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Well said. What you say about the EHRC ruling is spot on. And I think Starmer is trying to be seen to both deal with it and minimise it, for fear of losing more allies and as a result coming across as vague and dismissive.
However, I think its still true to say that Corbyn isn't the victim of a purge, he has been suspended pending investigation of his role. Whether that would have happened or not if there was no political benefit to this, I don't know. Maybe not.
Stonehedge
With apologies to Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his self-image depends on him not understanding it. We have a tradition of solidarity on the left, which says we stand up for those in our faction. Sometimes it can be a really impressive trait which gets things done - what trades unions achieved, what Labour achieved with the NHS, what Blair achieved with eradicating child poverty et al. But other times, it means we defend our factional allies even when they're being a bit cunty. Usually that's not a big deal but where it intersects with something like antisemitism - in which disbelieving the people raising the alarm is in itself is an example of the thing - it becomes truly toxic.
The proof of it is that we still call the EHRC ruling a 'report'. Even I do it from time to time. But it isn't a report. The Jewish Labour Movement's submission was a report; the leaked Labour report was a report; they were all witness statements. The EHRC judgement was the final word, and it found beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Labour Party acted unlawfully in its discrimination against its Jewish members.
It is statutory legal judgement. It is binding. It cannot be got out of. It must either be accepted, as I'm trying to do, as the shameful, awful thing it is. Or it must be ignored, denied, minimised, as many on the left are still content to do. It will sit there like a bone in our throats until we collectively sick the fucking thing up and deal with the fact that we all, every faction, every part of Labour, contributed to our failure to tackle antisemitism effectively. All Labour bears that shame.
Because of that denial from Novara / Canary / Skwawkbox (all the Corbyn outriders), the terrible significance of that judgement has failed to sink in for large chunks of the left, because it's been denied. For that, if for nothing else, they should be especially ashamed. And because a fish rots from the head, I think Corbyn himself bears the most responsibility for that denial. They took their cues from him. But he still thinks that he and his friends did nothing wrong. It's like every lag you meet in prison telling you that the judge misunderstood the law. Well maybe they did mate, but it seems pretty fucking unlikely to me.