A Free Left Blog

I must say I have found it a little strange seeing so many 'moderate' Labour MPs and activists getting angry about anti-Semitism in the party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Where was this anger and upset during two leadership elections which re-elected Corbyn in 2015 and 2016? This sort of stuff is not new. It was well known and covered widely on blogs such as Harry's Place  and Rob Marchant's Centre-Left blog  in 2015. I also wrote about it  on this blog . The right-wing press covered it extensively. Even the Guardian published a piece by James Bloodworth setting out the charge sheet against Corbyn and his many known associations with anti-Semites. But in both elections, as I recall, none of the leadership candidates dared to raise it as a reason not to elect Corbyn as leader. Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham in 2015 and Owen Smith in 2016 instead fought dull, dry campaigns trying to tell the membership what they wanted to hear while talking in...

This article was first published on Labour Uncut on 13th March 2012. Originally written as the first in a two-part series on identity politics, it was edited down heavily and given the specific focus on All Women Shortlists in the Labour Party. (And, just to clarify, I have no problem with that - though I have made a few small changes to the published text). “White people love playing ‘divide & rule’ We should not play their game”. These words, tweeted by Diane Abbott, ignited a storm of accusations and denials of racism, while opening a window into the complexities of identity politics. While it is doubtful that many white people were properly offended by the tweet, it does expose Abbott’s assumption that black and white people should be divided, and that they have different (and opposing) interests. The “divide and rule” agenda that Abbott talked about in fact applies more to her in this instance. She was clearly trying to draw a racial drawbridge between black ...