Thread by @MrBenSellers

[thread 🧵] I’m pretty sure the deployment of antisemitism allegations against the British left in the period from 2015 onwards will be discussed by historians in the future. And unless history also goes down the sewer, it’ll be discussed more objectively than the present. (1/14)

Apart from wading through the distortions & the political game-playing to establish the facts, something else they will surely have to consider is what it’s done to our political culture. I want to explain what I mean by that, because it’s important for the left too. (2/14)

Everything I say is entirely separate from the battle against antisemitism in real life - which is serious & must be combated through political opposition & most importantly, anti-racist education. The tragedy about its weaponisation is how that work has been relegated. (3/14)

First thing to say is that it’s more than allegations. As the #LabourFiles documentaries show (please watch them), what we’ve seen is a whole architecture of political targeting, harassment, defamation & silencing. While ugly, we have to accept it’s been hugely successful. (4/14)

Those documentaries showed the pain & injury caused by this campaign, especially on an individual level. But multiply that by thousands, tens of thousands & all of the fall out that goes with it, and you get the true impact on our politics & our political culture. (5/14)

The deployment of antisemitism allegations by the right of the Labour Party is one of the most effective political campaigns of all time. It was successful because it understood the vulnerabilities of the socialist project it opposed & because it had no boundaries. (6/14)

It also understood that, in an age of social media, perception is key. Facts, evidence, integrity are pretty much irrelevant when you can defame someone, or a group using half-truths, guilt by association, slurs & outright lies with impunity. (7/14)

Of course, that dishonesty in politics has always been there. People have always been lied about, movements defamed. Only now, it’s blown up. It’s endemic, instant & addictive. The ease with which people can be marginalised or destroyed is incredibly powerful. (8/14)

And this is where the model used by the right of the party to destroy the Corbyn project is so corrosive. Because for those seeking short-cuts, who don’t want to do the exhausting work of political argument & persuasion, there’s an easier way. Just nail people. (9/14)

This is also why this is an issue for the left as well as the right. Social media, great though it has been, has made us lazy thinkers. Not all, but a significant portion of us have learned from the antisemitism example & are deploying something similar ourselves. (10/14)

This won’t be immediately obvious in the heat of political battles, exactly because it has become a political culture, a normalised way to *do* politics. Years ago, I could see this coming - especially in the way parts of the left were identifying others as ‘cranks’. (11/14)

The whole point of that was to create a centre & a periphery of the left around Corbyn. It was a power play. There was no engagement in the issues, just a manoeuvring to hold off a larger, ‘Corbynista’ group that might want a say. It was lazy & destructive. (12/14)

We have to reject this kind of political culture - a model created by our enemies. Because further down the line, it destroys any chances of building a coherent, open, democratic left which is able to deal with disputes & arguments in a comradely way. (13/14)

It won’t always be easy. It’s so much easier to nail people based on who they follow or what they said when they were 16. But it’s about integrity & socialists should do integrity better than the Labour right. Only we can break this addiction to the politics of the gutter (14/14)