By Definition

Labour is ahead in the polls, so here comes "Antisemitism" again.

The IHRA Definition of Antisemitism would preclude any criticism of the new apartheid law in Israel. Is that what Dame Louise Ellman wants? Is that what Dame Margaret Hodge wants? Their Constituency Labour Parties deserve to know.

Hodge, lest we forget, allowed Islington's children's homes to be run as brothels, and purported to wage war on tax avoidance while herself receiving shares in a family company from a foundation that was based in a tax haven.

That the Jewish Chronicle does not like Jeremy Corbyn is no more newsworthy than that the Daily Telegraph, or indeed The Guardian, does not like Jeremy Corbyn. "Tory Paper Dislikes Labour Leader" is not exactly the stuff that holds the front page.

Not that the liking is much reciprocated. There are no Jews in the current Cabinet, and there is a reason for that. People who would not have Jews in the house (or in the House), and whose own near ancestors were Nazi sympathisers, are opportunistically pretending to side with an ethnic lobby that is acting on behalf of a foreign state. Or perhaps they really are quite that un-Tory? 

Meanwhile, ostensibly on the other side, the Blairites are culturally of upscale, liberal New York. They therefore assumed that screaming or whispering "Antisemitism" would be enough to silence anyone on the spot, and especially the uppity black activists against which it is used there. But welcome to Britain.