I see JVL deleted this appalling tweet, although no retraction or apology. 
As someone who has been physically injured by BNP members and detained by cops for being in the streets opposing the far right, this tweet is both wrong deeply offensive. A thread.
Leaving aside the insensitivity of using a Jewish tragedy as an opportunity to troll mainstream Jews, I want to look at the claim it is #JC4PM supporters who stand up to the far right....
...I have no doubt Corbyn & most of his followers genuinely loathe traditional fascists like the BNP, and that individual Corbynists have done work combating it, but as a movement what is its record?
...Corbyn chaired the first incarnation of Anti-Fascist Action in the mid-1990s, but had parted ways with it by 1989, as he didn’t support direct action against the fash - see my post brockley.blogspot.com/2018/09/jeremy…
...Later, Corbyn (along with Diane Abbott & others) would throw his weight behind SWP fronts like Unite Against Fascism/Stand Up To Racism. These fronts are not just problematic coz of the awfulness of the SWP mediadiversified.org/2016/10/12/aga…
...SUTR/UAF, supported by Momentum, get loads of ££ from trade unions, but are completely ineffective against actual fascism. They hold big marches & rallies which make liberals feel good, but that’s it...
...The idea that a single recruit or potential recruit to the BNP/EDL has been won over by seeing students carrying SWP/UAF placards is a joke. Nor does SUTR physically stop fascists mobilising.
...So who is doing effective work against fascism? (a) Militant anti-fascists from AFA to @AntiFascistNetw have physically stopped the fash. Labour members are largely absent from that...
(b) It’s community groups like @TellMamaUK and @CST_UK that actually protect Jews and Muslims from hate attacks - monitoring threats, reporting incidents, securing places of worship....
...But JVL has nothing but contempt for @CST_UK & @TellMamaUK, because they also call out Labour antisemitism: JVL accuse them of fabricating antisemitism to “smear” JC. JVL activists publicly question why Jewish spaces even need protecting....
(c) In areas where the far right has been an electoral threat, @hopenothate have played a vital role stopping it (Ruth Smeeth & Margaret Hodge are among Labour people who’ve been part of this). But JVL & its ilk denounce them as “centrist” traitors.
...Of course it’s true that in the past, the Labour establishment (including Hodge) played a shameful role in normalising fascism with slogans like “British jobs for British workers”...
...One of the reasons I was initially enthusiastic about Corbyn was the hope of different discourse on migration. But instead we’ve seen continued dog whistling about economic migrants undercutting wages. politicshome.com/news/uk/politi…
...And then, obviously, there’s the Labour antisemitism issue. Too much tolerance for stuff indistinguishable from stuff the far right say. Corbyn had a show on PressTV, the channel which played a role in radicalising Cesar Sayoc.
...Memes Cesar Sayoc shared are indistinguishable (might actually be the same ones) as memes that’ve been shared on my local party Facebook, and countless other Labour social media.
...All of which is not to say that *some* of those who attack Corbyn are not *also* guilty of some of this stuff. If you defend Netanyahu’s Soros comments or if you RT Islamophobic/xenophobic accounts when they talk about antisemitism, you’re no better.
End of rant.//
End of rant.//
UPDATE: JVL did post this explanation of their deletion on Facebook. I’m not sure they can defend the “did not intend to imply” but, but glad they stepped back from the tweet. (HT @waksonwaksofff)
PS A silly typo here. Should say “mid-1980s” where it says “mid-1990s”. HT @spindokai
This thread, provoked by the same JVL tweet, is spot on:
@threadreaderapp unroll please
