The Left's crisis: Socialism and Antisemitism

As most readers may be aware, the last few weeks have seen most of the mainstream media centre on Andy Burnham’s campaign to become leader of the Labour party. His ‘manifesto’ was particularly interesting, as it focused on massive regional devolution, public control of utilities and a substantial increase in social housing. More particularly, his broad platform emphasised ‘business-friendly’ socialism while maintaining fiscal discipline.

Now this made me smile because it sounds like old-fashioned Labour, but if you dig deeper, you’ll realise it’s simply a ‘word salad’ that means nothing. For example, ‘business-friendly’ and ‘socialism are essentially contradictory, because the essence of socialism is it advocates for a democratically run society where the means of production – businesses, industries and resources are socially, or collectively managed and ultimately replace capitalism through democratic and electoral processes.

Similarly, ‘fiscal discipline’ isn’t a socialist concept, as it’s more associated with ‘fiscal conservativism’ and ‘economic liberalism’.

All very interesting, but I want to concentrate on something more disturbing; something visible on both sides of the pond, and it’s what has happened to the progressive Left? Radicalism once meant fighting against poverty and for action on worker’s rights and climate change. But over the years this has been replaced by an obsessive hatred of Israel, and “Zionism”; their rhetoric sounding indistinguishable from the fascists they once fought. Today, these ‘socialists’, use virulent antisemitic tropes that would have once stood perfectly alongside hate-ridden articles in Der Sturmer in the 1930s.Take for example the July 1934 edition warning of a Jewish program for world domination. The article—titled “Who is the Enemy?”—blamed Jews for destroying social order and claimed Jews wanted war, while the rest of the world wanted peace. Compare this to a New Left Review headline comparing Zionism to imperialism and arguing Zionists are colonialists seeking war and domination of the Middle East.

So, what’s changed? Or has it always been this way? Has practical socialism always had an antisemitic side that’s finally come out of the woodwork? To understand this, it’s essential to first understand the mind of an antizionist.

Anti-Zionism and antisemitism

It’s not Jews, we keep being told, it’s Israel. If only they didn’t “overact”, there would be no antisemitism; if only American or British Jews repudiated Israel, they would be left alone, because those we call antisemites are responding to unbearable provocations. 

But let me be perfectly clear - everything about this is a lie, and it’ll destroy the West - see how the Left reacted when Israel responded to the appalling tragedy on October 7^th and how they reacted when the Gaza War followed, not forgetting how before the first shots were fired, Israel made it clear there would be no war if the 256 hostages were returned immediately.

But the lies continued unabated on social media, rotting the minds of ill-informed people, warping their critical faculties and chasing away the Jewish diaspora.

With a social media campaign heavily funded by Iran and Qatar, it was inevitable ‘socialist’ activists would embrace antizionism, particularly as many were already hostile to Israel once the declaration was announced Jerusalem was, is and always will be the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

In a feeble attempt to disguise left antisemitism, they started to spelt ‘antizionism’ without a hyphen, or capital ‘Z’ to distinguish it from the traditional pre-1948 variety. But let’s be clear, it’s simply a specific, modernised hate ideology targeting Jews and Israel and comes with an entire, warped analytical framework. In effect, it’s the new antisemitism for our times.

Notably, these same “antizionists” are indifferent to the plight of Muslims; they only care about conflicts involving Jews. None of the 23 countries with Islam as state religion or the 53 majority-Muslim countries, or Christians or other nations or “ethno-states” are targeted: just the only Jewish state, seen as the purest embodiment of Western evil.

“From the river to the sea” is no more than ethnic cleansing, at best, and genocidal extermination at worst. The antizionists tell Jews to “go home”, but deny anywhere is their home, and do their best to ensure they never have one. So, Jews are redefined, not as refugees (often from Arab lands) but, in an act of gross inversion, as “white settler colonisers”. Jews, in their eyes, are genocidal oppressors and can never be victims. One doesn’t need to prove this; asserting it is sufficient.

The “genocide of Palestinians” banalises the genocidal behaviour of Islamist countries. It redefines normal military practices as illegitimate, making self-defence impossible and rewards Hamas’s monstrous human shield strategy; it rationalises terrorism as freedom-fighting.

 

The Democratic Party

The party was founded on January 8^th, 1828, emerging from the supporters of Andrew Jackson but didn’t show signs of Left leanings until the 1930s with the arrival of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Further left leanings were cemented in with Lyndon B. Johnson’s support for the Civil Rights Movement but, even then the party fought against adopting a socialist agenda and remained true to a liberal/ religious tradition first started in the early days of the twentieth century.

By the 1960s, progressives had fused parts of cultural liberalism with economic left-leaning traditions, as well as drawing robustly on Keynesian economics, left-wing populism, and democratic socialism, particularly through Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. While there are differences between the historical progressivism of Johnson’s era and today’s progressive movement, both share a belief that free markets lead to economic inequalities and must be aggressively regulated with broad economic and social rights legislation to protect the working class.

Antisemitism/ Anti-Zionism in the Democratic Party

The emergence of antisemitism in the Democratic party goes back to the late 1960s, largely driven by ideological shifts within the New Left. During this period, segments of the movement began to adopt an increasingly anti-Zionist platform, which at times bled into overt antisemitism. Following the 1967 war, a segment of the Left in the Democratic party shifted away from their historical support for the relatively new state of Israel and instead framed the country as a colonialist power. This rhetoric frequently crossed the line from criticism of Israeli government policy into antisemitic tropes, such as accusing Jewish supporters of dual loyalty

By the early 1970’s deep fractures were visible, forcing many to navigate a worrying wedge between anti-Zionism and antisemitism so, by the 1980s, the division lines were so heavily blurred that in 1984, Senator Jesse Jackson, while standing as a Democratic presidential candidate caused significant controversy by referring to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown."

