Poll: Labour members say anti-Semitism crisis “invented”

Asa Winstanley Rights and Accountability 13 February 2020

A new opinion poll found that 73 percent of Labour members think anti-Semitism in the party is exaggerated.

Almost three quarters of the UK Labour Party’s members agree that the anti-Semitism crisis in the party has been “invented or wildly exaggerated.”

That’s according to a new survey by the influential pollster Michael Ashcroft.

Only 22 percent of members who took part in the poll agreed that “anti-Semitism was a real problem” in the party.

Since Jeremy Corbyn – a left-wing activist who had long been involved with the Palestine solidarity movement – was elected Labour’s leader in 2015, the party has been targeted by a sustained disinformation campaign, smearing Corbyn and party members as anti-Semitic.

Released on Monday, the poll of Labour members shows that 73 percent agreed with the statement that “Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party was invented or wildly exaggerated by the right-wing media and opponents of Jeremy Corbyn.”

The figure is even higher – 92 percent – among members of Momentum, the party faction founded to back Corbyn.

The statement, openly expressed, would likely be grounds for expulsion from the party in a rigged disciplinary process.

“Anti-Semitism denial” is now often portrayed by witch hunters as proof of anti-Semitism.

For such people, it would apparently follow that Labour should now expel three quarters of the party’s membership – which would amount to at least 354,000 people.

Miniscule

The figures are a rebuke to Momentum’s boss Jon Lansman, who has claimed Labour has a “widespread problem” with anti-Semitism.

Lansman did not reply to a request for comment.

The poll comes soon after the latest official party figures, released last month, showed that, in total, 2,178 Labour members had faced anti-Semitism allegations since 2017. As Labour has approximately 500,000 members, that amounts to 0.4 percent of the overall membership.

And as The Electronic Intifada’s reporting over the last few years has shown, many, if not almost all, of this tiny number are not even real cases of anti-Semitism.

Only 56 Labour members have been expelled for alleged anti-Semitism, with a further 145 resigning or allowing their membership to lapse during disciplinary proceedings.

Between 2018 and 2019, 1,201 members were suspended, formally investigated or otherwise disciplined for alleged anti-Semitism.

A further 388 complaints were deemed worthy of no further action after an initial assessment.

A note accompanying the Labour data indicates that a coordinated campaign was undertaken to report “anti-Semitism” cases as a way to attack the party’s grassroots, which is largely left-wing.

“A third of all cases in 2019 have the same single individual as the main complainant,” states the document, released by the office of the party’s general secretary, Jennie Formby.

“Labour were divided”

Michael Ashcroft is a former Conservative member of the House of Lords, Britain’s unelected upper chamber.

But his polls are closely watched by key players in British politics, and often survey large numbers of people.

The report he released on Monday also included findings from a poll of more than 10,000 voters on the reasons that Labour lost the general election in December.

While a leaked internal Labour document reportedly found that the top reason for the defeat was the controversy over Labour’s position on Britain’s departure from the European Union, Ashcroft’s poll blamed Corbyn above all.

The top reason given by voters polled was that “Jeremy Corbyn was not an appealing leader,” with Brexit coming in second most important.

Among the poll of Labour members, Brexit was the top reason blamed, closely followed by the hostile media. “The media gave an unfairly negative picture of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn,” was the number two reason given by members.

Other figures from the wider poll of voters suggest this was indeed the case.

The figures suggest that, in this election, the manufactured anti-Semitism crisis, and the internal party witch hunt, broke through and was a factor swaying the electorate.

“Labour were divided” was the fourth most important reason given by voters as to why the party lost. The anti-Semitism “crisis” was often a source of rancor feeding Labour’s internal divisions.

In joint fifth place were the ideas that the party “no longer really represented its traditional voters” and that “Labour failed to address the controversy over anti-Semitism in the party convincingly.”

But there is ambiguity in the polling data. Those answering that Labour had failed to “address the controversy” does not necessarily mean they agreed the “controversy” was valid.

This is borne out in the poll of Labour members. Of those polled, 45 percent responded that the party leadership “should have done a better job of dealing with it” even while agreeing that anti-Semitism in Labour “was invented or wildly exaggerated.”

Correction: As of 2015, Michael Ashcroft is in fact no longer a member of the House of Lords. But as a “life peer” he still styles himself “Lord.” Added the word “former” to the text above to clarify this.

