremy Corbyn's selection as leader last year. This wing of the party has generally supported Palestinian causes — but some rivals say that support has been tainted by anti-Semitism within the party's ranks.

How the scandal began

Labour MP Naz Shah (Rex Features) (Rex)

On Tuesday, Shah, a Labour MP for Bradford West, was accused of anti-Semitism for a series of Facebook posts made in 2014.

Shah had only entered Parliament last year, winning a bitter contest for a constituency seat in Bradford, a poor city in the north of England with a large Pakistani minority. Shah herself was born in Bradford to Pakistani parents and sent back to Pakistan as a teenager. Shah enjoyed a quick rise to a position of power, becoming the parliamentary private secretary to John McDonnell, shadow chancellor of the exchequer, in early 2016.

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

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1/14Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Israel and Palestine

The simple fact in all of this is that Naz made these comments at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians; and there’s one stark fact that virtually no one in the British media ever reports, in almost all these conflicts the death toll is usually between 60 and 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli. Now, any other country doing that would be accused of war crimes but it’s like we have a double standard about the policies of the Israeli government

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Antisemitism in the Labour Party

As I’ve said, I’ve never heard anybody say anything antisemitism-Semitic, but there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as antisemitic. I had to put up with 35 years of this

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Naz Shah

It’s completely over-the-top and rude, but who am I to denounce anyone with all of that. It was wrong. I don’t think she is antisemitic, it was incredibly rude but I don’t believe she is an antisemite. When the NEC investigation is finished they'll say it was rude and over the top but they won’t find any evidence that she actually hates Jews. We’ve got to investigate all these charges and the context in which they are made. If she is antisemitic like the other three or four members we’ve found who are antisemitic, she’ll be expelled

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On other alleged antisemites in Labour

That is part of the classic antisemitic thing about an ‘international Jewish conspiracy’ – that is the reason we need to have an investigation. I’ve got an open mind. I’ve seen nothing to suggest to me that she is antisemitic. I wouldn’t have supported her if I [thought] she was antisemitic

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On whether what Hitler did was legal, as stated by Naz Shah

That’s a statement of fact – Hitler, I’m sure, passed all those laws that allowed him to do that … it’s history … literally, Hitler was completely mad, he killed six million Jews. She’s not saying it’s legal to kill six million Jews: what they were doing in that country allowed them not just to kill six million Jews, kill all the communists, kill all the leftists like me, my father almost died when a Nazi sub sank his boat. I have no sympathy with Hitler

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On another alleged antisemite in Labour

No, that is, and that’s why she’s been suspended or expelled. What I’ve said is that in 47 years of the party in all the meetings I’ve been in I’ve never heard anyone say anything antisemitic. There are bound to be in a party of half a million people you’ll have a handful of antisemites, you’ll have a handful of racists. You’ve managed to dig out virtually every antisemitic comment that Labour members have made out of half a million people. I’ve never met any of these people. There’s not a problem. You’re talking about a handful of people in a party of half a million people. Jeremy Corbyn has moved rapidly to deal with them

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the allegations

He met with Naz and she agreed she would stand down while the investigation is going on. He called her in to see her. There’s been a huge investigation of virtually everything that anybody put on the internet … many of these people are quite new and recent members of the party that joined in the big influx. 300,000 new people came in

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On his meeting a man accused of antisemitism in London

This is the man who called for Muslims around the world to donate blood after the attacks of 9/11 when he came to London I went with him to the Regent’s Park mosque where he said no man should hit a woman and you should not discriminate against homosexuals. So I can’t equate what I heard him say… he made no antisemitic statement while he was here in London. I don’t investigate people. I’ve simply said what I believe to be true which is that Naz was not antisemitic. She was completely over the top, very rude, but that does not make her an antisemite

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On John Mann’s comments

He went completely over the top. I was actually doing a radio interview at the time that he was bellowing that I’m a racist antisemite in my ear. I’ve had that with John Mann before a few weeks ago screaming that I was a bigot down the phone. I’m not an apologist for anyone who makes antisemitic statements. What I’m saying is don’t confuse antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government policy

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On calling a Jewish journalist a “concentration camp guard” whilst Mayor of London

I can’t tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying ‘I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic’. We won the case

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On claims about Hitler and Zionism

I can’t tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying ‘I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic’. We won the case

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On John Mann

I’d simply say to John Mann go back and check. Is what I say true, or is it not? The BBC, you’ve got a huge team of researchers, it will take just an hour or two to go back and confirm. I was asked a question, I answered it. I have never in 45 years since I won my first election, I have never lied. I have always answered the question

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On raising the issue if Hitler

It lays you open to people smearing and lying about you. I’ve always answered the questions put to me and that simple fact is we’ve had a handful of people saying antisemitic things in the Labour Party, they’ve been suspended, some of them are on their way to being expelled, some of them have been expelled already

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On people calling for him to be suspended

All my usual critics – but the simple fact is I agree with them; there is no place for antisemitism in the Labour party. For them to suggest I am antisemitic is a bit bizarre considering we worked with Jewish groups and put on exhibitions about the scale of the holocaust, we worked with Jewish groups to tackling the scale of antisemitism back in the 1970s. I’ve always opposed every form of racism whether it’s against black people or Jews. I’m going to stay in the Labour party and continue to fight against all forms of racism and discrimination as I have my entire life

However, Shah was forced to resign from that position after a Facebook post from her in 2014 was unearthed and made public by the right-wing Guido Fawkes blog. In the post titled “Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict — Relocate Israel into United States,” Shah suggests that Israeli Jews should be relocated to the United States so that Palestinians could "get their life and their land back."

