Exactly one year ago, I took the painful decision to resign my membership of the Labour Party, writing to party general secretary Jennie Formby that the party had “deliberately and recklessly allowed antisemitism to emerge, and even more concerningly, flourish”.
Aside from brief social media abuse and being told by a senior civil servant that the Jewish community were responsible for Brexit (riddle me that), the past year has overwhelmingly proven to me that I made the correct decision.
Since last September, we have seen the Labour Party re-admit Chris Williamson, be investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the election of a candidate in Peterborough who had endorsed anti-Semitic comments, revelations on BBC Panorama on the defunct internal systems, and the list goes on.
It remains starkly clear to me that the politics of Jeremy Corbyn and the hard left are completely antithetical to decent, British values which drive the Labour movement. The Labour fight for social justice demands equal respect for all people, not just for those that the far-left agree with politically.
“My values have not changed, but the Labour Party continues to drift further and further away”
What I said in my resignation letter, and so many have said since, remains true: My values have not changed, but the Labour Party continues to drift further and further away.
Yet the Jewish community seem to be small enough that the party, and sadly the public, can conveniently put our concerns on the back burner whilst they squabble about Brexit. Make no mistake, it will be the British Jewish community who will bear the brunt of the country’s discontent with current affairs. It is common knowledge that in times of political extremism, minority groups come to suffer the most, and Jewish history certainly has no shortage of evidence to this effect.
While the public and the media debate whether anti-Semitism exists or not, whether Jewish people have the right to choose our own definition of racism against us – or even, as one Labour Party fringe put it “The Holocaust: Yes or no?” – the politicisation of anti-Jewish racism becomes just another line to be thrown across party benches.
The few MPs who have taken a moral stand – most notably former Labour MPs Luciana Berger, Joan Ryan and Ian Austin, who all left the party over antisemitism – still face repeated abuse from their former parties for daring to speak out against a Party which by every measure has proven itself to be morally corrupt. Solidarity and support in any form from Labour MPs is always welcome, but it is actions, not words, that history will remember.
“How much abuse and hatred will the Jewish community have to take for politicians and voters to realise that turning a blind eye is no longer an option?”
Now, with predictions of an early General Election by the end of the year, it is time for others to take their stands. No longer can Labour members or MPs simply roll their eyes when the issue of antisemitism is raised and brush it off like a minor inconvenience.
Will anti-racist party members knock on doors for a racist party? How much abuse and hatred will the Jewish community have to take for politicians and voters to realise that turning a blind eye is no longer an option?
The electorate must move past the stage of voting for Jeremy Corbyn simply because he’s not Boris Johnson, and take him to task not only on antisemitism, but a disastrous response to Brexit and a history of associations with extremist individuals.
With an election looming, there is no longer the luxury of simply hoping that Corbyn doesn’t get into Number Ten. Good, decent British people must play their part in making sure that the year to come does not become the year that Jewish people become unwelcome in the UK.
Hannah Rose is a former president of the Union of Jewish Students