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Frank Dallas replied on

And now we have 4 stooges who have all agreed to kiss the feet of the British Board of Deputies and sign up to ten pledges whose content is totalitarian. Pledge 4 breaches Party rules which permit expelled members to re-apply for membership after 5 years; pledge 5 establishes guilt by association and threatens anyone who associates with a suspended or expelled member with suspension or expulsion ; pledge 6 makes criticism of Israel grounds for expulsion; pledge 7 hands anti-racist training to a body which supports the racist Israeli State; pledge 8 silences all Jews who do not agree with the Zionist apologists. Labour can't accept this and claim to be a democratic party. This is thought control and dictatorship by a minority body with a nasty axe to grind. Labour can't stand for justice for anyone if it accepts the injustice of these pledges. To do so makes it a party which agrees with racism and will discipline anyone who speaks out against the racist policies of Israel towards the Palestinians. The cowardice of the 4 candidates for the leadership is despicable. What needs to be said is that Zionism is a racist creed: "There is a qualitative difference between a Jew and an Arab", Chaim Weizmann. Racism. "Palestinians are Arabs who happen to be in Palestine," Ben-Gurion. Racism. "It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine. They did not exist", Golda Meir. Racism. Abba Eban said long ago that one of the chief tasks of the Jewish dialogue with the Gentile world was to deny a distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. That is where the slur on the Labour Party comes from. The idea is as mad as saying that being anti-Christian is being anti-Tory. Zionism is a vicious, racist, political creed. All democrats must stand against it and for equal rights for all people, in every country, of every religion and ethnicity. How can Labour do that if it accepts these 10 vile pledges?

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Tom Hall replied on

We need to fight if necessary outside the Labour Party. It's clear the goal is now to purge the party of that influx of members who joined when Corbyn became leader. A greatly reduced membership under tight ideological controls- on behalf of the worst elements of capital- is in the offing. We're going to hear a whole lot more about identity politics and nothing more about working class solidarity.

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Frank Dallas replied on

Thanks, Tom. You're absolutely right. The media have succeeded in spreading stupefaction and lies. And Labour's leaders dutifully fall in.

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Hakeem Abdullahi replied on

The unpresiterded campaign against Corbyn shows, the enormous powers and influence, of the Zionist and Zionism in British politics, press and and broadcasters.

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Eileen Roche replied on

The Labour party now should call themselves The Zionist Party. The true Corbyn Labour party followers should fight this take over, and call themselves True Labour.

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Andy Coombes replied on

"Lansman did not reply to a request for comment."

Oh. What a surprise.

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tom hall replied on

It appears that the British Labour Party is now to be internally policed by Israeli surrogates. The sight of the four leadership candidates disgracing themselves, the party membership and those who voted for a fairer society by publicly appearing together on a stage under the aegis of the Jewish Labour Movement was a crushing one- as it was meant to be. Each candidate was invited to pledge allegiance to the Zionist cause and in effect wash their hands of the fate of a people facing genocide. With a far-right government in office, Brexit a guiding tenet for policy in all departments, the mass media still rejoicing in having dispatched Corbyn, and the IHRA "definition" well on its way to becoming the law of the land, these are dark days for Britain.
Seeing the leadership candidates sitting on that stage, demonstrating their fealty one by one, questioned by a carefully selected interlocutor, giving scripted answers, while the crowd signals its approbation for the most craven responses, I couldn't their help but think of less decorous scenes from the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Moscow trials of the late 1930s. In fact, I'm tempted to suggest that the conveners of such latter-day ideological re-education assemblies be styled, "The Zionist Guards".

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Frank Dallas replied on

Yes, that is the sinister possibility. The wretched John Mann will do his worst, report to his masters that the country is drowning in anti-Semitism and the only remedy is to make criticism of Israel's racism a hate crime. If Johnson obliges, we will have stepped into the Orwellian nightmare. Henceforth, every right wing lunatic policy proposal will be filtered through the Israeli State. To criticise it will be anti-Semitism and get you a spell behind bars. The British people are sleepwalking into totalitarianism. Of course, we'll still be able to vote, but only for what the Israelis agree to. Anything else will be racism. We have to head this off before it happens. Limited though our resource are compared to the slavish media, leaflets in town centres on a Saturday, a loud- hailer, flyers through letters boxes can wake people. If enough see it coming the protests may stop it. Otherwise, it will be sneaked through with minimum debate. Don't expect whoever leads the Labour Party to object. They'll probably suggest appointing Netanyahu to the NEC.

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Mark Francis replied on

Jenny Formby reports a third of AS complai ts arefrom one individual. Who is it? Is it Euan Philipps ? If these complaints are spurious - andit seems that 90 percent are, so a large proportion must be, what action can be taken againsg this person, whoever they are?

Asa Winstanley

Asa Winstanley's picture

Asa Winstanley is an investigative journalist who lives in London. He is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada and co-host of our podcast.

He is author of the bestselling book Weaponising Anti-Semitism: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2023).