- Jewish Voice for Labour - In summary: the truth behind the stats Archived Message
Posted by johnhol
on February 26, 2019, 5:05 pm
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Begins: FROM THE MOMENT Jeremy Corbyn emerged as leader of the Labour Party a barrage of allegations of antisemitism was levelled at him and the party. These allegations have tarnished the party’s image and deflected it from promoting its core programme of anti-austerity and redistribution of wealth. Representing several hundred Jewish members of the party, Jewish Voice for Labour from the very start challenged the existence of this antisemitic wave. Never denying for a moment the existence of serious, isolated expressions of antisemitism, none of us – many with decades of party membership – experienced anything at all resembling such undercurrents. Why was Labour singled out for such interrogation, and was antisemitism really more prevalent in the party than elsewhere? The wave of allegations swamped the party machinery. After Jennie Formby became General Secretary, the implementation of some of the Chakrabarti recommendations and expansion of staffing levels, it is clear that this wave of reported allegations is being managed promptly, with only 24 cases outstanding. And a clear picture has finally emerged. Jennie Formby’s data confirms that the grounds for the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour have indeed been grossly exaggerated, and in some cases fabricated. Over the last ten months there were: » 1,106 referrals of antisemitism allegations; » 433 of these had nothing to do with party members, leaving 673 to be investigated; » 220 of these were dismissed entirely for lack of evidence; » this left 453 cases; » 453 is 0.08% of the party’s 540,000 members – that’s about 1/12th of 1%; » 96 of these resulted in suspensions – that’s 0.01%, or 1/100th of 1% of members; » there were twelve expulsions – that’s 0.002%, or 1/500th of 1% of members! By no stretch of the imagination can a 0.08% incidence support the claim of a ‘”rampant problem in Labour”. Of course, even one case of antisemitism is one too many. But these are vanishingly small statistics, especially when you consider that 2-5% of the general population are considered to be antisemitic. This is not a wave, it is not even a ripple. In nautical terms it’s almost a dead flat calm. Furthermore, there is no record of the thousands of abusive messages MPs like Ruth Smeeth claimed to have received, alleging most emanated from the Labour Party. The source of these might well have been traced to the ten fake twitter accounts masquerading as Labour Party members, unmasked by journalist Asa Winstanley. But to our knowledge, such numbers have never been submitted for investigation. Margaret Hodge MP was informed by Jennie Formby that of the 200 dossiers of cases of antisemitism she had submitted, only 20 were found to be by Labour Party members. In other words, her allegations of antisemitism in the party had been exaggerated tenfold. And single handedly she accounted for approaching one fifth of all referrals. Continues: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/blog/in-summary-the-truth-behind-the-stats/ |
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