This is interesting. The largest Corbyn FB group (facebook.com/JeremyCorbyn4P… 300k followers)) has put out a warning for people who follow another huge pro-Corbyn group (facebook.com/BritainIsThePe… 100k followers) that it is antisemitic
The warning is clearly coordinated (which is good, and I don't mean this as a criticism) with various key movers and shakers such as Momentum and Owen Jones sharing it. The comments are interesting...
A mixture of denial (posts aren't antisemitic), support (sensible people saying this is a problem), questions about why the warning posts share antisemitic memes, and people saying that this isn't helpful to the Labour movement which is trying to show antisemitism doesn't exist
I think this kind of action is really important. It shows key parts of the movement standing up against clear antisemitism. Though it will create some cognitive dissonance as you can see from the comments, as people have been drawn into a kind of denialism of the problem
This dissonance highlights something I have been tweeting about for a bit - that amongst the fringes on Twitter you see a lot of denial, but when I have met key people within the movement they see antisemitism *in and around* the movement to be a huge problem
And as this shows, people are starting to address it, though it will take a huge effort to dislodge the 'Tory smear' accusations which unfortunately have been implicitly or explicitly supported by key players. A huge amount of empathy and insight still needed to deal with this
The difference between the supposedly anti-racist Canary (which I think may not have written a single piece about antisemitism which doesn't say it is trumped up) and Momentum is extraordinary and shows how diverse the movement is. The problem, though is this.
They way I read it, and I may be wrong, is that the Labour movement as a whole has a kind of unholy pact with the extremist end, Canary, Squawkbox, ?Novaro, nuttier FB groups -it ignores them as cranks sometimes still use their energy and followers when it suits
One of the effects of this unholy alliance is that on antisemitism, there are a huge number of mixed messages reaching reasonable Corbyn supporters. Wait, it's real... and a smear... and exaggerated? And if you want evidence of that, look at the comments to those posts.
There is an answer to this. For Corbyn himself to take Momentum's lead and stop supporting the smear narrative, which from recent interviews I think he still basically believes. But that would mean making some hard choices about denialism outlets such as Canary etc.
