(Singing) When the socialist Jeremy Corbyn became the leader
of the Labour Party in Britain in 2015 and mounted a grassroots campaign in 2017 to become the
British Prime Minister, the ruling corporate elites along with the war industry panicked.
They conspired with the Israel lobby to mount a vicious campaign of character assassination
against Corbyn and his supporters accusing them even if they were Jewish of antisemitism. Corbyn
has long been a champion of Palestinian rights. The media did its part to crucify Corbyn as a
bigot while Labour Party officials ruthlessly purged the party of Corbyn's supporters. Corbyn
was eventually driven out of the party in 2020 after the snap election loss against Boris
Johnson. The neutralization of Corbyn is an ominous precedent. The purging of Corbyn and
his supporters effectively emasculated the left within the Labour Party. This was its
goal. The unholy alliance between Israel, the war industry, and the Corporatist raised
the question of whether it is possible in Britain or the United States to
reform the system from within. Joining me to discuss these issues is
Asa Winstanley, an associate editor and reporter with a website, Electronic Intifada
and the author of Weaponizing Antisemitism, how the Israel Lobby brought down Jeremy Corbyn.
Let's begin with who Corbyn was and how he gained such support within the Labour Party. Because
there's a democratic process within the Labour Party whereby the members actually have the
capacity to have their voices heard in a way that is not true in either the Democratic Party
or the Republican Party in the United States. Yeah, great to be with you, Chris. Yes, that's
right, there were changes to the Labour Party's rules in 2015. The Labour Party was previously
quite undemocratic, but the rule changes made it more democratic. It made it easier for anyone
really to vote in parties internal elections. Wasn't quite as open as the Democratic and
Republican primaries in the US where anyone can essentially register to vote as a Democrat
or a Republican and then vote in the primaries. But it made it easier. It meant that not
only were there Labour Party members could vote in the elections, but also anyone
who was, you just had to pay three pounds basically to become a registered supporter of
the Labour Party. It just made it a lot easier and it gave the members a lot more say.
The percentage of the electoral college as it were within the Labour Party that went
towards members and supporters as opposed to the MPs who would choose the leader, was
increased. It meant that the left wing candidate won, which had never happened before.
We should be clear that the Labour Party under Tony Blair transformed itself into a neoliberal
version. Much like Clinton did to the Democratic Party. Labour, which traditionally had been
a political bulwark for the working class, no longer was. It was a very different
party from what it was at its inception. Yeah, it was ostensibly still a socialist party
on paper. But in reality it was the party of Tony Blair, which meant it was the party
of privatization. It was the party of war. I first got my political education during
the early '90s after the 911 attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan being involved in
the anti-war movement. To me at that time and to so many other people, the Labour Party was
the war party. It was the party that was helping George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
Jeremy Corbyn becoming the leader of the Labour Party, was the last possible thing you could
imagine. Because he was in the Labour Party, he was a Labour MP at that time. But he was on the
back benches. He was basically rebelling against his party leader. He was voting against the Iraq
war. He was voting against privatization. He was voting against dismantling of the welfare
state and things like that. He would be on our demonstrations, he'd be leading our
demonstrations. He'd be doing the speeches against the Iraq war and crucially, he was part
of the Palestine solidarity movement as well. The attacks against him began almost immediately.
You write that Corbyn had barely arrived as Labour leader in September 2015 before a senior serving
general in the British Armed Forces warned The Sunday Times that there would be a mutiny
of Corbyn were elected Prime Minister. I'm quoting. "There would be mass resignations at all
levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny,
the general said. Feelings are running very high within the armed forces." You would see a major
break in convention with some generals directly and publicly challenging Corbyn. He said the army
just wouldn't stand for it. I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul to
prevent that. That's just unbelievable. Was that the first real savo against Corbyn?
It was one of the early ones, absolutely. I think that took place before even he
became... Wait, I could see the footnote now in my book. It was just after he became
leader. It was one of the very early mutiny's. What makes Corbyn different from even someone like
Bernie Sanders, who he has a lot in common with, is that he was, and he is very much an
anti-imperialist in a lot of ways. He's very strong on foreign policy. He was sometimes known
and described as the foreign minister of the left. He voted against every war including the
war in Libya. He was somebody who was very critical even of the British security services.
He was involved in trying to campaign against apartheid South Africa at a time when the British
government was supporting apartheid South Africa. He was involved in trying to overturn miscarriages
of justice in campaigns like the Birmingham six, and which involved the collusion of security
services. He was somebody who was in the North Ireland. He was campaigning for the end of the
British occupation of the North of Ireland and he brought Jerry Adams to parliament at a time when-
We should just for our American viewers, this is the political wing of the IRA.