Shah was also soon found to have made other posts around this time comparing Israeli policies to those of Hitler. In an initial statement published just hours after the discovery of the first Facebook posts on Tuesday, Shah said that she apologised "unreservedly" for the posts, which were made "when emotions were running high around the Middle East conflict."

How it got worse

Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons (PA)

By Wednesday, the scandal was on the front pages of newspapers. Corbyn issued his own statement that called Shah's actions "offensive and unacceptable" and stated that the Labour Party was "implacably opposed to antisemitism and all forms of racism."

Later that day, Shah herself published a second apology in the Jewish News, a newspaper that serves Britain's Jewish community. "If politicians put their hands up when they get something wrong it would help to restore faith in politics," Shah wrote. "I hope that by writing to those who I have hurt, I am practicing as I preach and calling myself out."

Shah then apologized again in the House of Commons. "As an MP I will do everything in my power to build relations between Muslims, Jews and people of different faiths and none," she told her colleagues.

Despite these words, some observers criticised her phrasing, noting that they did not make clear that Shah thought her posts were anti-Semitic. On Wednesday afternoon, facing criticism for acting too slowly, Corbyn suspended Shah from the Labour Party. The move means she is currently barred from taking part in party activities or being involved with Labour groups in Parliament.

How it became a disaster

After a day of controversy Ken Livingstone leaves Millbank Labour HQ (Rex)

That might seem like a natural place for the scandal to end. It didn't, however. It got worse.

In a BBC Radio London interview on Thursday, Ken Livingstone, former London mayor and member of Labour's National Executive Council, defended Shah, arguing that criticising Israel wasn't the same as anti-Semitism. Livingstone went on to say: "When Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."

Livingstone's comments about Hitler immediately sparked controversy. The former mayor had long been one of the best-known figures in the Labour Party's left wing, but he had also made a number of comments about Israel in the past that have led to accusations of anti-Semitism.

John Mann MP call Ken Livingstone MP a 'Nazi apologist'

Later on Thursday, Livingstone was confronted by the Labour Party MP John Mann as he walked to the BBC's offices in Westminster. In front of a scrum of reporters, Mann shouted at Livingstone, calling him a "f---ing disgrace" and a "Nazi apologist."

Livingstone's subsequent interview on the BBC's "Daily Politics" didn't go much better. “Hitler’s policy when he first came to power [was] to move Germany’s Jews to Israel," Livingstone said on the show. Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, a fellow guest on the show, criticised Livingstone's comments, telling him he had entered "into this weird contorted maze" by bringing up Hitler when talking about Israel today.

As Livingstone left the BBC, things got even worse. The politician was forced to hide in a bathroom to escape an even larger crowd of journalists now awaiting him. As many Twitter users noted, the situation had the hallmarks of the BBC's well-known political satire, "The Thick of It."

The Labour Party soon announced that Livingstone, too, was suspended from the party “pending an investigation, for bringing the party into disrepute.” Mann was also summoned to see Labour's chief whip.

What it means for Britain's left

Former Labour leader Ed Miliband is the son of European Jews who had fled to Britain during World War II (Getty)

While the Labour Party was once considered a supporter of Israel, in recent years it has had a difficult relationship with the Jewish state. Even under former leader Ed Miliband, the son of European Jews who had fled to Britain during World War II, the party was accused of deteriorating ties with the British Jewish community.

After losing last year's general election badly, centrist Miliband was unexpectedly succeeded by Corbyn, a representative of the party's leftist wing. Corbyn and many of his newly-powerful Labour allies were considered critics of Israel. This put them at odds not only with their Conservative rivals, but also with some of their own Labour colleagues, who favored not only more support for Israel but also more centrist policies in general.

Corbyn on Livingstone remarks

Critics on both the right and left have said that Corbyn failed to adequately address the problems with anti-Semitism in his party. Right-wing bloggers, such as Guido Fawkes, appear to have been combing over comments made by Labour members for remarks against Jews.

The chaos within Labour has even managed to overshadow the problems facing the party's right-wing rivals, the governing Conservative Party, which has recently been rocked by divisions over an upcoming vote to leave the European Union and Prime Minister David Cameron's family wealth.

Copyright: Washington Post

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