The kinder, gentler gaslighters

Remember when Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted a find a less abusive way of doing politics?

And how the commentariat class absolutely ridiculed him for it, using the phrase "kinder gentler politics" whenever anyone from the left as much as used a swear word, despite Corbyn himself remaining calm, polite, and dignified in the face of undoubtedly the most concerted UK media vilification campaign in living memory.

The political establishment class and corporate media hack pack worked together to whip up raging firestorms of anti-left hatred; they accused Corbyn of disrespecting veterans by not bowing deeply enough at the Cenotaph; the next year they faked photos of Corbyn supposedly dancing at the Cenotaph; they faked photos of him wearing a Russian-style hat on a Kremlin background; they endlessly platformed every deranged anti-Corbyn ranter they could find; they spliced the wrong answers onto different questions to create outrage-mongering 'fake news' (and kept their jobs when caught red-handed); they derided Corbyn's "Chairman Mao style bicycle"; they spread nonsensical conspiracy theories about Corbyn being some kind of Czech Spy, Russian stooge, terrorism-loving, communist, Jew-hater; they ridiculed and grossly misrepresented virtually every policy position Corbyn ever took ("nationalise sausages"!); and they churned out endless hate-mongering rabble-rousing articles like "Labour Must Kill Vampire Jezza".

Just some of the political and media figures to switch
seamlessly from vilifying Corbyn to pretending they
oppose online hatred and abuse!

Then oh how they erupted in fits of laughter and frivolity when Corbyn was violently assaulted by that right-wing extremist; and how they chuckled and then instantly forgot about it when British soldiers used Corbyn's face as a target on a shooting range; and then they just ignored the multiple assaults on elderly Labour Party campaigners during the 2019 election (whilst uncritically amplifying outright Tory lies about Matt Hancock's aide supposedly being "punched" by a Corbyn-supporter).

To top it all off, they barely even bothered to object to the terrorist assassination plot against Corbyn and Sadiq Khan by the extreme-right Finsbury Park killer; or any of the numerous other examples of abuse and death threats against Corbyn and the Labour leadership team.

In fact their priorities were so utterly warped that they created vastly more faux outrage about a so-called "brick" through Angela Eagle's window in 2016, despite no evidence of who actually did it ever emerging, than coverage of an actual death threat made against Corbyn in the same week as brick-gate!

The political establishment and the commentariat class deliberately whipped up these firestorms of hatred because they detested normal democratic socialist policies like nationalised rail, energy, and water so much, and outright rejected the idea that the very-rich should just pay a bit more into the pot.

Then when their hate-mongering delivered the inevitable abusive, violent, and potentially deadly consequences, they simply turned their backs, refused to report it, belittled it, or even outright laughed at it.

Well now the very same people are all suddenly saying they want a 'kinder, gentler politics' in order to promote a right-wing authoritarian Tory crackdown on our Internet freedoms.

The gaslighting bastards!




NOTE: Of course these people and their supporters will resort to victim posturing, and pretending that proven facts about the vilification of Corbyn, and the conclusion "gaslighting bastards!" constitute the kind of horrifying abuse they're suddenly so concerned about. They didn't get where they were within the establishment order without knowing how to distort and manipulate everything to their advantage.

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Have Labour been too apologetic on anti-Semitism?

It doesn't seem to matter what the Labour Party does, some people will simply not allow the subject of anti-Semitism to be dealt with calmly and rationally.

This hysteria is clear on both sides. This is clear whether we're talking about:

• Tom Watson's outrageous Stalinesque threat to personally take over Labour's disciplinary procedures.

• Chris Williamson's latest crass comments about Labour being "too apologetic" (comments that have drawn me back into writing about this subject again).

• Margaret Hodge publicly bombarding the Labour disciplinary bods with dozens upon dozens of anti-Semitism cases to investigate 90% of which turned out to not even be Labour Party members, then having the absolute gall to complain that they're taking too long to investigate the actual genuine cases!

• Or social media conspiracists outright denying that there's even a problem at all.

Moral perspective

From a moral perspective it's obvious that Labour should be apologetic every time an example of anti-Semitism is found amongst the 500,000+ people in the Labour ranks.

It's obviously fair to add context too by pointing out the facts and evidence that partisan anti-Labour critics would never provide. Stuff like the fact that the rates of anti-Semetic views amongst Labour supporters have gone down dramatically since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015, the fact that disciplinary procedures have been sped up significantly since Jennie Formby took over from the Blairite Ian McNicol at the NEC, and the fact that anti-Semitism is and always has been way more prevalent in the Tory party than Labour.

