Corbynsceptics and Corbynites don’t agree on much, but they share a delusion

Jeremy Corbyn’s hegemony within Labour is a truth that neither side really wants to acknowledge. 

What is Labour’s anti-Semitism row really about? The party’s warring tribes can agree on the battlefield – adopting the full definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) – but they can’t even unify on what’s at stake, let alone what the resolution should be.

For Jeremy Corbyn, the battle is about foreign policy. He believes that the IHRA definition – which Labour has included in its code of conduct in a modified form – could restrict criticism of Israel. That view is shared by some in his office and inner circle, including his strategy chief Seumas Milne. Yet the reality is that the most influential foreign policy strategist in the leader’s office is not Milne – or former NUT organiser Jennifer Larbie, the nominal head of foreign policy – but Corbyn himself.

Among otherwise loyal pro-Corbyn factions, there is another view. They fundamentally see adopting the IHRA definition as reassuring British Jews of the party’s good intentions and burying the row to avoid it becoming the story of the summer. Those who hold this opinion include many MPs, staffers in the leaders’ office, senior members of the grass-roots organisation Momentum, and the prominent commentators and pro-Corbyn members of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) who liaise with the leader’s office via a WhatsApp group.

Some share Corbyn’s concerns about the possible abuse of the definition. However, they know that any ambiguities in the text – which was not written with the intention of being used to underpin regulation – can be ironed out by the NEC, on which the Labour left has a comfortable majority. So they regard it as a risk worth taking.

Who is right? After its dramatic realignment, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour now resembles a newly minted state: it has a democratic constitution but not a democratic culture. As one former party staffer – long departed from a job overseeing the Labour constitution – told me recently, their job was essentially to “find ways to use the rule book to fuck people”. The exact rules matter less than who gets to interpret them.

The ambiguities of the IHRA definition mean that a Labour Party with a different leader, NEC and general secretary could use it to remove Jeremy Corbyn and his allies, by demonstrating that their criticism of Israel as a racist state went beyond what is allowed. But the truth is that when Corbyn steps down, he will do so voluntarily and almost certainly to a successor who shares his politics. And if some shock event leads to a revival of the party’s Corbynsceptics, then their first order of business will be implementing the full definition in any case. So the current situation is irrelevant.

It’s not uncommon for disgruntled Corbynsceptics to describe his hegemony as a “nightmare”, yet his allies still behave as if his grip on power were fragile. The truth is that Corbyn’s hold on the Labour Party’s rule-making institutions is secure and his priority should now be using that hegemony to win the next election.

One person who is well aware of Corbyn’s dominance within the party is his chief of staff, Karie Murphy. She is the most influential member of a third faction, which is, again, well represented in the leader’s office and among the project’s outer circle. Murphy sees some of the complaints about anti-Semitism as a vehicle for challenging Corbyn’s authority. That is why she argued against others in the inner circle, including Momentum’s Jon Lansman, who called for an end to the disciplinary charges against Labour MPs Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin. Hodge had called Corbyn an “anti-Semite and racist”, while Austin confronted the party chair, Ian Lavery, about the issue in a hotly disputed row. (Some say that Austin shouted and swore; others, including Austin himself, deny this happened.)