The contenders for the Labour leadership are engaged in a high-wire balancing act.
With the exception of Rebecca Long Bailey — who, even after the election, awarded his four years at the helm a 10 out of 10 rating — they are attempting to both win the votes of party members who passionately supported Jeremy Corbyn, while also attempting to distance themselves from the most poisonous aspects of his legacy.
None is more poisonous than the antisemitism which has infected the party on the Labour leader’s watch.
And yet all of the remaining candidates served in Mr Corbyn’s frontbench team and, as such, will find addressing the subject difficult.
But all candidates will face the same electorate.
There is evidence of some people having joined Labour or registered as supporters ahead of the January 20 deadline in order to help support more moderate candidates. However, the bulk of the electorate will be those who joined the party under Mr Corbyn.
Polling suggests the attitude of many of them towards the crisis is largely in line with that of the current leadership. In September, for instance, YouGov found that two-thirds of Labour members did not believe the party had a “serious” antisemitism problem, while a majority either blamed Mr Corbyn’s political opponents or the mainstream media for the accusations it has faced.
Only 13 per cent said it was the fault of the party’s leadership, while 29 per cent blamed “a small minority of Labour Party members with antisemitic views”.
It is not just the attitudes of many Labour members that candidates have to fear. Just last month, the general secretary of the powerful Unite union, Len McCluskey, responded to the publication of the Jewish Labour Movement’s dossier about antisemitism in the party by saying it was “perverse” to blame Mr Corbyn and claiming it was “offensive” to suggest Labour had become toxic for Jews.
“The challenge that somehow [Labour] is institutionally antisemitic I reject out of hand,” he argued.
The candidates need, however, to think beyond the leadership election itself.
The antisemitism crisis which has rocked Labour under Mr Corbyn has been a political disaster for the party, one which undoubtedly cost it dear at the ballot box last month.
As polling commissioned by the Jewish Leadership Council and released as the polls closed last month showed, among those who voted Labour in 2017 but were uncertain about doing so in 2019, antisemitism was almost as big a reason as Brexit. Moreover, more than a quarter of all voters — 28 per cent — said they would have been more likely to vote Labour if Mr Corbyn had dealt better with accusations of antisemitism in the party.
Addressing this issue is thus an electoral imperative.
Without making the case for change during the leadership contest, the candidates will have no mandate to undertake it if they win the party’s back in April. And without such a mandate, they will have no hope of undertaking the kind of profound change that might eventually give them a shot of making it to No 10 at the next general election.
But, more importantly, the antisemitism crisis has been a moral catastrophe for Labour. It is one that has destroyed its well-earned reputation as an implacable foe of racism, shattered its reputation for decency and tolerance, and demolished its claim to stand, above all else, for the principle of equality. Only by recognising the problem as such — and speaking to the membership in such terms — can the Labour leadership candidates lay the groundwork for the huge task that lies ahead.
A new Labour leader needs to undertake far-reaching, concrete and immediate actions to close the chapter on Mr Corbyn’s period in office, rid the party of antisemitism, and begin the long and slow process of rebuilding the trust and confidence of not only the Jewish community but all those who care about racism in British society.
Even as it surveys the wreckage of its worst defeat in 85 years, few in today’s Labour party seem interested in the lessons of its most electorally successful leader, Tony Blair. They are invaluable nonetheless.
The former Prime Minister recognised the importance of symbolism and, in his first major speech as leader, he pledged to do away with the old Clause IV of the party’s constitution. This decision — rightly seen as the birth of New Labour — gave rise to the notion of a ‘Clause IV’ moment: an opportunity for a political party to grab the attention of the public and show that it recognises the need for real change.
So the next Labour leader should plan in their first weeks in office their own ‘Clause IV’ moment. They should appear before a Jewish audience and deliver the clear, unequivocal and unambiguous apology the community is owed. They need to promise that rooting out anti-Jewish racism from the party will be their top priority and that they will take on — and defeat — anyone who opposes them.
The speech needs to echo that famously delivered by Neil Kinnock when he denounced Militant at Labour’s 1985 conference, and it needs to land the same rhetorical punch. It won’t be enough simply to attack anonymous grassroots members or powerless former MPs such as Chris Williamson.
Those at senior levels in the party and the wider Labour movement who have excused, covered-up or downplayed the issue need to be held publicly accountable.
Most of all, Mr Corbyn’s own responsibility needs to be laid bare. Crucially, that means recognising the part played by his hard-left ideological worldview and the central role of anti-Zionist antisemitism in Labour’s descent into the pit of anti-Jewish racism.
Finally, the apology owed to the Jewish community should also be extended to the brave whistleblowers in the party who were slurred and abused in the wake of last July’s Panorama programme.
Words alone, however, will convince nobody. What actions should a new Labour consider taking immediately to underline their seriousness of purpose?
First, allegations of antisemitism were levelled against a number of Labour candidates at the general election, some of whom were subsequently elected to parliament. The whip should be withdrawn from them while these allegations are fully examined and investigated.
Second, as some candidates have already pledged they will, the next Labour leader must promise that they will implement in full every recommendation made by the Equality and Human Rights Commission when it delivers its findings into antisemitism in the party.
Third, Mr Corbyn repeatedly declined invitations from Labour’s sister party, the Israeli Labour party, to travel to the Jewish state and visit Yad Vashem. The next Labour leader should make Israel their first foreign trip. While there, they should issue an apology on behalf of the Labour Party to the people of Israel for the bile and hatred that has been directed at their country over the past four years from within its ranks.
Fourth, an independent inquiry — chaired by a credible, objective expert on left antisemitism, such as Dr David Hirsh of Goldsmiths University of London — should be established to examine how anti-Jewish racism took hold in the party.
This needs to go back to the start of Mr Corbyn’s leadership and examine the story from the beginning — the scandal at the Oxford University Labour Club, the suppressed reports by Labour Students and Baroness Royall, and the “whitewash” Chakrabarti inquiry — as well as looking into key issues, such as the contacts between the leader’s office and the party’s disciplinary unit. Any Labour party member refusing to appear before the inquiry should automatically have their membership suspended.
Finally, Labour’s disciplinary process lacks credibility: as the Board of Deputies and JLC have consistently suggested, a new, independent process which puts victims first needs to be speedily established to begin the task of removing antisemites from the party’s ranks.
This is, though, just a start. Ultimately, it is only through engagement with the Jewish community — listening to, recognising, and acting upon the deep pain, anger and anxiety that much of it feels — that Labour can begin to make amends. Whether the toxic politics of the Corbyn years turns out to have been a dark detour or a permanent state of affairs will be determined in the next few months
