Stop blaming Jeremy Corbyn for things he’s said and done

Patrick Foley
Sep 3, 2018 · 8 min read

Quick everyone, to the Twittersphere! Our beloved leader needs your help. Jeremy Corbyn, lifelong anti-racist campaigner and moral centre of British politics, is UNDER ATTACK by the mainstream media! The Tory Party, the Right-Wing press, Benjamin Netenyahu, Tony Blair, Thanos, and God knows who else are out to crucify the Absolute Boy. We don’t quite know how they have managed it, but they have acquired evidence of Jeremy defending Anti-Semitic murals, laying a wreath on the grave of a terrorist, and they have even got footage of Jeremy accusing British Zionists of not truly understanding British culture despite being born here. Now we all know that Jeremy can do no wrong, so we cannot allow something so simple as his own words and actions to defame his character. However we have also not ruled out Rupert Murdoch having access to a time machine. So while we look for evidence of a time-travelling Alistair Campbell tricking Jeremy into reading Anti-Semitic speeches Anchorman-style, go out send abusive messages to Jewish MPs on Twitter (Jeremy won’t mind). Be sure to ignore any more fake news the MSM invents — it is ALL a smear. And most importantly — deflect, deflect, DEFLECT! Otherwise you might as well fuck off and join the Tories…

Of course that probably isn’t an actual message sent to Owen Jones’ Whatsapp group of Hard-Left commentators. But it may as well be, given the Left’s response to the mountain of evidence pointing to some serious problems with Jeremy Corbyn’s relations with Jews. To recap some of the more prominent calamities:

  • Jeremy appeared at Pro-Palestine event where he gave a speech saying that ‘Zionists’ (a term commonly used to describe Jews and a word unsuitable to the context of Corbyn’s speech if this is not what he meant) have little understanding of British irony despite living here their entire lives.
  • He defended a blatantly Anti-Semitic mural depicting Jewish bankers controlling the world — claiming not to have paid close enough attention to its contents when questioned. It’s, like, the whole point of the picture man! It’d be like defending the baby from the cover of Nevermind from public nudity charges.
I mean come on
  • He accused ‘the Hand of Israel’ (what a lovely, not-sinister-at-all phrase) being behind terror attacks in Egypt on Iranian propaganda channel Press TV — based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. This is the same man who said we shouldn’t ‘rush to conclusions’ regarding Russia being behind the Skirpal poisonings. Not that the Israeli government is above such covert infringements mind, but you’ll immediately finger them for imagined operations on foreign soil whilst giving Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt? Fucking Putin??
  • He called the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group a ‘historical mistake’. This is the same Hamas that commits suicide attacks in Israeli cafes, bars and shopping centres, who kidnap and murder Jewish children, skin dissidents who protest their methods within Gaza alive, and who call for the extermination of Israel and the death of every American. Goes a bit beyond saying Palestine has a right to Statehood. These are Corbyn’s ‘friends’. These are Corbyn’s ‘brothers’. Corbynites love to bring up that photo of Corbyn protesting Apartheid whilst the Thatcher government condemned Mandela as a terrorist — perhaps Jeremy was protesting that Nelson wasn’t going far enough?
  • He appeared at a ceremony in Tunis to commemorate the lives of three Terrorists who were behind Black September — the group responsible for the 1972 torture and murders of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Corbyn has tried to cover this by claiming to be there instead for a remembrance ceremony of Palestinians killed in brutal attacks by Israel in 1985. Unfortunately the wreath he was pictured holding was also photographed on the grave of the Black September members. And in the Morning Star, Jeremy himself wrote “Wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died on that day and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991.” Those rotten right-wing newspapers — they got him again!
You WILL NOT be putting this one on Facebook

We could go on and on here, pointing out Corbyn’s support of Ken Livingstone, his refusal accept the IHRA’s definition of Anti-Semitism, calling Jewish MP Louise Ellman ‘the honorable member of Tel-Aviv’, claiming that Israel was behind the writing of MP’s speeches in Parliament, unwavering solidarity shown to holocaust deniers and those who want to exterminate Jews, his complete and utter failure to condemn his online army who have swarmed the timelines of Jewish Labour MPs etc, etc. But by now we have a pretty strong case that Jeremy Corbyn has Anti-Semitic views, and at the absolute LEAST has a severe blindspot that prevents him from treating it as seriously as he would treat other forms of racism. He doesn’t need to march down Cable Street in a black shirt to be Anti-Semitic. After all, we rarely see Nigel Farage or Donald Trump saying things that are explicitly racist. But we can conclude that they are based off of the people they hang around with, the words they use and the stances they take. Why should we ignore Corbyn’s blatant mistrust of Jewish people? or his willingness (or eagerness) to associate with people who call for their extermination? How many excuses are we willing to make for him?

