Jeremy Corbyn and Balance

I’ve just completed my book to be published in November by Bristol University Press called ‘The Lies We Were Told’. It is the story of UK austerity, the Eurozone crisis, how mediamacro swung the 2015 election, the Corbyn phenomenon, Brexit and more besides. These things are described as they happened in selected blog posts with new introductions, postscripts etc. (It can be ordered at a 20% discount here, rising to 35% if you join the publisher’s mailing list.)

During the process of selecting the blogs I needed to tell these stories, I came across one I had forgotten completely. It was called “Do we get the leaders our media deserves?”, and it asked why many of the successful (in terms of popularity) leaders of today are of the likes of Johnson, Farage and Berlusconi, while leaders with far more integrity and honesty like Ed Miliband appear unpopular. The post was written at the end of 2014, and a postscript for the book notes that Trump versus Clinton was in part a devastating example of this trend.

It is tempting to respond by saying this is just what voters want: politicians that make them feel good. There may be an element of that, but what has nothing to do with voters is how the Johnson type politicians get a easy ride from the media. When he deliberately stokes islamophobia, the criticism is disarmed with a cup of tea for waiting reporters. I have yet to see an interview with Farage where he is questioned about his support for far right parties in Europe and his Russian links. This interview with Johnson by Eddie Mair stands out in talking about past sins because it is so unusual. Most of the time the media seems content to reflect his easy charm.

While people like Farage or Johnson are normally treated with kid gloves, others get a much harder ride. The left tried it with Cameron and Osborne: posh Eton and Bullingdon club boys who were clearly out of touch with ordinary voters. Sometimes these attacks work, and sometimes they do not. No doubt the reasons why are complex, but it seems to me that two things matter a lot. The first is whether or not the person being attacked has the personality to deflect such criticism, and the second reflects the extent that attacks become part of the non-partisan media’s agenda.

Here is a time series of how Corbyn’s leader ratings have been getting steadily worse over the last year, and by far more than those of his party. This could be for many reasons. It could reflect disillusionment by Remain inclined Labour voters as events have shown Labour’s pro-Brexit position is not just opportunistic triangulation. It could reflect a lack of initiatives coming from the leadership (although it does not help that when he does make speeches they are blatantly misinterpreted). It could be that Labour’s problems with antisemitism are constantly in the news: although these stories do not have high impact among voters, for those that do notice they are seen as a negative for Corbyn.

I have argued before that the Labour surge before the 2017 election and the subsequent decline are part of the same phenomenon: the ability of the media rather than the politician to control the agenda outside of election periods. The MSM is clearly much more hostile to Corbyn than any other major political figure today, and the row over antisemitism shows that clearly.

Because this debate has become so partisan, I have to say the following. First, I am no Corbynite (read my posts during the Corbyn vs Smith campaign). I also think antisemitism within the Labour party is a real problem, and that large parts of the membership seem to be in denial about this. Not adopting all the IHRA examples (but with accompanying text to clarify meaning drafted in consultation with Jewish groups where possible) was a big political mistake. It created concerns in the Jewish community that the media was right to reflect. The idea that the non-partisan media’s reporting of this is just a smear campaign is nonsense.

All those things can be true, but it can also be true that the broadcast media has given the issue excessive prominence. How do I know this? The obvious comparison is with Islamophobia in the Conservative party. This has been given much less coverage, but I would argue that problem is at least as bad. As far as I know, Labour has never run a clearly antisemitic campaign for a major political post, but the Tory party have run an Islamophobic  campaign in which the Tory leader played a major part. Some say the difference is because Corbyn himself has been described as antisemitic, but the betting odds for next Prime Minister for Johnson and Corbyn are similar. To say that broadcasters cannot help reporting what is going on is very naive about how the media selects what is newsworthy and what is not.  

Many would argue this bias is because Corbyn has few friends in the media, and that may be a part of it [1], but I prefer more structural explanations. For the broadcast media balance seems to involve MPs in Westminster rather than their own viewers. Labour MPs are prepared to criticise the leadership in public while Tory MPs are not, and this means one story gets much more airtime than the other. [2] We can see this clearly with Brexit: because the two main parties went with the 52%, the point of view of the 48% (now more) who oppose Brexit was largely ignored by the media. Exactly the same can now be said about the Muslim community.

