Labour’s denial and distraction over antisemitism has been harrowing to witness

Even by its own sometimes paranoiac standards, Labour’s response to the BBC Panorama programme about the party’s alleged antisemitism crisis, and indeed to the longer history of accusations of anti-Jewish racism within its ranks, has been depressing.

The official response of the party and its cheerleaders in the media can be summed up in two words: denial and distraction.

Denial comprises the notion that the problem is overstated, misunderstood and, in so far as it applies to Jeremy Corbyn and those around him, manifestly absurd. That is the defensive arm of the strategy.

Distraction is the offensive (in all senses) response, the vigorous counter-attack. Usually this takes the form of “whataboutery”. So, the question is put, why hasn’t the BBC covered Islamophobia in the Conservative Party?

We are also asked to believe, incredibly, that the reporter John Ware and the BBC itself are somehow “politically motivated”. Some see a deep establishment, “mainstream media” conspiracy, terrified as it is of a radical Labour government coming to power (even at 29 per cent in the polls).

Left-wingers aren’t alone in questioning the BBC’s political motivations. Boris Johnson, who really should know better, calls it the “Brexit Bashing Corporation”. Every political party and group, including the likes of The Independent Group for Change, the Liberal Democrats and the rest, claim that the corporation is biased against them and under-represents them in discussions and coverage.

BBC bias is a tiresome refrain, and with a dishonourable history. Perhaps Seumas Milne, Labour’s director of strategy, might reflect on the acute irony that it was a Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who effectively pushed his father Alasdair Milne out of his job as director general of the BBC in 1987. She was convinced that he and the BBC had an institutional left-wing bias, so the fact that Milne should now be attacking the BBC for its supposed right-wing bias would be comical were it not so dispiriting.

The BBC cannot be simultaneously biased against everyone – except to the extent that it asks tough questions of all parties and politicians, tries to hold them to account, and is, thus, biased in favour of good investigative and objective journalism.

Of course the BBC makes its mistakes, as any media organisation does, but it is not guilty of the charges laid against it by Labour. The corporation produced a programme where the widespread disquiet about antisemitism in the Labour party was explored – and no one is claiming that the problem does not exist. It allowed people to speak out. It aired concerns that senior figures in the party’s hierarchy, such as Milne and Jennie Formby, intervened in the disciplinary procedures, which would be wrong. Labour denies these insinuations, but viewers can make their minds up whether to believe them, and to what degree.

Those in a position of power were given the opportunity to respond. Some did, and their views were reflected. Some did not, which is a matter for them. They are having their say now, mostly on Twitter, where they are broadly following the “deny and distract” approach.

A much better response would be to simply deal with the antisemitism problem rapidly and decisively. There are signs, to be fair, that Labour has been slowly coming to terms with this – by devoting more resources to the disciplinary process and by adopting the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

Even more encouragingly, the party’s deputy leader Tom Watson, alongside figures such as Margaret Hodge and John Mann, has been in the forefront of leading the push for realisation of the party’s culture and reform of its procedures. Watson has been refused access to the party’s response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry – which makes him and any reasonable observer suspicious about what the party is trying to cover up.

Labour has to realise that its members’ passionate sense of solidarity with Palestine has too easily and too often turned into hostility to the very existence of a state for Israel. From there, it has descended into some of the more bizarre antisemitic myths about Jewish people exercising control of the media, the banks and so on. On social media, accusations are made that those who accuse Labour of antisemitism are in the pay of Israel – which rather proves the point.

Now that the IHRA definition has been fully adopted by Labour, it should be more explicitly made part of the party’s code of conduct. The particular characteristics of antisemitism, with ancient origins in Europe, the events of the Holocaust and its unique tropes have to be acknowledged for what they are. Like Islamophobia, antisemitism is not simply a subset of racism. That mindset was one of the many flaws in the utterly weak and complacent Chakrabarti report, an earlier exercise in denial and distraction that failed to achieve its purpose.

Corbyn should also say, at a suitable opportunity, that a state of Israel has a right to exist. He should add that denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, for example, by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour, is antisemitic – just as the IHRA definition prescribes.

More than anything, though, it cannot be beyond the wit of the Labour Party to devise a method of dealing with such allegations that is both timely and fair. As the former Lord Chancellor Lord (Charlie) Falconer has suggested, it ought to be possible to process a case, normally and independently, within a fortnight.

Given the sheer volume of cases that seem to be cropping up, it is the only way that the party can do something real to help eradicate the underlying disease.

Not so long ago, it would have been unthinkable that the Labour Party would be under investigation not just by the BBC but by the EHRC. After all, Ed Miliband, a Jewish man, led the party before Corbyn arrived. Are we to conclude, then, that the EHRC probe is also a “politically motivated” attention to destroy socialism? While it is true that many of the most trenchant critics of Labour are to be found among the pro-Tory press, it is also the case that many are good socialists or social democrats, and many have served their party at every level. Some, such as Watson, are trying to serve it, and save it, still.

“For the many, not the Jew” is the satirical slogan used by those protesting the leadership’s failure to act. It is an ugly truth, and it has stuck far too easily.