Voice of the Jewish News: Whetting appetites for the main course

This week's editorial reflects on the impending release of the EHRC's report into antisemitism in Labour, and a revealing book 'Left Out', lifting the lid on Corbyn's leadership

By Richard Ferrer September 4, 2020, 1:06 pm Edit

Richard Ferrer has been editor of Jewish News since 2009. As one of Britain's leading Jewish voices he writes for The Times, Independent, New Statesman and many other titles. Richard previously worked at the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, edited the Boston Jewish Advocate and created the Channel 4 TV series Jewish Mum Of The Year.

We are now perhaps just days from the release of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report into how culpable Jeremy Corbyn and his inner circle were in leading Labour into the abyss of antisemitism. By way of appetiser, this week serves up the publication of Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn, by former Jewish News journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire.

Extracts published in The Times and this newspaper once again bring into sharp focus the tragedy that befell a party at the mercy of a man who, according to top trade unionist Andrew Murray, does not view racism against Jews as real racism because “the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous”.

The authors, who interviewed leading figures in Corbyn’s inner sanctum, paint a picture of a man with an unshakable belief in a warped worldview whose mule-like stubbornness dismissed even a PR tour of a Jewish school to build trust. This despite being reportedly being shocked and upset when Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said his comment about “Zionists” not “understanding English irony” was the most offensive remark by a British politician since Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech.

READ MORE: ‘Corbyn couldn’t deal with being accused of antisemitism, so he withdrew’

Mercifully, much has changed in a short space of time since Labour’s worst election defeat in almost a century. New leader Sir Keir Starmer has turned the party upside down so its backside is no longer in charge.

Concerns of a second spike in Corbynvirus were resoundly laid to rest by his early-doors decision to socially distance Rebecca Long-Bailey from his shadow cabinet for sharing an article linking George Floyd’s death to Israel – precisely the sort of gumpf Corbyn provided cover for as leader.

At this rate, come election time in 2023, the Labour Party could be once again, as it was for a century before Corbyn, the natural party of the Jewish community. Image that.