A good test of all this is to reverse roles. Suppose Jeremy Corbyn had written an article in which he had made fun of how orthodox Jews dress, and all the party had asked him to do is apologise but he had refused. Suppose the Labour party had no code at all covering antisemitism. Would the broadcast media have been happy to show pictures of him offering vegetables from his allotment to reporters and then forgotten about the whole thing? I’m sure natural charm has something to do with why some political leaders are treated differently than others, but I think that is only a small part of the story.

[1] It may explain, for example, the lack critical reporting. Most of the time it is presumed that Labour did not adopt all the IHRA examples because of antisemitism. Until recently the Israel/Palestine conflict was hardly mentioned, and neither was the fact that a select committee had suggested the IHRA examples were unsatisfactory on their own. Ludicrous statements about existential threats or rivers of blood go unchallenged. In some quarters it is deemed insensitive to question motives (Stephen Pollard, Jewish Chronicle editor, has said: “The left, in any recognisable form, is now the enemy”). In contrast a Conservative minister is happy to dismiss claims of Islamophobia by attacking a group that made the claim as unrepresentative, and no one in the media notes the Conservative Muslim Forum has made similar complaints.

[2] Whatever else this is, it is not good for democracy. Because Conservative MPs keep quiet about Islamophobia in their party, the issue only appears occasionally in the media. As a result, nothing is done about the problem. In contrast Labour are trying to do something about antisemitism, and their reward is constant attack.

Islamophobia and Antisemitism: a case study in BBC bias

In March and April, there was constant BBC coverage of Labour’s problems with antisemitism. One piece, in March, talked about a ‘saga’. I have no general problem with this coverage. Labour does have a problem, so it should be covered by the BBC. However there has been far less coverage of the problems the Conservative party has with Islamophobia. Is there an objective reason to justify this?

The antisemitism story was notable for two important reasons. First religious organisations had publicly complained. Second these complaints had been supported by prominent Labour figures. However exactly the same applies to Islamophobia. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) have called for an inquiry, as have other leaders and groups. Sayeeda Warsi, former co-chairman of the Conservative party, has repeatedly called for more action (the latest here).

But to suggest equivalence between the two stories is misleading. The Conservatives’ Islamophobia problem is a much bigger issue for two reasons. First, the senior Conservative Sajid Javid has attacked the MCB for harbouring members with unacceptable views on extremism and not representing Muslims. In contrast Labour leaders have not attacked the Jewish organisations in the same way (by saying, for example, that their views come from a pro-Israel stance), and have met directly with them. Whatever the truth of Javid’s claim about extremism, the charge that they are unrepresentative is rather undermined by an organisation affiliated to the Conservative party, the Conservative Muslim Forum, also calling for an inquiry. (Letter to Theresa May here.)

Second, while Labour has never to my knowledge run an anti-Jewish campaign to win a general or mayoral election, the Conservatives did exactly that against Sadiq Khan who is now mayor of London. David Cameron even libeled an ex-Imam in his attempts to link Khan to Muslim terrorism.

Thus on any objective criteria, the Conservative Islamophobia problem has been a more serious story than Labour antisemistism. Yet the balance on the BBC has been the other way around, with far more coverage of the latter than the former.

What is the source of the bias? One may be that BBC News tends to ‘follow the story’, which invariably means following stories in the press. Corbyn has few friends in the major press titles, whereas the Conservatives are openly supported be much of the press. Another, I’m afraid to say, is that the BBC is very reluctant to criticise the government on its own account, something that goes back many years.

Case studies such as these are critical in establishing that the media has a clear bias against the current Labour leadership. (There are others: this is rather fun, and also academic research: here for example) The BBC itself, which is deluged with criticism from all quarters, seems to find it difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. The classic line that because they get criticism from both sides they must be doing something right is nonsense. The political right in particular, because they know the BBC is sensitive to criticism, puts a lot of resources into criticising the BBC, and it will continue to do so whatever the BBC’s output.

All this presumes that Islamophobia and Antisemtism are viewed as equally bad. I personally think they should be, but unfortunately terrorism and Western wars in Islamic countries may have confused many people. Here is Sajid Javid again:

“All communities can do more to try and help deal with terrorists, try and help track them down. But I think it is absolutely fair to say that there is a special burden on Muslim communities because whether we like it or not these terrorists call themselves Muslims. It is no good for people to say they are not Muslims, that is what they call themselves. They do try to take what is a great peaceful religion and warp it for their own means.”

