How did it come to this? Here we are, in 2018, in modern, democratic, fair-minded Britain, and what happens when it turns out the leader of the Labour Party was a member of a secret Facebook group awash with anti-Semitic comments? Not a lot really.
As the political editor of the Jewish Chronicle, I have been writing about Jeremy Corbyn’s associations with anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and radical clerics since long before he became leader of the opposition. I have also lost count of the number of stories I have written on Labour MPs, councillors, activists and supporters linked to Jew-hate since the summer of 2015.
When I saw the work of David Collier – an unassuming, quiet, personable researcher – on Wednesday morning, I have to admit, even I reacted with a shrug. His exposé of hundreds of offensive and anti-Semitic posts from the Palestine Live Facebook group uncovered the sort of material I have seen countless times before from such collectives – how the Rothschilds ‘invented the Holocaust hoax’, Mossad carried out the 9/11 attacks, and an article titled ‘why the Jews are the unrepentant destroyers of all that’s decent on the planet’.
Except this time there is one key added feature – not just the presence, but the active participation, of Mr Corbyn.
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