Right. At a time when the IRA was involved in a armed struggle against British Armed
Forces. Jeremy Corbyn was trying to negotiate an end to that armed conflict by bringing the
political wing of the IRA into parliament. I suppose what you could call the British deep
State had a long account against Jeremy Corbyn. There's a long record of British Intelligence
Services trying to spy on and infiltrate, not only left wing groups, but even left wing
MPs including Jeremy Corbyn and his allies. This was quite a very early and very
open signal by a serving British senior, serving British general. He wasn't named by
The Sunday Times, but there's no doubt about the credibility of the source because that's
exactly the sort of source that The Sunday Times has in military intelligence sources like this
and that they base most of their reporting on. It was a very clear signal that if he became Prime
Minister, there'd be steps taken against him. 2008, a snap election is expected and two
newspapers report that Corbyn has been quote, unquote "summoned" for a quote, unquote, "facts
of life talk with the head of MI 15" and a quote, unquote, "acquaintance meeting with the
head of MI-16." These are domestic and foreign intelligence agencies. But that
also was a fascinating moment when the deep state again sent signals that Corbyn
was unacceptable. Can you talk about that? Yeah. This was at a time when, as you said, it
was a time of great political instability in the country and it was a period when there
was a snap election expected at any time. Corbyn was the leader of the opposition. He was
brought in for a meeting with MI-5 and MI-6 and it was supposed to be a secret meeting. It's
supposed to be a top secret meeting. Corbyn has talked about this. He later talked about it.
He later talked about how it was very clear and it was made very clear to him and his staff that
they were not to talk about the meeting at all. That it was top secret, as you would expect
with the heads of the intelligence services. Well then they proceeded to leak those
meetings, They leaked them in the way that you described. That he was summoned for
a quote, unquote "facts of life meeting." That essentially they're trying to
put their foot down and trying to say, just in case you did become Prime Minister, you're
going to have to change all your anti-war ways and you're going to have to go along with what we say.
Corbyn then later talked about that and about how it had been leaked deliberately by them
as a way to undermine him. That they were putting out this idea that he was not fit for
office. Not fit for high office. That he was some sort of danger to national security. The
British press went along with this all along. Matt Kennard, a friend of mine, investigative
journalist for Declassified UK. He put out a really good article studying this.
That he found 34 articles, I believe he put out his article in, I believe it was
2019, towards the end of 2019, and he looked at all of the reporting against Corbyn.
He found 34 articles that had been openly sourced by MI-5 and MI-6. The domestic and
international, effectively Britain's FBI and CIA. That 34 of these articles had been sourced
openly by MI-5, MI-6, and the military. In these articles, they're openly stating according
to military sources or according to intelligence sources, and these articles all portrayed
Corbyn as a threat to quote, unquote, "national security." That's what they were doing openly.
Very clearly within the national media, sending out these very clear signals against Corbyn. We
can only imagine what they were doing secretly. I want to talk about the US because this is from a
leaked audio recording obtained by the Washington Post. Then CIA director Mike Pompeo in a private
meeting with the Israel lobby, said that the US government could stage its own intervention
to stop Corbyn from becoming Prime Minister. This is the quote from Pompeo. "It could be that
Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected." Pompeo said, "It's possible. You should
know we won't wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best.
It's too risky and too important and too hard once it's already happened." You even have the US
government making in private, threats that they will prevent Corbyn from becoming Prime Minister.
Yeah. It's pretty crazy. It's so reminiscent of things like Operation Gladio and the CIA
intervention in the Italian elections after the Second World War. It's pretty crazy stuff.
Again, this is what they were doing fairly openly. Yes, this meeting was in private, but it
made its way into the Washington Post. Let's talk about the weaponization of
antisemitism. Which they used very effectively to destroy Corbyn and also to purge the party. What
they went after were leftists within the party. The irony is that people they purged were in many
cases or several cases, actually Jewish. 2018, three Pro-Israel, British Jewish newspapers
publish identical front page editorials claiming that a Corbyn led government posed quote, "an
existential threat to Jewish life in this country" due to the quote, "carbonite contempt for Jews
and Israel." You had clearly the forces, the intelligent forces, the military, the corporatist
opposed to Corbyn. But the public truncheon that was used to bring him down was antisemitism.
That's what you do such a good job of chronicling in your book. Explain how the process worked.
It was really devastating. It was a really effective campaign. You have to hand it to
the Israel lobby. They did it. They did it quite successfully. The main way they
did it was to target Corby's movement. His secret of his success was that he was an
insurgent candidate for Prime Minister. That was his superpower, was that he had hundreds of
thousands of people joining the Labour Party or rejoining the Labour Party. Probably many people
had previously left during the Tony Blair years. Who again, as you mentioned, was someone who was
very much of the same sort of tendency as Bill Clinton. This so-called third way where we're
not conservatives, but we're not socialists either. We're a third way. A lot of these
grassroots activists have left the party. In that period, because they were opposed to his
policies of privatization, his policies of war, but also just because of the lack of democracy
within the party, within the Labour Party. It was really hollowed out during the Tony Blair years.