The idea that Muslims bear a ‘special burden’ has been the excuse used by the right wing press for consistent Islamophobia. When a member of the ‘non-Muslim community’ kills Muslims outside of a mosque, and says when arrested that he wanted to kill all Muslims, he is described by the Times as a mentally troubled lone-wolf, as if to emphasise that there is no special burden there. As in so many things, the irresponsibility of the right wing press has influenced sections of society for the worse. Perhaps it has also influenced the BBC.

Ian Dunt vs Owen Jones: a comment on a brief debate

When two of my favourite commentators on current political events, Ian Dunt (ID) and Owen Jones (OJ), cross swords, albeit briefly twitter style, the chance is that there maybe something interesting going on. I can see what I suspect annoyed OJ in ID’s piece, but I think OJ’s response was too easily sidetracked in the confusion that is history. I am going to stay on more familiar UK (and US) ground.

The general theme is ID’s piece is totally laudable. It is essentially a warning against populism of the type Jan-Werner Müller describes, and which is embodied in Viktor Orban’s Hungary. I also think he is almost right when he writes:

“Every constituent part of the Orban programme exists here: the anti-semitism, the focus on Soros, the relentless fear-mongering about immigrants, the demonisation of the EU and its institutions, the attacks on Islam, the undermining of an independent judiciary, and, most of all, the widespread conspiracy-squint - the idea, popular on left and right, on almost all matters of political consequence, that shadowy and powerful forces are undermining the people's will.”

I say “almost” because this is an undifferentiated list, and the emphasis is put on what I regard as least important. For Müller populism is a moralised form of antipluralism. The populist politician talks about the “will of the people” even when the people may be just a subset of the population, but the wishes and beliefs of the remainder are of no weight and are not acknowledged. They become instead the enemy within. To overcome that enemy within (be it Jews or Muslims or liberals) and the enemy outside (the EU trying to force Hungarians to accept immigrants), the leader needs total control, which means subjugating an independent judiciary, an independent press and other independent institutions. For Müller, populism is an attack on pluralistic democracy, attempting to replace it with some kind of autocratic or plutocratic democracy. Orban’s Hungary has so far been a very successful (in terms of longevity) example of this form of populism.

Where I started to disagree with ID’s piece is where he tries to do the classic centrist thing, which is to imply that the dangers of populism in the UK come from both left and right. In immediate historical terms this is nonsense. Immigration as an issue was revitalised by the Conservative opposition and the right wing press in the early years of the Labour government. In 2001 William Hague talked about Tony Blair wanting to turn the UK into a ‘foreign land’. The right wing papers started producing negative stories about immigrants, long after the rise in non-EU immigration in the late 1990s and long before the rise in EU immigration from 2004, and popular concern about immigration rose with this increase in press coverage. The best explanatory variables in explaining concern about immigration were readership of the Mail, Express and Sun, in that order. All three were better predictors of concern about immigration than whether people voted Conservative.

When the Conservatives became part of the coalition government in 2010, this emphasis on immigration became official policy. By now the idea that immigration was ‘a problem’ that needed to ‘be controlled’ was firmly entrenched in political discourse. Conservatives found it attractive because it could persuade socially conservative left wing voters not to vote Labour, and because it became a useful scapegoat for the effects of austerity. The right wing tabloids also found it attractive because it became a means of winning the Brexit vote. And it is Brexit where we have seen populism in full force in the UK: talk of the ‘will of the people’ as if the 48% who voted Remain did not exist, attacks on the judiciary, on the civil service, on parliament and on universities. The EU is the enemy without, and Remainers are the enemy within.

To the extent that populism has come to the UK, it has come from the political right, not the political left. Yes Labour in government eventually felt they had to play along with the immigration problem theme, and yes there are Lexiters on the left. But the motive force for attacks on immigration and Brexit comes from the right, not the left. [1]

Much the same point can be made about the US. Trump was voted into office as a Republican, and he remains unchecked in office because of the Republican party. To suggest that Republicans and Democrats bear equal responsibility for Trump is just nonsense.

