History suggests apartheid ends not through appeals to conscience alone but through sustained economic and political pressure, says HUGH LANNING
THE publication of the EHRC report on “anti-semitism in the Labour Party” was a seismic event in the history of the party. Despite its undoubted political impact, it contributed little to anyone’s understanding of how the party works, how anti-semitism manifests itself in contemporary Britain or how to combat it or any other form of identity-based hatred.
Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) published a series of commentaries on the shortcomings of the report but also promised an in-depth appraisal of it. That appraisal is now published by Verso as a free e-book How the EHRC Got It So Wrong: anti-semitism and the Labour Party.
As Geoffrey Bindman says in his foreword: “Instead of responding by setting up an inquiry into the way the party was handling, or mishandling, complaints, the commission saddled itself with the needless task of finding illegal conduct; not by those who made the offending statements but by the party itself.
As antisemitism grows, the labour movement must recommit to defence of minorities while navigating the complexities of Gaza and global politics, argues NICK WRIGHT
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
It is only trade union power at work that will materially improve the lot of working people as a class but without sector-wide collective bargaining and a right to take sympathetic strike action, we are hamstrung in the fight to tilt back the balance of power, argues ADRIAN WEIR