However, it's beyond obvious that whenever anti-Semites are caught in the Labour Party, the party needs to apologise and demonstrate their continued commitment to combating all forms of racism and bigotry with disciplinary procedures and bans.

Realpolitik perspective

From a realpolitik perspective Labour is obviously getting the whole thing completely wrong.

Instead of apologising and seeking to actively deal with the issue, the mainstream media have educated us about what the correct response is with their absolute dearth of coverage about the Tory Islamophobia scandal.

The Tory party has been accused of tolerating despicable anti-Muslim bigotry by several senior Tory politicians, including Sayeeda Warsi. For over a year the Tories have been refusing to apologise, refusing to investigate, and outright refusing to listen to calls by the Muslim Council of Britain for an inquiry into anti-Muslim bigotry in the Tory ranks.

The Tories have simply stonewalled the subject, and a result the mainstream media have rewarded them with an absolutely minuscule fraction of the negative coverage they've heaped on the Labour anti-Semitism issue!

As far as the mainstream press are concerned Labour talking about and debating anti-Semitism in order to deal with the issue is worthy of inordinately more coverage that the Tories staying silent about anti-Muslim bigotry, and outright refusing to do anything whatever to deal with the problem in their party!

The ones who talk about the issue and take action are continually bombarded with criticism, while the ones who stay silent and refuse to take action are given a free pass.

Given these circumstances, from a realpolitik perspective it's obviously absolutely stupid for Labour to keep talking about anti-Semitism when the strategy of steadfastly refusing to engage has worked so well for the Tories when it comes to anti-Muslim hate in their ranks.

History

One of the main reasons Labour can't stop talking about the issue is that the party has a long history of standing up for minorities. It was the left who stood with the Jewish people at Cable Street to oppose Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in 1936 while the Tories we're signing up in droves to anti-Semitic pro-Nazi pressure groups like the Right Club.

And it was the left who stood with the Jewish community at Wood Green in the 1970s to face down the National Front thugs too.

Given this history it's obvious that any level of anti-Semitism in the Labour ranks feels like a betrayal that needs to be apologised for, and rightly so.

With the Tories it's a different story. In the 1930s they embraced the new fad of Nazism and joined up to anti-Semitic hate groups in their droves. In the 1960s they ran racist "If you want a coloured for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour" leaflet campaigns in by-elections. In the 1980s they sided with Apartheid South Africa while the Tory youth were parading around in "Hang Mandela" T-shirts. And Theresa May is personally responsible for the introduction of sickeningly racist legislation in 2014 that was used to deny black Britons the right to housing, employment, banking services, social security, health care, and the right to return to Britain. This vile "Hostile Environment" legislation even resulted in black Britons dying in exile overseas.

The Tory party has a long history of racism stretching from their adoration of Nazism in the 1930s all the way to the present and their current policies of deporting black Britons and turning a blind eye to anti-Muslim bigotry in their own ranks.

Bigotry in the Tory ranks isn't a touchstone issue because there have always been loads of bigots in the Tory party. It's not news, and never will be, because it's just accepted as the norm.

Weaponisation

If you're the kind of person who can hold two thoughts in your head simultaneously then try this:

1. A tiny minority of Labour's 500,000+ members have expressed anti-Semitic views. They people should be weeded out because racism and bigotry of all types are unacceptable.

2. A lot of very bad faith opportunists are deliberately weaponising the Labour anti-Semitism issue for their own cynical political purposes.

There are no contradictions whatever between these two statements because they're both observable facts, however you have to be extremely careful stating the second fact because the very opportunists the statement refers to will attempt to misrepresent it as if it's a denial of the first statement that anti-Semitism is a problem.

There's obviously a huge distinction between pointing out the that Labour-opponents and mainstream media hacks like to use super-cynical tricks to weaponise anti-Semitism (like deliberately conflating the anti-Semetic abuse of jailed extreme-right thugs with the Labour Party, or taking quotations miles out of context in order to manufacture outrage), and outright denial that there's any problem at all.

But if cynical opportunists are prepared to mislead, manipulate, and lie in order to weaponise anti-Semitism for their own political purposes, why on earth wouldn't they use the same dishonest tactics to attack anyone who calls them out?

Tory glee

The weaponisation of anti-Semitism for political purposes is particularly galling when it comes from Tory MPs and partisan pro-Tory pro-austerity hacks in the mainstream media.

What's even more galling still is their barely suppressed glee whenever anyone tries to argue back that they're hypocrites due to the brazen Tory refusal to even address anti-Muslim bigotry in their own party.