In this story of how populism came to the UK, and represents an ever present threat in the UK, Labour’s problems over antisemitism do not even deserve a footnote. Antisemitism is a big part of Orban’s campaign and rhetoric, personified in his constant attacks on George Soros, but that theme has been repeated not by Corbyn but by the same right wing press that focused on immigration and gave us Brexit. Antisemtism is a problem within Labour, but the source of that problem is the Israel Palestine situation. It is not, and never will be, a part of a Labour government’s appeal to the electorate. It will not be a Labour government that tells people that have lived here for scores of years that they now have to leave the UK and say goodbye to their friends and family. It is not and never will be the Labour party that runs an Islamophobic campaign for mayor of London.

In Europe and the US, the threat today of an authoritarian, anti-pluralist government comes exclusively from the right. To lose sight of that makes dealing with that threat much more difficult.

[1] There are plenty of centrist Remainers who insist Brexit is as much Corbyn’s fault as it is the government’s. Apparently the fact that Corbyn campaigned for Remain does not count because he didn’t put enough energy and passion into that campaign. When he says he would vote Remain again he must be lying because no one ever changes their mind. Accusing Corbyn of being too ready to accept the referendum result is fine by me, but to put him in the same class as Johnson and Gove is just token centrism.

The anti-Corbyn militants have failed

It was a day of contrasts. Labour MP Sadiq Khan was elected mayor of London, overcoming an openly Islamophobic campaign against him. The person who played a major part in putting together that Islamophobic campaign, Lynton Crosby, was knighted on the same day for services to the Conservative Party politics.

It was also the day after many council elections across the UK. As anyone familiar with mid-term elections will know, expectations are critical in how a result is received. In this case the agenda was set (because of their media access) by those within Labour who openly attack the new leadership. In this post I called them Labour’s new militant tendency, but anti-Corbynistas is simpler. The constant anti-Corbynista refrain is that this leadership is an electoral disaster. So when the council elections were not a disaster, they looked stupid and Labour ended up feeling better about the results than they should have done. (Despite open Conservative divisions over Europe and a clearly regressive budget, Labour only had a slight national lead over the Conservatives.)

You can of course be neither a Corbynista nor an anti-Corbynista, which is where I am, where Sadiq Khan is and I suspect the majority of Labour party members are. Khan nominated Corbyn for the leadership because he thought the left should have a voice, but he did not vote for him in the actual contest. Giving people a choice, and being prepared to accept when that choice goes against you, are part of democratic politics.

Returning to the council elections, this own goal by the anti-Corbyn militants is an illustration of how their strategy is flawed. As I explained here, constant high profile attacks on the Labour leadership from within just make it difficult for Labour party members to read the polls: are bad results because the leadership is poor or because it is under constant attack from within? That in turn just delays the very thing the anti-Corbynistas want, because it is only the party membership that can vote for a new leader.

At one point when I was writing that earlier post, I suddenly thought I was being stupid. The goal of many anti-Corbynistas is not to unseat the leadership as soon as possible, but to provide the momentum for a new centre-left party. You can see that very clearly in this article by Tim Bale. Those making that call know that time is not on their side, so there is a constant refrain of urgency. To quote Bale, MPs “are fast running out of options”, they are about to be deselected, the new leadership is tightening its grip on the party, and so on. I think in reality time has run out for those that want (one way or another) to override the views of Labour party members.

Naivety among anti-Corbynistas is only matched by the traditional left. Those who dismissed the antisemitism issue as just a ruse by anti-Corbynistas showed no awareness of the structural problem that Labour has, as both the party that is most critical of the current government of Israel and the party that many Muslims have taken a leading part in. Contrast Naz Shah’s genuine apology to Ken Livingstone’s incendiary remarks. Getting Shami Chakrabarti to lead an inquiry is an excellent start in dealing with that issue.

I think Nick Cohen is right that this is an example of a general tendency on the traditional left to divide the world into heroes and villains, and choose which side particular people or leaders are on by a dubious process of association. Within that framework any leader that opposes US imperialism gets most of the way into the good guys camp, whatever the nature of their regime. It is an approach to international relations worthy of a neocon.

This Labour leadership is generally as hopeless as the last in combating a generally hostile media. I have not heard a single Labour shadow minister or MP, in response to yet another question on antisemitism, counter attack with the nature of the Conservative campaign for London mayor. (As in ‘at least we are dealing with this issue. The Conservatives are continuing to run an Islamophobic campaign’.) It has to be prepared to learn the dark arts of political spin.

