Jeremy Corbyn

Above: The "Mear One" mural: Jeremy Corbyn supported it when the local council led by Lutfur Rahman removed it, but then apologised A panel of the Labour Party National Executive has (17 November 2020) reinstated Jeremy Corbyn after: • he responded to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's legally-enforceable report (29 October 2020) finding the Labour Party culpable for antisemitism by saying that "the problem was dramatically overstated for political reasons" and conceding only that he could not claim "no antisemitism" in the Labour Party because of course there would be some "as there...

Back in 2018, a writer in Solidarity described Corbyn’s response to allegations of antisemitism in Labour under his leadership: “Corbyn agrees there is a problem. He responds under pressure, moves in the direction his critics are pointing to, but it is as if he cannot understand what the fuss is about ... everything is low-energy, insufficient, ineffectual, can be seen or portrayed as evasive, as lacking conviction ...” That description sprang to mind when reading Corbyn’s response to the EHRC report: instead of an apology for what happened (and didn’t happen) on his watch, there was the claim...

Jeremy Corbyn initially defended this antisemitic mural The March 2019 advice from Jennie Formby that local Labour Parties and other Labour Party bodies cannot discuss individual suspensions is being severely tested in the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension. Some CLPs pressed on with those discussions under Formby as General Secretary, but the combination of the new General Secretary (who has reiterated Formby’s instruction), the Starmer leadership, and the high-profile Corbyn suspension has changed all this into a different gear. Solidarity agrees that Corbyn’s suspension should be rescinded...

I have just re-joined the Labour Party. Some people will say that one should never leave the Labour Party. Whatever it did, whatever bothered you and made it difficult to remain a member, you should stay inside and fight from within. Sure, you disagreed with this or that policy, but that’s no reason to abandon Labour, which has consistently fought against all forms of racism. Whatever you disagreed with, Labour is the party that unites working people of all races and religions, and campaigns consistently for genuine equality and respect. And to those who said such things, I can only reply...

For sure, his opponents in the party and the Tory press are out to get Jeremy Corbyn. One of two things then: either they’re telling the truth on this matter or they aren’t. Either there is a problem of antisemitism in the party or there isn’t. Either his critics are lying or exaggerating, and should then be stood up to and faced down. Or they are telling the truth; in which case Corbyn should energetically set about digging out Labour Party antisemitism by the roots. Corbyn agrees there is a problem. He responds under pressure, moves in the direction his critics are pointing to, but it is as...

Labour must now confront the issue of antisemitism in the labour movement. All the attempts by Corbyn leadership to downplay the issue, or to say that it is only the inevitable spillover into a large organisation of attitudes in wider society, must end. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report published on 29 October is not the solution or the last word on the matter, but it has the institutional weight to push the left into accepting, legally and politically, that there is a real problem. The EHRC’s statutory powers are only within the scope of the Equality Act 2010. It is...

Nick Wright is a member of the Communist Party of Britain and frequent contributor to the Morning Star — often writing on Labour Party matters. Two themes recur in Wright’s articles: that Labour’s changed position on Brexit (no longer promising “to honour” the referendum outcome) was the “fatal surrender” that cost it the 2019 election and that allegations of antisemitism within Labour under Corbyn were “manifestly untrue and malicious” — the work of “not only British and Israeli state actors but an unscrupulous assembly of reactionary forces of all kinds”. Those particular quotes turn up in a...

If I were Owen Jones, I would be rather annoyed that Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire got Left Out published before This Land: The Story of a Movement. When I read both, in the order of release, with Jones’s book I felt like I had read it all before. Jones, unlike Pogrund and Maguire, is a participant in the movement. He was one of the few columnists in the mainstream media to support the Corbyn leadership. He started his career working for John McDonnell and alongside Andrew Fisher. He makes clear in the book that he rates both of them highly. He sees McDonnell as Labour’s lost leader. But...

More than £300,000 has been donated to a fundraising page to help support Jeremy Corbyn if a legal case goes ahead over the leaked Labour antisemitism report or the Panorama programme produced by John Ware. Keir Starmer has already settled the Panorama legal cases with the whistle-blowers featured in the documentary, several of whom are heavily criticised in the pro-Corbyn leaked report. Corbyn has criticised the decision. He claims the move to settle was political rather than legal and that Labour had a strong defence case. Regardless of the merits of the legal case against the former party...

Clive Lewis talked with Sacha Ismail. What Corbynism started to talk about in 2015 was an end to austerity, and trying to return to a sort of 1945 moment, trying to recapture a Keynesian economic approach — redistribution of wealth, trying to use social democracy to move us towards a more socialist economy in stages. But also at the beginning it was about democratising the party, which I think is what attracted so many of us. The idea of democracy and membership engagement and members having a real say over policy really resonated. New Labour came in and put their boot on the throat of the...