They respond with glee because they know that not only are they winning from a realpolitik perspective by simply refusing to talk about or address their own bigotry issues, they also know that the perception that they're an anti-Muslim party actually plays extremely well with the sizeable extreme-right ultranationalist blue-kip demographic they've been openly courting and welcoming on board with open arms ever since the collapse of UKIP.

They know that anti-Semitism is a hugely problematic issue for Labour because of the left's history of solidarity with Jewish people, and they also know that accusations of anti-Muslim hate in the Tory ranks actually serve as recruitment calling cards amongst the far-right demographics they're actively targeting for support.

And they know they're being opportunistic hypocrites by banging on about Labour anti-Semitism when they have no intention whatever of dealing with much more serious problems of bigotry in their own ranks, but that's just how amoral opportunists roll.

From a realpolitik perspective they'd be idiots to actually investigate accusations of anti-Muslim bigotry in their party and root out the worst offenders because they know that doing the right thing like Labour have been doing would just invite media scrutiny and lots of negative commentary.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that the moral thing to do is to fight anti-Semitism and all other forms of bigotry, and apologise whenever bigots are exposed in your own party's ranks.

But the behaviour of the Tories and the mainstream media proves that from a realpolitik perspective any kind of apology whatever is "too apologetic" because why apologise when the media give you an infinitely easier ride when you just stonewall the bigotry problem like the Tories have?

So the answer to the question of "have Labour been too apologetic on anti-Semitism?" depends entirely on whether you believe in doing the right thing, or you've got such a tribal win at all costs mentality that you'll steadfastly ignore evidence of bigotry within your party purely for party political advantage.

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Margaret Hodge has completely lost the plot in her latest anti-Corbyn rant

Labour are once again ahead in the polls, and like clockwork Margaret Hodge has emerged to badmouth her own party in the most extraordinary manner. In this article I'm going to look at just some of the desperately cynical, wantonly offensive, and downright dishonest nonsense she spewed in her interview with Sky News.

Muddying the water

Hodge said a lot of off-the-charts nonsense in her interview, but I've got to start with the most cynical and dangerous of her assertions. In an effort to have a stab at Jeremy Corbyn she claimed that there's "a fine line between being pro-Palestinian, and being anti-Semitic".

This is blatantly untrue. One involves having a bit of basic human decency and expressing solidarity towards the victims of decades of brutal Israeli repression. The other involves being a disgusting bigot who hates Jewish people for no reason other than that they're Jews.

There is no "fine line" between decency and indecency, and this effort by Margaret Hodge to claim that there is, is nothing but a cynical effort to intimidate decent people out of expressing solidarity with the Palestinians for fear of being labelled a racist bigot for having done so.

Trivialising the Holocaust

After screaming vitriolic and defamatory abuse in Jeremy Corbyn's face Margaret Hodge was subjected to a brief disciplinary procedure which involved the sending of a few letters, an meeting, and her getting let off scot free for an offence that would have seen any ordinary Labour Party member hoofed out of the party for good.

In a desperate attempt to present herself as the victim, Hodge actually compared this disciplinary process to the horror of fleeing Nazi Germany.

Just try to imagine the absolute tower of self-righteous delusion a person would have to be sitting upon in order to imagine that trivialising the horrors of the Holocaust in order to pose as the poor victim of a flawed softball disciplinary process that let her off scot free for an offence that would have had any normal person in a normal job rightly expecting the sack.

By trivialising the Holocaust in this way Hodge has demonstrated that she's massively over-privileged and extremely disconnected from reality.

Entitlement

Let's not forget that this is the same Labour Party that attempted to rig the 2nd Corbyn leadership election by purging thousands of left-wing members for "crimes" such as once retweeting a non-Labour MP, voting for a different political party long before they even joined Labour, and even liking the Foo Fighters too much!

Hodge was let off scot free for what would probably have seen any ordinary person like you or I sacked from our jobs, but she didn't have a single word of criticism when thousands of ordinary people were being purged from the Labour Party for no reason other than they were likely to vote for Jeremy Corbyn in a leadership election!

Basically Hodge believes she should be allowed to do whatever she likes to bring the party into disrepute, because disciplinary processes, punishments, and expulsions are only for the little people.

Hypocrisy

In comparing Labour's softball disciplinary procedure to the Holocaust in her victim-pleading rant Hodge has accidentally revealed her own hypocrisy.

