Labour attempts to redefine antisemitism to permit Nazi comparisons and denying Jewish right to self-determination

This morning it has been revealed that the Labour Party has adopted a code of conduct on antisemitism that appears to be designed to permit certain forms of antisemitic hate speech within the Party.

While claiming to have adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism, Labour has in fact butchered it by removing four of the manifestations of antisemitism that it cites, namely:

• Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
• Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour).
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
• Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. The four examples that have been removed by the Labour Party are central to the understanding of post-Holocaust antisemitism and the antisemitism of  the far-left that now has the Labour Party in its grip. It is driven by the pro-Corbyn faction’s obsessive hatred of the Jewish state, and seems to be designed to give free rein to certain forms of antisemitic discourse that have no place in a liberal democratic society.

This distorted code of conduct has dire ramifications for antisemitic discourse in British politics. In giving the green light to its members and supporters to express antisemitism disguised as discourse about Israel, Labour also gives them licence to compare Jews who refuse to give up their support for the Jewish state to Nazis, and to accuse them of operating as a treacherous fifth column within the United Kingdom.

A letter signed by Luciana Berger MP and Ivor Caplin, the Parliamentary and National Chairs of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), and addressed to Jennie Formby, the current General Secretary of the Labour Party, reveals the extent of Labour’s duplicity. The letter alleges that the meeting at which the code of conduct was adopted took place without the JLM having sight of any of the documents discussed, that the JLM’s offers to participate in order to ensure transparency were repeatedly rejected, and that JLM representatives were left waiting in Ms Formby’s office lobby, only being allowed in to give evidence.

The International Definition of Antisemitism has been adopted undoctored around the world. In the UK it has been adopted by the Government, the College of Policing, the London Assembly, the National Union of Students, multiple local councils (including some that are Labour-run) and universities. In its cynical neutering of the definition to suit its own agenda, the Labour leadership has once again demonstrated that, on antisemitism, the soothing words it utters publicly have no relationship to the malicious actions it takes behind the scenes.

The Labour Party continues to institutionalise the antisemitism that has spread from far-left grassroots activists to the very Party institutions designed to defend the Party from racism.

Ironically the very Labour Party that helped to establish the principle that minorities should have the right to define the hatred they are subjected to, is now the very Party trying to dictate to Jews what they may or may not call antisemitic.