Thread by @fromarsetoelbow

This is a good example of how the call for "nuance" is often simply evasion. Consider the following two statements, which are central to Owen Jones's case.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

1) "Corbynism was undoubtedly severely damaged by internal sabotage; but the leadership operation itself was often profoundly dysfunctional and demoralised, something that wasn’t rectified because of post-2017 hubris and Corbyn’s avoidance of conflict".

What is the relationship between the two parts of this statement? Had the leadership not been dysfunctional & demoralised would the sabotage have been irrelevant? Was there a trade-off here, or might that dysfunction & demoralisation have actually owed something to the sabotage?

For this statement to have any explanatory power you have to accept the implication that Corbyn could have negated the sabotage had he been more assertive, even aggressive. But that undermines Jones's plea that Labour should not consider the last 5 years in zero-sum terms.

2) "Those who insisted the antisemitism crisis was a smear campaign and nothing else – that Labour’s opponents would always seize on it did not mean it was not a very real problem – not only caused pain to Jewish people but also helped strip away Corbynism’s idealistic sheen".

Antisemitism has largely disappeared from the political agenda because Corbyn is no longer Labour leader. Unless you believe he was the sole author of the "very real problem", then clearly it was no more than a smear campaign *at the political level*.

That the topic was painful to (some) Jewish people does not prove otherwise. If anything, it shows the extent to which the smearers were happy to inflict collateral damage. By its very nature, the smear depended on stimulating this outrage & fear.

In summary, this is anything but an "honest conversation", and you can be confident that pious calls for "a balanced understanding of the last five years" will be met with little more than laughter by the Labour right.