The pro-Israeli lobby have long argued that it's grotesque to compare stuff like the deliberate killing of scores of unarmed civilians (including medics, journalists, and children) in the vast open air prison camp of Gaza to Nazism or the Holocaust, even to the extent of smearing a Jewish Holocaust survivor as an anti-Semite just to have another crack at Corbyn.

But if comparing indisputable acts of brutality and repression to the actions of the Nazis is tasteless, then how on earth can it be considered reasonable to compare something as benign as an internal party political disciplinary process to the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust?

Outright lies

By claiming that Jeremy Corbyn has overseen an increase in anti-Semitism Hodge wasn't just veering off into hyperbole, she was outright lying.

The evidence is absolutely clear that rates of anti-Semitism have fallen dramatically in the Labour ranks since Corbyn became leader.

The obvious explanation for this trend would seem to be that the massive influx of left-leaning socially liberal people into the Labour Party since 2015 has significantly diluted the pre-existing levels of anti-Semitism.

Let's not forget that back in 2005 Labour's top spin doctor Alistair Campbell masterminded grossly offensive poster campaign depicting a Jewish political rival as a pig and a Fagin character.

This was at a time when Hodge was an actual government minister, but somehow, she didn't speak out about this grotesque anti-Semitism right at the heart of the Labour Party and use it to attack the party leadership.

Now that anti-Semitism rates have fallen dramatically under Corbyn, and nobody at the top of the party is doing anything remotely as bigoted as running an anti-Semitic poster campaign, now she's persistently complaining about the issue?

Surely anyone with any sense at all can see that someone who turns a blind eye to the blatant anti-Semitism of her political allies can't possibly be making a fuss over the issue in good faith when it comes to her political opponents?

Rabid anti-Corbynism

Hodge attempts to undermine Jeremy Corbyn's popularity by raising concerns about the "rise of populism" but completely gives the game away with her list of supposed populists.

She mentions Boris Johnson and Donald Trump first, with no negative description, but when it comes to Corbyn she says "the cult of Corbynism", thus revealing she's actually got more antipathy towards Corbyn's democratic socialist agenda than Boris Johnson's extreme-right ultranationalism, or the frightening and ideologically incoherent lunacy of Trumpism!

It's no surprise that Hodge is such a vehement opponent of Corbynism given that she was the beneficiary of a £1.5 million tax-dodging scam via a Liechtenstein-based fund. 

If anyone is likely to oppose Corbyn's determination to clamp down on the tax-dodging of the mega-rich it's someone who participates in that kind of thing.

Excuse me, who are the cultists?

In insultingly dismissing everyone who supports Jeremy Corbyn as a "cult", Margaret Hodge is simply showing how out of touch she is with the wishes of the Labour Party membership.

People don't support Corbyn because they see him as some kind of infallible idol but because he represents a genuine alternative to the hard-right neoliberal orthodoxy that has served the mega-rich and the political class do well over the last four decades at the expense of the rest of us.

the reality is that a lot of people are drawn to Corbyn because of his principles and policies (stuff like renationalising the railways, sticking up for workers, combating tax-dodging, stopping arms sales to despotic regimes like Saudi Arabia) but wish he was a bit better at forcing the point home. 

Hodge really doesn't seem to realise that the vast majority of British people have absolutely had it with self-serving political elites flogging off our national assets to their mates on the cheap, gutting our local communities, trashing our wages and working conditions, and imposing ruinous austerity dogma on the nation in order to make the poor and ordinary shoulder the entire cost of the bankers' bailouts, lavishing handouts and tax breaks on corporations and the mega-rich, and fiddling their expenses all the while to maximise their own personal gains.

The reality is that it's the Westminster establishment club and their lackeys in the mainstream media who are living in a cult, but because they have little or no concern for ordinary people.

They're content in their cosy little ideological echo chamber full of reassurances that strict adherence to the orthodox neoliberal ideology is still an unquestionable article of faith, and that anyone who actually listens to what the little people want must be the mad, bad, dangerous, extremist with the cult following!

Irresponsible journalism

One of the most disturbing things about the interview is the complicity of the interviewer, who instead of actually questioning any of the dishonest, deluded, and borderline deranged nonsense Hodge was spouting, actually nodded along like it's the received wisdom!

Maybe you could give the journalist a break for being too taken aback by the outlandishness of it to interject during Hodge's extraordinary Holocaust hyperbole, but failing to point out the fact that she was outright lying about anti-Semitism having increased under Jeremy Corbyn is an extraordinary failure.

Isn't it the least we can expect from journalists that they actually hold powerful establishment figures to account when they lie, rather than acting as their enablers and mouthpieces?

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

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