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It's obvious that the issue is being weaponised by the right within the party and outside of it - to acknowledge so is not at odds with accepting the existence of racists in the party.
It's true that both can co-exist. But I think the sensitivity lies in people feeling that many jumped straight to; "it's a conspiracy and doesn't exist" .
Weaponised is a pretty strong word. It seems more like politics to me. Not sure there was much concern over the weaponising of BJ's article by his internal opposition and Labour.
As well as punktures various posts in this thread check out the woman's hour interview with Margaret Hodge.
hugo7
Part of the difficulty I find is the lack of concrete allegations of antisemitism within the Labour party. Whilst I don't doubt for a second there are antisemites in the party's ranks who need to be rooted out, the nature and scale of the problem are obscured to the point that it makes it quite difficult to understand.
And so the goalposts keep being moved - the "conversation" has evolved from calls to expel people who have in fact made antisemitic comments (eg. Ken) and alleged dog whistles (e.g Wadsworth), to the fundamental impasse presented by JC's anti-imperialist position on Israeli occupation. The leadership is going around rooting out and taking quite strong measures against alleged antisemites, but it will never be enough because to a committed Zionist, Labour's Israel policy will always be inherently antisemitic.
So what exactly do people want them to do? I really want to understand this because it's so important that we build a robust, fully inclusive leftist movement to get rid of these fucking bastard Tories.
Edit: I want to add that it's pretty dishonest to silence claims of undue prejudice against JC and Labour on this issue and others. It's obvious that the issue is being weaponised by the right within the party and outside of it - to acknowledge so is not at odds with accepting the existence of racists in the party.