Review of 2021: Politics - The Jewish Chronicle

Nine years ago, almost to the day, as Political Editor of the JC, I gave Mr Corbyn my end-of-year Conspiracy Theorist of the Year award. It was a joke. He was a joke. He’d called for an inquiry into the “Israel lobby” after the successful appeal against deportation by radical cleric Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic movement in Israel. His side had won that particular battle, but he couldn’t resist a petulant swipe at his imagined foes. At the time, it was unimaginable that this comedy turn, forever on the fringes of British politics, could become leader of the Labour Party — still less unleash a wave of anti-Jewish prejudice never before seen in a major British party.

Those 2012 awards were intended as a light-hearted round-up of the heroes and villains of the year. Looking back on it is a melancholy exercise. The Rising Star award went to Luciana Berger, who was one of the stand-out young politicians of the 2010 intake. She was subsequently driven out of the Labour Party by her experience of fighting antisemites in her local party in Liverpool and has since left politics altogether. My Politician of the Year was Margaret Hodge, then serving as an exemplary chair of the Public Accounts committee and taking on the giants of the corporate world over their tax affairs. She has been equally formidable in the fight against Labour antisemitism, but this month she announced she will be standing down as an MP at the next election. She will be much missed.

It is perhaps a sign of the trauma inflicted by Labour antisemitism that the issue still dominates this review of the year.

On the Conservative side, Robert Halfon was Backbencher of the Year. He still is. And there have been some important developments in government policy under Boris Johnson in 2021. In November, Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that Hamas will now be banned in its entirety, for example, and the Online Safety Bill promises new protections against extremist content. But Labour remains the focus of concern.

Even here, there are grounds for cautious optimism. Local politics is where this nightmare began and there are signs from the grassroots that it really is coming to an end. Adam Langleben and Joe Goldberg, prominent figures in London Labour politics, have both rejoined the party in recent months, a sign that (in the capital at least) Labour is no longer an actively hostile place for Jews.

Just this month, two young Jewish activists, Ella Rose and Liron Velleman, were confirmed as Labour candidates in Barnet for next May’s local elections. Ms Rose is a former Union of Jewish Students president who was director of JLM at the height of the antisemitism crisis and Mr Velleman is Policy Officer at JLM.

At a time when the community celebrates renewal and resilience, it is fitting that a new generation is determined to show that no political party in this country is a no-go zone for Jews.

On 16 November, 2021, the Chief Rabbi attended a lunch hosted by Labour Friends of Israel. In most years, this would be an unremarkable statement. But only two years earlier, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis had warned in an article in the Times that Labour antisemitism was a “new poison — sanctioned from the top”. This year’s lunch was therefore of huge symbolic importance. It was also attended by Dame Louise Ellman and Joan Ryan, former chairs of LFI, who had left the party over former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to deal with Jew hatred.

Sir Keir Starmer, who sat on the same table as Rabbi Mirvis, delivered a strong speech. Stating his support for Israel, he committed himself to driving anti-Jewish racism from his party: “Anti-Zionist antisemitism is the antithesis of the Labour tradition,” he said.

It may not be the case in any other area of political life, but 2021 marked the return to uneasy normality for the Labour Party and its relationship with the Jewish community. At the beginning of the year, Sir Keir, like the party around him, appeared to be in shock (for many, the Labour leader was still tainted by serving in the Corbyn shadow Cabinet). But as the days went by, it became clear that he was taking some action and the chances of Mr Corbyn returning to the mainstream were reducing.

Fewer than two years have passed since Sir Keir took over as Labour leader and the MP for Islington North returned to being just another crank. The Jewish community never asked to be at the centre of a major British political scandal. Was it really true that a major political party, committed to the principles of equality and social justice, was almost destroyed by a leader prepared to tolerate antisemitism in its ranks? Did that really happen? In the Covid-addled brain fog that constitutes post-pandemic politics, the Corbyn years seem like bad dream from another epoch. But, yes, it really did happen.

There is still work to be done, even within the parliamentary party. Just last month, Cat Smith resigned from the shadow ministerial team over her concerns that Mr Corbyn had not been readmitted to Labour.

Some argue that her resignation proves the purge is real. The internecine struggles of the Labour factions are usually of little interest to all but the geekiest of political trainspotters. But sometimes it does actually matter. In July, the party expelled a number of fringe organisations opposed to the leadership: Resist, Socialist Appeal, Labour in Exile Network and Labour Against the Witchhunt.

It was a statement of intent: cranks were no longer welcome in the Labour Party.

More significant still was the central part played at party conference in September by prominent Jewish members of the party. Ruth Smeeth announced in a passionate speech from the platform that the Labour Party was turning the page on racism and that the antisemites had failed.

Optimistic, perhaps. But the very fact that she could make such a speech to a packed hall without being shouted down is an improvement.

Ms Smeeth spoke for a number of Jewish Labour members and their allies when she said: “I stand here with mixed emotions. Relief that we can finally turn the page on the blight of antisemitism that has infected our party. Anger that it has taken five years to get here. Disbelief that despite the hurt of so many Jewish members, there are people in here today who say it was all a smear.

“And sorrow that so many wonderful friends were forced to choose between their faith and their politics.”

At the same time, the Labour leader personally welcomed back Dame Louise Ellman, who had served loyally as an MP for 22 years before leaving in disgust at the party’s failure to deal with antisemitism.

Then, at the end of November, Sir Keir attended a menorah-lighting ceremony at Belsize Square Synagogue.

Again, the symbolism was not accidental. This was the very place where the Jewish Labour Movement had passed a vote of no confidence in Mr Corbyn in April 2019.