n jonathan Cook
Labour’s next leader has already betrayed the left In declaring their support for Zionism, the three contenders for Jeremy Corbyn’s crown are offering only the cynical politics of old
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n recent years the British Labour party has grown rapidly to become one of the largest political movement in Europe, numbering more than half a million members, many of them young people who had previously turned their backs on national politics. The reason was simple: a new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, had shown that it was possible to rise to the top of a major party without being forced to sacrifice one’s principles along the way and become just another machine politician. But as Corbyn prepares to step down after a devastating election defeat, statements by the three contenders for his crown – Lisa Nandy, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer – suggest that his efforts to reinvent Labour as a mass, grassroots movement are quickly unravelling. A politics of cynicism – dressed only loosely in progressive garb – has returned to replace Corbyn’s popular democratic socialism. Leadership candidates are once again carefully cultivating their image and opinions – along with their hairstyles, clothes and accents – to satisfy the orthodoxies
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they fear will be rigidly enforced by a billionaire-owned media and party bureaucrats. Labour’s lengthy voting procedure for a new leader began last month with the winner to be announced in early April. But whoever takes over the party reins, the most likely outcome will be a revival of deep disillusionment with British politics on the left.
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he low-point of the candidates’ campaigning, and their betrayal of the movement that propelled Corbyn on to the national stage, came at a “hustings” jointly organised by the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel. These two party organisations are cheerleaders for Israel, even as it prepares to annex much of the West Bank, supported by the Trump administration, in an attempt to crush any hope of a Palestinian state ever being established. Asked if they were Zionists, two of the candidates – Nandy, the climate change secretary, and Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary, who is widely touted as representing “continuity Cor-
bynism” – declared they indeed were. The third candidate – Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, and the man favoured by the party machine – stated only slightly less emphatically that he supported Zionism. Nandy’s response was particularly baffling. She is the current chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, while the other two are supporters of the group. It is exceedingly difficult to find a Palestinian Zionist. And yet the Palestinian cause is now officially represented in the Labour parliamentary party by someone who has declared herself a Zionist. This is no small matter. For good reason, Zionism is rarely defined beyond the vaguest sentiment about creating a safe haven for Jews following the Nazi genocide committed in Europe. Zionism’s political implications are little understood or analysed, even by many who subscribe to it. By the standards of modern politics, it is an extremist ideology. For decades western states have preferred to promote an inclusive, civic nationalism that embraces people for where they
