From: Rebecca Trenner
Subject: Your Recent Inquiry
Date: 19 May 2016 at 15:47:36 BST
To: Jan Royall
Dear Baroness Royall,
Thank you for your diligent work inquiring into anti-antisemitism at Oxford and in the student Labour Party. It certainly conforms to the present standard of thought within the Party and is wholly consistent with expectations.
Personally, it does raise questions. You see, exam results allowing, my daughter will be going up to Oxford this autumn. I'm really unsure what to tell her about your conclusions.
Should I explain to my daughter (her name is Mira and she'll be reading English at Magdalen) that a 'culture of anti-antisemitism' is very different from the 'institutionalised' variety? Did the conclusions of the McPherson Report define a difference? What proportion of anti-Semites would you need to have found before the line was crossed from 'cultural' to 'institutionalised'? Or, would anti-semitism have had to have been written into OULC's constitution to rate the definition?
How should I advise my daughter to approach these theoretical as yet to be suspended but never permanently expelled anti-semites? Shall I tell her that the songs they sing about murdering her family and friends in Israel are just a childish phase that they will grow out of? When they shout her down in a debate because she is Jewish, will she need to be mindful that they might reform their views at a later date and no longer viscerally hate her because she is Jewish? Is it ok that a standard is applied to anti-semitism that would never be tolerated if the hate was directed towards BAME students? I suspect she'll just need to steer clear of politics unless she can call on the NUS for support. Oh, I forgot. It's current president is an 'alleged' anti-semite who sees her presence on campus as 'problematic' in print and advocated the murder of her family and friends in Israel too- on video.
Could you please supply me with a better definition of accusations being used for factional politics? This was unclear to me and I can hardly elucidate my daughter without more information. Do you mean to say that when a Labour member is against anti-semitism and points out anti-semitism in Momentum activists that this is a 'factional tool' to be used for gain on their part? Or is it to do with electoral maths? The UK has several million Muslim Labour voters and there are only 230,000 British Jews with proportionate representation on campuses. To whom should the Labour Party appeal if it wants to win? Perhaps Trevor Phillips's survey and the personal experiences of London's new mayor would have had more electorally friendly conclusions if filtered through your either of your inquiries. Just to be on the safe side, I'll tell my daughter not to mention that she is Jewish mixed company. Much safer that way.
I wish you luck with your continuing broader inquiry. Please pass along my compliments to Corbyn and Milne on their inspired choice of leadership for the task. Professor Feldman's appointment certainly told the Jewish Community exactly what we can expect from its conclusions. I suppose they could have chosen anyone from the hundred or so 'AsaJews' who sign letters to the Guardian on a regular basis but have no actual contact with the Jewish Community but finding one who has disgusted us from the inside was a masterstroke. I suppose Miriam Margolyes was too busy enjoying post-Easter cream eggs and Gerald Kaufmann won't be able to say anything more than 'hello' until this blows over, as the Party will ensure it does, without Michael Mann chasing him into a wc. We look forward to Shami Chakrabarti's non-partisan, politically neutral conclusions. Oh, I forgot.
In any event, I look forward to your reply with the clarifications. I am quite sure that, as non-Jews, you and Ms. Chakrabarti are the very best people to tell us what anti-semitism is or isn't. Mira is really looking forward to being told that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition does not have an anti-semitic bone in its body politic and I'm sure your conclusions and recommendations will be just as widely heralded as those in the Balen Report. Mira will be much relieved when you reassure her it's all a smear of the Zionist, right-wing media and being used as a political tool by the present government as she passes through security to eat Shabbat dinner at JSoc.
Kindest regards,
Rebecca Trenner