We were alarmed to read, yet again, a list of evidence-free accusations charging Jeremy Corbyn with antisemitism (Letters, 15 November).
We are not the least surprised that the Jewish friends of the 24 luminaries who signed are worried and frightened about this supposed antisemitism – they repeatedly read and hear unsubstantiated allegations in pages of newsprint and hours of broadcasting, while the vast amount of countervailing evidence that has been collected by highly reputable researchers, many of them Jewish, is entirely disregarded.
Jeremy Corbyn is the first Labour leader in decades to promote a policy agenda that rejects neoliberalism and austerity. Is that why mainstream media don’t want to give access to the counter-narrative?
As British Jews, most of whom have family in Israel and lost family in the Holocaust, and all of us with plenty of experience taking on antisemites face to face across the political spectrum, we are not prepared to be used as cannon fodder in what is really a political siege of the Labour party. We beg you, enough – and we beg the 24 protagonists and their Jewish friends to check out the alternative voices.
Antony Lerman Former director, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Lynne Segal Anniversary professor, psychosocial studies, Birkbeck, University of London, Richard Kuper Founder, Pluto Press, Jacqueline Rose Professor of humanities, Birkbeck, University of London, Adam Sutcliffe Professor of European history, King’s College London, Miriam David Professor emerita, UCL Institute of Education, Dr Brian Klug Senior research fellow in philosophy, St Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford, John S Yudkin Professor emeritus, University College London, Jonathan Rosenhead Emeritus professor of operational research, LSE, Francesca Klug Visiting professor, LSE Human Rights, Dr Graeme Segal Emeritus fellow, All Souls, University of Oxford, Mica Nava Emeritus professor of cultural studies, University of East London, Elizabeth Dore Professor emeritus, Latin American Studies, University of Southampton, Naomi Wayne Former chief enforcement officer, Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland, Stephen Sedley
• As a secular Jew I’d like to take issue with the letter from John le Carré and others. I agree with them that Labour in many ways has been hopeless in dealing with cases of antisemitism in its ranks and that Jeremy Corbyn at best has been naive in some of his utterances. To conclude though that because of these issues it would be wrong for Jews and others to vote Labour in the upcoming election denies the reality that the alternative is a hard-right government.
If people want a society that is based on tolerance and social justice rather than one based on harbouring division and exploitation then in the vast majority of constituencies there is no choice but to vote Labour. To advocate a refusal to vote Labour is in fact to support the conditions that lead to racism and antisemitism – poverty and xenophobia.
Keren Abse
London
• I’m Jewish, and to say I loathe and fear antisemitism hardly begins to state the case. But it seems a little naive to confine one’s distaste merely to Labour. Of course it’s especially horrible to think that people who indulge in this disgusting form of prejudice should present themselves as socialists and internationalists.
But isn’t the Tory party’s virulent anti-Islamism just as bad? Perhaps there should be a mass refusal to vote for any of them? Or maybe we should admit that Brexit, with its retreat into nationalism, poses the immediate threat. The first priority, surely, has to be to stop that, and if it means voting Labour, we must vote Labour. And then, as Len McCluskey once said about the EU, remain and reform.
Ruth Brandon
London
• Only one party has significantly eroded inequality over the past century, not least by gifting us the welfare state: Labour. Now we have a Labour leadership proud of this past and ably equipped to advance on those earlier achievements.
It’s curious that those apparently concerned about discrimination and xenophobia have nothing to say about the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, which presided over the racist “go home” campaign targeting migrants, dramatically increased poverty, and hiked university tuition fees threefold while cutting funding to state education. The disenchantment, anger and powerlessness provoked by those policies likely contributed to the result of the 2016 EU referendum.
Unlike the privately educated historians who signed the anti-Labour letter you published last week – Antony Beevor, Tom Holland and Dan Snow – I am only able to be a historian thanks to free comprehensive and university education. On 12 December I’ll vote for the only party committed to giving the next generation the opportunities that I and millions of others benefited from – Labour.
Selina Todd
Professor of modern history, University of Oxford
