Thread by @shaunjlawson

So here's a complicated position (or set of positions?) for you. My own ones.

1. The narrative about antisemitism in Labour was a disgrace, a nonsense, and 99.7% false (and provably so).

2. This narrative was what terrified British Jews. Those who did that should be ashamed.

3. The narrative was, however, essentially impossible to challenge, for reasons I explained in January of last year. In such a scenario, anything Labour said or did would be twisted and lied about by people acting in horrifically bad faith.

4. The narrative was so successful, so powerful and so all-enveloping that it unquestionably played a part in Labour's defeat. Not just because of so many British Jews voting against Labour - but non-Jews who, quite naturally, were horrified.

5. Labour's defeat was so crushing - and the narrative treated as fact even when it wasn't - that the Party now faced the following choice:

a) Challenge the narrative and keep being excoriated day after day

b) Apologise and accept it: with all that would mean.

Option 5a) is not and will never be worth it for any party trying to get into power to actually help people.

Option 5b), however Orwellian I agree it is. was therefore taken. Those MPs who refused to take it, however admirable and principled, isolated themselves.

Specifically, by refusing to accept:

6. The 10 Pledges. Which bound the hands of any future leader who'd accepted them, to the extent of not having anyone in their Shadow Cabinet who'd refused to accept them: even though the pledges are, as a whole, very flawed.

The narrative also meant that:

7. Labour was always going to accept everything the EHRC said - even if that was flawed (which it very much is) - and the failure to submit the leaked report to the EHRC was all part of that.

Only the narrative matters. Facts do not.

Because only the narrative matters...

8. Any MP, let alone Corbyn himself, challenging it in any way on the day of the EHRC report was always going to be in big, big trouble - because it undermined the counter-narrative of "we've changed. You can trust us now".

9. Starmer and the NEC were therefore bound to do exactly what they did. But what they did flew astonomically in the face of natural justice and was a deplorable exercise in scapegoating. Horrible and nasty.

However, the narrative and the 10 pledges STILL bind them. Meaning:

10. By accepting those pledges, Labour have handed over way too much power to the Board of Deputies and to the Jewish Labour Movement. So when they both threw a wobbly yesterday, Starmer backtracked and withheld the whip from Corbyn.

That's not 'political interference'. It *is* about politics - in other words, optics. The public believes what it believes. We're long, long since past the point where what it believes on this can be challenged - and it's a wedge issue which does nobody any good at all.

If, say, a more left wing leader had won the leadership, the pressure they'd be under would be even WORSE. Starmer's made a mess of this because ANYONE would've made a mess of it. The whole situation is impossible, as the catch-22 I wrote about explained.

11. Start a new party? Er, no. One man is not and will never be bigger than an entire political party and movement. He wouldn't want anyone to start a new party in any case - and FPTP means that such an action isn't just futile, but only helps the Tories.

12. In any case, and I say this smilingly and with warmth intended... it's not like obeying the whip has been important to Jeremy Corbyn over the years, is it?!

I'm actually much less bothered about the whip being withheld than him being suspended from the party. And why?

Because Jeremy Corbyn is very different to 99.99% of MPs. He's never been someone bound by archaic party rules and whips; he votes according to his conscience and based on his sense of right and wrong. Always has, always will.

When Tony Benn retired as an MP, he declared he was "leaving Parliament to spend more time in politics".

I rather expect Jeremy will do the same come the next election - though of course, that's a choice for him to make.

In sum though, while the precedent this all sets - narratives much more important than facts, disgusting levels of hypocrisy from so so many in the media and the PLP - terrifies me, I've been terrified by it for well over 2 years now.

Politics is a grim, nasty, disgusting business. The problem with Jeremy Corbyn (and the reason he's so beloved by his supporters) is: he was never prepared to play the game.

That was his downfall in the end. Sad, I know. 😥And in what it all says about Britain: it's just horrid.

PS. And the impact of a narrative which can't be challenged - because doing so only makes things worse for everyone - is comments like these.

RLB is trapped by exactly the same thing this thread has discussed. Cut her some slack!

https://twitter.com/itvpeston/status/1329196611692617730