There is a great deal of progress that needs to be made before the Labour party is able to unseat what is one of the most incompetent, divisive and ideological UK governments. Good leadership is part of how that will be done, but it is not everything. The 2015 election was lost for Labour partly because Ed Miliband was not popular, but also because the party decided not to oppose the myth about the previous Labour government’s economic record. To help win in 2020 or 2025 the party needs to completely rethink how it appeals to the electorate while facing a hostile environment. How it deals with widespread antagonism towards immigration. How it takes on the SNP. How it handles the financial sector. How it shifts the economic debate away from deficits to the issues that really matter. With so much to do, fixating about a leadership when there is currently little you can do about it and there is no proven alternative is just a waste of time that only benefits the current government.

The hypocrisy of British politics

The Labour party has a problem with antisemitism almost by definition. This is because many Labour party members are highly critical of the current democratically elected government of Israel, and Israel often identifies itself as a Jewish state. So difficult questions naturally arise, like are attacks on the existence of the state of Israel also antisemitic? But these problems can, and should, be addressed and dealt with. (For what it is worth, I personally would answer yes to my previous question.)

Does that mean that anyone who has made antisemitic remarks in the past must be excluded from the Labour party, even if they apologise and fully retract those remarks today? Here I would agree with John Rentoul that the answer has to be no. In particular, because this kind of antisemitism can be frequently found in Muslim communities, it is important to encourage those from these communities who now acknowledge their past mistakes the chance to atone for them by pointing out similar mistakes to others, rather than branding them for life.

Now for the hypocrisy. A week ago, our Prime Minister accused the Labour candidate for mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, with knowingly sharing a platform 9 times with Suliman Gani, a former imam in Tooting (Khan’s constituency) who the Prime Minister said was a supporter of IS. Now if Mr. Gani was a known supporter of IS, this would have been a serious charge against Khan. The only problem is that he is not.

It is not just that Mr. Gani denies being a supporter of IS, and those that know him or have met him think the accusation is obviously false. It is not just that he is a member of many interfaith groups. It is not just that the Prime Minister has produced no evidence that he is an IS supporter.  It is also that he has had many meetings with Conservative MPs including the Conservative candidate for London mayor. He has visited No.10 Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament.

Try to imagine how you would feel if the Prime Minister had announced in Parliament that you were an IS supporter. If you are thinking to yourself that would never happen, because you are not a Muslim imam, then I think you should now realise why what the Prime Minister did is so serious and damaging. It is also why any claim by the Prime Minister that his remarks had nothing to do with either Khan’s or Gani’s religion would be at best naive, and more likely a straight lie.

The Conservative candidate for mayor of London, Zac Goldsmith, has run a dog whistle campaign, where he has tried to associate Sadiq Khan with Muslim extremism. He is reported to has described Gani as “one of the most repellent figures in this country”. Does it worry him that Gani has been associated with a number of prominent Conservatives, including himself?! Probably not, because Goldsmith is not a Muslim, so any guilt by association charge would be ridiculous. His opponent and Labour candidate Sadiq Khan is a Muslim. That is the key difference.

Khan is a Muslim, but is clearly not an extremist in any shape or form. The Conservative attacks are based not on Khan’s political views or actions but his religion. How else can Goldsmith justify painting Khan as an extremist for sharing platforms with Gani, when Goldsmith and his colleagues have asked Gani to help recruit other Muslims to the Conservative party. 

If nothing is done about this, similar tactics could (and presumably would in any future election [1]) be applied to any Muslim standing in an election. It also means that if you are a Muslim who happens to know a Muslim candidate, then you may be called an IS supporter by the Prime Minister in the Houses of Parliament (where libel laws do not apply). Basically the Prime Minister and his party are playing to Islamophobia, and treating individuals with the same disregard as tabloid newspapers in order to do so.

It may be fair to criticise the Labour leadership for not being tough enough on antisemitism within Labour, although it is also perfectly fair to allow people time to get the facts and quite unreasonable to have trial by media. But no one could accuse the current Labour leadership of completely ignoring the problem. In contrast, the Prime Minister has made no apology to Mr. Gani over his accusation in parliament, and the Conservative candidate for London mayor continues to use his opponents religion as a weapon against him.

[1] The man who is currently the favourite to be our next Prime Minister is quite happy to link the views of the President of the United States on Brexit to his Kenyan ancestry. The defence minister Michael Fallon has even gone so far to suggest Khan is a security risk.