More recently, there have been a number of cases of Holocaust inversion within the party  and, in particular, we have seen how, during the 2014 Gaza War, the party leadership often accused Israel of carrying out “genocidal attacks” on Arabs it confined in, what they termed:  “its Gaza concentration camp” (you can read more on how progressives, aided by Bernie Sanders and others fought for recognition of Palestine here - Left-Wing Antisemitism in the United States: Past and Present | INSS )

The extent of racism against Jews became fully visible during House votes on resolutions condemning antisemitism. In December 2023, over 100 Democrat representatives voted "present" or "no" on a GOP-led resolution formally equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

All this led many, including blogger John Podhoretz to argue “If I’d told you in 2015 that the focal point of antisemitic sentiment in the U.S. in 2026 would be inside the Democratic Party, you would have thought I was insane. Hell, I would have thought I was insane, and I’d spent decades warning about creeping anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment on the left.” (You can read the full article here - Why Antisemitism Is a Bigger Problem on the Left )

The Labour party

The sad truth of both the Labour party and the trade union movement is their history of hatred against Jews goes back to before the party was even founded. In 1900, the Trade Union Congress, which played an instrumental part in founding the Labour party, passed a resolution arguing the Boer War was being fought “to secure the gold fields of South Africa for cosmopolitan Jews, most of whom had no patriotism and no country”. A claim later shown to be completely preposterous.

Nonetheless, the British Labour Party was created in 1900 under its original name of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) and officially adopted the name "Labour Party" in 1906. Its key founding members included Keir Hardie (elected Chairman) and Ramsay MacDonald (elected Secretary). Other early members included antisemites, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, who joined the fledgling party in 1914.

Right from its birth the Labour party and trade union movement relied on antisemitic tropes associating new immigrant Jewish worker with undesirable living conditions and parasitical finance legitimising calls for controls to reduce Jewish immigration. In 1889, the TUC was arguing “it was the duty of the trades to keep the matter of Jewish migration under close consideration”.

But it was founder, Keir Hardy who was the most outspoken Labour antisemite, even as early as the Boer war when he argued Jewish financial houses were part of a secretive imperialist cabal promoting the war. Later, when referring to one of London’s wealthiest areas, he attacked “men living in Park Lane, some of whom are unable to speak the English tongue” who were enriching themselves – he was, of course referring to Jews.

The Labour Leader newspaper, of which Hardie was both editor and publisher, exhibited even more rabidly antisemitic language. “Wherever there is trouble in Europe,” he wrote, “wherever rumours of war circulate and men’s minds are distraught with fear of change and calamity, you may be sure that a hook-nosed Rothschild is at his games somewhere near the region of the disturbances.”

Henry Hyndman, blamed "Jewish capitalists" for starting the Boer War

Ian Hermon, once argued the roots of Labour antisemitism stem from a “populist pursuit of power, bigotry, ignorance or a twisted understanding of history and socialist ideals.”

Despite a deeply rooted history of anti-Jewish feeling many early socialists fought vociferously to achieve the Zionist ideal of a Jewish state. But antisemitism has never been far from the surface and with the likes of Beatrice Webb describing Zionism as hypocritical nonsense, it established roots that many years later, Corbyn was able to reach out and use.

 Of course, those on the left argued their comments were not antisemitic, but legitimate opposition to Israeli government policy and actions. The evidence demonstrated a very different view:

1. Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor was suspended from the Labour party after saying Hitler had supported Zionism in the 1930s – The EHRC found “Ken Livingstone’s comments were unwanted conduct related to Jewish ethnicity, which, whether viewed individually or together with other relevant acts of Labour Party agents, had the effect of harassing Labour Party members”;
2.  Naz Shah, the ex-Labour MP, urged her supporters to vote in an online poll about Israeli military action and claimed "the Jews are rallying" to skew the results;
3. Again Naz Shah, in a 2014 Facebook graphic showed the outline of Israel superimposed over the United States with the headline "Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict – Relocate Israel into United States" and the comment "Problem solved";
4. Chris Williamson signed and shared an online petition supporting jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, who was accused of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Later, he booked a room in Parliament for a screening of a film about Jackie Walker, a party activist suspended over alleged antisemitic comments.
5. Councillor Pat Bromley was reported to the Labour Party over allegedly antisemitic Facebook posts, suspended but then reinstated into the party.

While the exact number of upheld complaints in the Labour Party remains unknown, disciplinary reports indicate hundreds of accusations were upheld, resulting in sanctions ranging from formal warnings to expulsions.

 

Political Comment

I find it interesting the way people argue both the Democratic party and the UK Labour Party are socialist, when all evidence demonstrates they are nothing of the sort. The Democratic party may be left leaning but firstly, they have no formal ties to the trade union movement, and secondly, they maintain an adherence to market driven economic solutions over nationalisation. There are many other distinctions, but in short, they bear none of the markers associated with a socialist political party.

The UK Labour party is an interesting case and if you look at the original Clause lV of its constitution as written by Sidney Webb, it would be reasonable to argue its socialist origins:

"To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”

However, all this changed in April 1995 when the party rejected nationalisation and rewrote the clause to argue how Labour now:

“… believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.”

In effect, the Labour Party walked away from its socialist roots.

Furthermore, the essence of socialism rejects all forms of racism and encourages an internationalist perspective – and with a history of antisemitism in both parties it is difficult to argue the Labour party or the Democratic party are socialist.

It seems the political right are simply using the term as an unsubstantiated term of abuse with little basis in reality. In this respect it is a very unhealthy way to deal with political differences and implies ta lack of political education suggesting the political right lack a credible understanding of political ideology.

It makes me fear for our political future.