According to polling, most British people – 58% in fact – think it was right that Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from the Labour party for saying the scale of the problem of antisemitism within it had been “dramatically overstated” by political opponents and the media.
This is despite the fact that it obviously was. The British people were told in all seriousness that Corbyn represented “an existential threat” to Jews in the UK, that Labour was a “cesspool” of antisemitism, that it was “institutionally racist” (which the EHRC specifically refuted), that Corbyn was leading an “antisemite army”, that the “soul of the nation” was at stake in the General Election, that if elected Corbyn would be the first antisemitic leader in the West since 1945, even that (courtesy of ‘respected’ conservative commentator, Simon Heffer) he was planning to “reopen Auschwitz”.
A search of eight newspapers revealed there to be nearly five and a half thousand articles on the subject of Corbyn, antisemitism and Labour between June 2015 and March 2019. And that’s discounting the voluminous coverage on broadcast and social media.
The truth, as Corbyn patiently relayed in interviews about the EHRC report, was in reality only 0.3% of Labour members had been accused of antisemitism. On average, however, the public believed 34% had. Exaggeration by a factor of 100*.
In fact, the two polling results are not remotely divergent. If you believe – in line with what you have been incessantly told by the media for the previous four years – that the Labour party is a nest of vicious bullying and racism (such that a third of Labour members have been accused of antisemitism) and that Jeremy Corbyn had allowed this to happen, probably out of his own hatred of Jews, then you’re likely to think it right that he is drummed out of the Labour party.
And therein lies the problem, the elephant in the room. Thanks to our atrocious media – a description that includes the supposedly liberal-left Guardian and the ‘impartial’ BBC – the British public is staggeringly misinformed. But few people, certainly not the politicians and media organisations who live by these misconceptions, will admit this.
In 2013, that noted far-left organisation, the Royal Statistical Society, pointed that out on a range of issues public perceptions are wildly out of kilter with reality. So much so that we are really talking about two separate countries – perceived UK and real UK.
To take one example, 58% of the public think crime is rising when in fact there were 53% fewer incidents in 2012 compared to 1995 (if you want an update crime fell by 9% between March 2019 and March 2020).
The perception of benefit fraud (24% of the ‘benefits bill’) is 34 times greater than the reality (0.7%). Teenage pregnancy rates are believed to be 25 times higher than they actually are. More people think foreign aid is the largest item of government expenditure than believe it to be either pensions or education despite the latter two being vastly greater.
On average the public thinks 31% of the population are immigrants when 13% actually are. The average estimate is that black and Asian people make up 30% of the population when in truth it is 11%. The most common belief is that 24% of the population are Muslim when it is really 5%. And so on.
Electorally speaking, there are undeniable pitfalls in bluntly telling the public that many of their most cherished beliefs are nonsense. But there are also obvious drawbacks – an amply demonstrated by the last Labour government – in meekly accepting the ‘reality’ presented by the mainstream media. The atrocity of the Work Capability Assessment was enshrined into law because the Blair and Brown governments not only swallowed, but actively propagated, the idea that millions of people on sickness benefits could find a job if only they were motivated enough. The abuse at Yarl’s Wood had its roots in the belief that Britain was being overrun by asylum seekers and immigrants, a dehumanization that has become a thousand times worse since. The lies behind the Iraq War became second nature to the government and were unremittingly amplified by an obedient media so that millions were shocked when Iraq didn’t turn out to have any WMD. The consequences of that duplicity are immense. It is estimated that 2.4 million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the illegal 2003 invasion.
When fiction becomes reality, and will not be admitted to be fiction even when conclusively demonstrated to be so, you have a huge problem.
Jeremy Corbyn attempted to tell the truth, rather than embroider myths, about each of the above issues. He also promised to confront billionaire, tax avoiding newspaper owners, not curry favour with them as previous Labour Prime Ministers had done. As a result he was the victim of what two (marginal) commentators, Peter Oborne and David Hearst, have dubbed “a carefully planned and brutally executed political assassination”. His suspension for ‘downplaying’ antisemitism is merely the coup de grâce.
Every British newspaper, with the exception of the Morning Star, avidly supported Corbyn’s suspension. So Keir Starmer’s “difficult” decision will find virtually unanimous support amongst the media and the political class. Attacking your own unreconstructed radicals – what Americans call “counter scheduling” – is seen as the tried and trusted way for a centre-left party to attain electoral credibility.
But even if this approach leads to success, which is highly questionable, the victory will be a Pyrrhic one. Accepting the media’s presentation of reality will so tightly hem in the freedom of action of a future Labour government that searing injustices like the ones outlined above are almost certain. And there will be no economic boom to soothe the sores with broadly egalitarian spending.
Reinstate Jeremy Corbyn and start telling, not repressing, the truth.
*The number of complaints of antisemitism differs according to when the start date is set. According to the party in February 2019 it had received complaints of antisemitism concerning about 673 members since April 2018, about 0.1% of its membership. Or 300 times less than 34%.