A lot apparently. To his most loyal supporters, all of this evidence means nothing. The same people who struggle to comprehend how anyone can support Farage in spite of his clear and obvious racist tendencies immediately question the validity of the same clear and obvious behaviour displayed by Corbyn — all because he wears the right colour of tie.

You see Corbyn has been cemented in their minds as having a monopoly on tolerance and valour in politics since his emergence in 2015, and no amount of evidence will convince them to the contrary. The media that now reports on his murky past are attacked and dismissed by his supporters as part of a conspiracy, led by the elites who are trying to stop Jeremy from making us great again. Sound familiar? Antisemitism has become Corbyn’s Fake News. Anything negative can now be described as a smear originating from an Israel-controlled press.

Now you may be hearing the world’s smallest violin playing for The Sun and The Daily Mail right now, and they’ve well and truly earned their reputations as liars, smearers and charlatans. But the stories they, and far more reputable organizations are running about Corbyn are not pulled out of Paul Dacre’s arse like the majority of their content. The stories that have dominated this summer’s coverage of the Labour Party stem from Corbyn’s own documented words. Or photos. Or actual video footage of Corbyn appearing at events. Events he accepted invitations to knowing full well what kind of people he would be associating with. And you’re damn right the press is going to report on it. That’s their job.

‘She even caught me on Camera (wasn’t me)’

And yes the Tory press is biased. Of course they are going to take a story that vilifies the leader of the Labour Party and push it to the front pages. Every Labour leader has to deal with that. But contrast their attempts to undermine Ed Miliband. The best they could do is question some of his Father’s writings and spam a photo of him eating a fucking bacon butty. With Corbyn, they have an unending well of dubiousness that can be tapped. Where most politicians have a skeleton or two in their closet, Corbyn has the entire crew of the Black Pearl in his. His legitimacy as Labour leader is shot to pieces.

But his supporters are unwavering. If a leadership election were held tomorrow he would secure another comfortable victory. Like Trump, the people who have bought in have bought in hard and have staked their entire political beliefs on the infallibility of one man. For that man to turn out to be a fraud would be disastrous for them. Because what does Corbyn have if not that unassailable moral compass so many people buy into? The majority of Labour supporters are anti-Brexit — yet Corbyn has proven time and again that he is pro-Leave and would follow a Brexit path that would decimate the public services he claims to fight so hard for. He’s utterly useless at PMQs, often outclassed by a woman so awkward she would struggle to lead Dunder-Mifflin. His personal approval ratings among the wider electorate are terrible, and Labour’s under his leadership are around level with the Tories. A tie with the worst government since the Second World War should be an embarrassment to every Labour member. And yet it isn’t. They would rather live with the fantasy of Corbyn than the grim reality of where his Labour Party is at.

That’s why they can ignore words, images and footage in front of their own eyes. They find a way around it:

They focus on WHO is reporting on Corbyn and why they would want to damage him.

They look for ways in which he has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. ‘OF COURSE he didn’t mean Jews don’t understand British humour. He meant Zionists!’

They resort to whataboutism. Sure, those Palestinian murderers who castrated and murdered innocent Israeli athletes were bad guys. But whatabout Israel? whatabout Netanyahu? whatbout sunshine? whatabout rain?

And none of their responses actually focus on what CORBYN did. Because there is no justification for him laying that wreath in Tunis. Or accusing a minority group of not truly being British. Or at least no justification that precludes him from being Anti-Semitic.

It’s a shame, because what Corbyn represents to so many has awakened a genuine anger at the Conservative austerity status-quo, and his policies could still be the future of this country. A genuinely progressive left-wing government committed to re-nationalization, a tax on the highest earners and commitment to workers’ rights is a necessity after nearly ten years of crippling Tory cuts. But that dream should not live and die with Jeremy Corbyn. He is not the be-all and end-all of the British left. Thornberry. Cooper. Lammy. Starmer. Rayner. All could deliver the exact same policies. All could win an election against May before you could say ‘fields of wheat’.

But that won’t happen. Not until Corbyn himself goes. Because the majority of Labour members, so implanted in the cause, will never vote him out - even now. If the Party that has always stood for progressiveness, tolerance and acceptance can so easily dismiss Antisemitism from its leader, then it may be beyond saving. Labour’s reputation is ruined. And for what? For a Brexit-supporting, dottering, faux-intellectual bore whose legacy will be one of a divided, tainted Party that never came close to Government. This is the man that you turn the other way for.

But it’s hardly his fault is it?

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