I’m not Jewish — and I joined the Jewish Labour Movement

In January this year, I — an un-baptised, faithless atheist — joined the Jewish Labour Movement in the form of an “allyship”. I wasn’t even aware I could join until I saw a post on Twitter, encouraging Jewish former members to rejoin the party.

The Jewish Labour Movement is the oldest Labour affiliated group in Britain and represents the views and values of British Jews in the party. In my jobs as a news and current affairs producer for national radio and newspapers, I watched as what began as a story about fringe activists turned into a harrowing tale of institutional racism.

The tipping point for me was Jeremy Corbyn’s questioning of the removal of an obviously anti-Semitic mural in London. It depicted Jews with stereotypically enlarged noses, playing Monopoly on the backs of black men. It was as if the artist had taken a bet on how many timeless, conspiratorial tropes they could fit into one image. To me, a German citizen, a country whose history is deeply ingrained in the national consciousness, it seemed indefensible.

At the time Corbyn made the Facebook comment that would eventually make the front pages, he was a member of parliament, and deeply engaged in the geopolitical conflict between Israel and Palestine. The “outriders” who claimed he was merely ignorant of the facts, as opposed to prejudiced, failed to mention this.

As time went on and one scandal after another hit the headlines, the idea that there was something sinister growing within the party’s ranks set itself in my mind. Evidence surfaced of Jeremy Corbyn embracing, laying wreaths for, and addressing unsavoury individuals as “friends”, many of them part of, or associated with, deeply anti-Semitic groups. Jewish leaders expressed their “grave concern” after Corbyn wrote a rapturous foreword for the book, Imperialism: A Study, written by John Atkinson Hobson in 1902, which suggested European banks were controlled by “men of a single and peculiar race”. Corbyn described the tome as “brilliant” in 2011, just four years before being elected Labour leader.

After countless other examples of anti-Jewish racism emanating from the top and the base of the party, the European Human Rights Commission finally decided to step in and investigate the party for institutional racism, the results of which are expected in April.

Fast-forward to 2019 and Boris Johnson was a prisoner in No.10, unable to pass the timetable bill for his so-called oven-ready Brexit deal. Theresa May had whittled down the Tory majority to a stump, leaving Johnson desperate for a new mandate to help him push through the Brexit deal that would save the Conservative Party.

Soon after the election was called, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain urged his congregation to vote tactically for parties that could defeat Labour. Faced with the ancient threat that has faced the Jews for hundreds, if not thousands of years, Dr Romain pleaded with British voters not to put Corbyn in Downing Street. Following that, the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, wrote in the Times calling into question the Labour leader’s fitness for high office.

The BBC’s bulldog interviewer, Andrew Neil, tore the political leaders of every mainstream party to shreds (apart from the incumbent). Jo Swinson was challenged on her backing of Tory austerity policies, Nicola Sturgeon on the pipe-dream of IndyRef2, and Jeremy Corbyn on the appalling track record of anti-Jewish racism in the Labour party. After prompting, Jeremy Corbyn refused four times to apologise to British Jews for his failings in tackling the issue.

Many prominent Labour figures were secretly relieved at the biggest Labour defeat since 1935. They felt the end of Corbynism was nigh, and that the party membership would see that principles and ideological purity were pointless without power. The bookmakers have all-but-crowned Kier Starmer, the architect of Labour’s problematic Brexit policy.

But the Rebecca Long-Bailey and Richard Burgon leadership ticket remains in play. On Monday this week, Long-Bailey failed to correct a Labour member at an event who claimed that Labour was defeated by “members of the Israeli lobby”. Richard Burgon’s infamous “Zionists are the enemy of peace” quotes, which he denied existed until they were played to him on video, still echo on social media — an offence so grave, that if we lived in more traditional times, would have seen him sacked.

I joined the Jewish Labour Movement because I wanted to support the group financially, morally, and with my Labour leadership vote. An ethnic group of less than 1 per cent of the population needs the support of non-Jews if the cancer of anti-Semitism is to be eradicated. It is vital Labour picks the right leader, who will act as swiftly against anti-Semites, as the previous leadership did against Alastair Campbell for voting Liberal Democrat. It must do so for the Jewish community and for the rest of the UK, which is crying out for effective opposition.