Who has something to gain by talking up the idea that the row about Labour anti-semitism is a giant plot against Corbyn?
Well, many Corbynites have seized the opportunity to further beat up their mortal enemies, the Blairites – as you can see if you’re happy to face the grim pit of conspiracy theory by doing a Twitter search for the word. After all, if you have to find an excuse for a serious problem in your Party and the leadership’s incompetent handling of it, pinning the blame on internal opponents kills two birds with one stone. The twin facts that Corbyn’s grip on his party is tightening, not weakening, and that it is the Blairites who have cause to fear for their future if anyone does, don’t appear to register.
Meanwhile, some on the anti-semitic wing of the left (such as Bradford Momentum, it seems) allege that Israel is delighted – and indeed organising and funding the scandal. To quote the blogpost shared by that Momentum branch:
‘What is happening is that the millions of pounds that the Israeli government has devoted to propaganda is being spent now to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn and the new Labour leadership. They are hunting down every tweet, email etc. in order to create an atmosphere of permanent instability.’
Their motive is pretty clear – if you hate Israel, then of course any revelation that some of those on your own side are racists must be cooked up by Israel itself, trying to discredit your position.
There’s a third party here who has a distinct and separate motive for hyping up the talk of a conspiracy against the Dear Leader: George Galloway. He has been among the leading voices alleging that the story is being driven by “anti-Corbyn coup plotters”, seeking “to create conditions for overthrow of their leader”. The crisis, he says, is “entirely synthetic”, stirred up to hurt Corbyn.
He isn’t a Labour Party member – nor has the Party sought to bring him back into the fold since the revolution last September. He’s a long-standing opponent of Israel, which explains his dislike of Zionism, but what’s his specific interest in arguing that this is a conspiracy against the Labour leader?
Galloway is the politician who has lost the most from Corbyn’s rise. Since the hard left seized control of the Opposition, Labour has stolen many of his clothes (though not that hat) – the allegations of a neoliberal plot against the people, the railing against any efforts by the West to stop people like Assad or ISIS, and so on. The impact on RESPECT has been devastating: Galloway is currently floundering at zero per cent in the polls for the London Mayoral election, and has been relegated from leading star of his misguided movement to a fedora-clad sideshow, hawking for attention while a duller act performs his greatest hits act on the main stage.
Given that sorry position, it’s entirely in his interests to argue that Labour is in the grip of counter-revolutionary plotters, who are set to eject Corbyn at any moment. After all, if Labour is incapable of functioning as a vehicle for the type of politics Galloway is selling, then hard left voters should come back to him, the only pure and true voice, shouldn’t they? Corbynites eagerly sharing his conspiracy theories on the topic should think twice about whether he really has their Party’s best interests at heart.