Labour’s anti-Semitism problem is the story of a forgotten people: the estimated 60,000 British Jews who voted for Labour in 2015, most of whom did not do so in 2019.
Jeremy Corbyn’s allies are fond of pointing out that even in the epochal defeat of 2019, he polled more votes than Ed Miliband in 2015 and did better still than Gordon Brown in 2010. The vagaries of the first-past-the-post system and the changing nature of Labour support meant that in 2019 a greater vote share than 2010 or 2015 yielded a Labour defeat of a scale not seen since 1935. This is true, and Corbyn’s electoral success, particularly in 2017, cannot simply be wished away or ignored.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
