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The British Labour Party and the Banality of Anti-Semitism

(Spectator-UK) Stephen Daisley - This week, Labour's general secretary Jennie Formby reportedly told a parliamentary party meeting that it was "impossible to eradicate anti-Semitism and it would be dishonest to claim to be able to do so." As a matter of fact, it is possible to eradicate anti-Semitism from a membership-based organization. You just revoke the membership of all the anti-Semites. Of course, Formby can't do this because it would mean sacrificing a tidy sum in monthly subs and having to find a new leader. In a broader sense, no, you can't eliminate Jew-hatred from the general population but nor can you fully be rid of inequality or poverty or unemployment. That doesn't mean you don't try. The Formby Point allows Labour to abdicate responsibility for its own anti-Semitism and for its role in replenishing the reserves of anti-Semitism in the world at large. Anti-Semitism has lost its power to appall. It has become pedestrian, mundane. This is how bias makes its way into the mainstream and anti-Semitism, to our boundless shame, is once again an idea of the mainstream. It is ceasing to be a prejudice and becoming a point of view. We are making it safe for anti-Semites to come out from behind their various guises and hate Jews in the open once more.
2019-02-08 00:00:00
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