John McDonnell’s response to the latest episode in Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal is another reminder of how he grasps the political danger of this to the Corbyn project so much better than Corbyn himself does. The shadow Chancellor appears to get, in a way that Corbyn doesn’t, just how much this issue could damage Labour.
One of the striking things about politics right now is that the Corbynite economic agenda has become relatively uncontroversial within the Labour party. At the start of Corbyn’s leadership, the party committing itself to a universal basic income would have caused a major row. But today’s announcement has passed off without controversy.
Rather, what is causing problems is Jeremy Corbyn’s personal worldview. Labour’s refusal to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition isn’t about its agenda for government, but Corbyn’s own personal, anti-Western worldview—which holds that Israel, as a Western state, must be responsible for the ills of the Middle East.
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