It was really centralized in many ways. The Jeremy Corbyn era led to renewed hope that
there could be democratization of the party. That there would be a new mass movement
bringing hope really to the country. Bringing hope to working class. Bringing hope
to these popular movements against racism, against war and so forth. The Labour Party
membership had decreased so much over the years, and now it's decreasing again. But in the Corbyn
years, it went up to over half a million people. It became the largest political party in
Western Europe. It was absolutely huge. It was approaching 600,000 at one point. Then
what happened was, this weapon of antisemitism became such a useful tool for the right. As
you state, I think it's important to note that it wasn't only the Israel lobby, it was all
these forces working together. The whole of the British establishment press, the whole of the
corporate press and the British establishment in general was united against Corbyn.
But the unique weapon, the most powerful weapon against Corbyn was this weaponized antisemitism
where essentially manufactured and fabricated forms of, or exaggerated forms of antisemitism
were brought up and misportrayed in this way. Where first of all, they tried attacking Corbyn
himself. That didn't work so much at first because Corbyn has this long record of being
an anti-racist. That record includes acting against antisemitism, against real
antisemitism, which does exist from the right. That wasn't so effective at first. It later on
became effective. But what then became really devastating was it was a really useful tool to
divide the movement. These 200,000 people or more that joined the party just essentially to vote for
Corbyn and to bring in something to change to the Labour Party, they were picked off one by one. His
most prominent supporters within the party were attacked as anti-Semites falsely. Ken Livingston,
for example, the former mayor of London, a Labour left-winger and rebel in his own right.
Who had ended up having to run against Labour. He did so successfully in the Tony Blair era because
like Corbyn, he was very much a gad flight to Tony Blair. He achieved many things in power as mayor
in London. He brought in all these left-wing policies. He was somebody who was in the '80s,
was involved in local government in London and supporting anti-racist causes and a supporter
of the gay community at a time when it was quite unpopular in the country. When things
that are now considered very mainstream. Despite his long record, he was attacked as an
antisemite because he was saying there was all these headlines about how Corbyn Corbyn's movement
was antisemitic. It was essentially all an attack on his record of solidarity with Palestinians,
which was always misportrayed and smeared as antisemitism. Which is done all the time by
Israel and it's supporters. As we're filming this, it's going on against Roger Waters, the founder
of Pink Floyd. They're smearing his show as if it's antisemitic. Corbyn's supporters were
essentially one by one picked off in this way, and eventually in the end they got him.
Let's talk about the role of Israel. Because as you point out in the book, you have
these front groups in Britain purporting to represent British Jews with extremely close
ties to the embassy. Some of those individuals actually came out of the embassy itself.
Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, becomes involved also in the smears against
Corbyn. Let's talk about Israel's role in this. This is really important because there was actual
involvement of the state of Israel itself. We saw, for example, when we talk about the Israel
lobby, what do we mean? Well, it's not one monolithic entity, as you know very well, Chris.
It's a a network, a diffused network of different organizations which work together. They work in
coordination with each other for the most part. Occasionally they fall out with each other. You
get 10 things like J Street, which it was supposed to be a more liberal Zionist organization,
but is ultimately a Israel lobbying group. Then you get APAC, which is nowadays
very openly sort of Trumpist. Occasionally they will have falling out and they
will be competing against each other. But by and large, these organizations work together
and crucially most of them coordinate their activities with the state of Israel itself. With
the Israeli embassy or with entities within the Israeli government itself, ministries within
the Israeli government itself. There was one particular ministry which is now been folded.
Supposedly disbanded, but in reality folded into other Israeli ministries called
the Minister of Strategic Affairs. Which was essentially another spy agency, really was
what it was. It was a semi covert entity stacked with former military intelligence and other forms
of Israeli spies. This was the entity which was really involved in attacking Corbyn. Several of
these Israel lobby groups are in Britain, are Israel lobby groups that consider
themselves to be liberal Zionist or even supposedly left-wing Zionists.
Several of them are actually within the Labour Party itself. Most notably, and obviously you've
got Labour Friends. The way that Israel lobby works in the UK is a little bit different from the
US. There's no exact equivalent of APAC. There are some groups that want to be the equivalent
of APAC, but they're not as big. But the main way the lobbying is done is through groups
within the two or three main political parties. There's a conservative friends of
Israel, which obviously is the ruling party. There's a Labour Friends, and there's
even liberal Democrat friends of Israel. Liberal Democrat being the third party, which
is sometimes in coalition government. These groups are incredibly close to the
Israeli embassy. The Al Jazeera, the Arab, the Qatari satellite channel did a really
important, and I cover this in a chapter of the book, and I know you are very familiar
with it as well in your reporting, Chris. The Al Jazeera's investigative unit did a really
important undercover documentary series in 2017 about this. Their reporters infiltrated
the British Israel lobby, especially Labour Friends. What they found was, in
public Labour Friends says, "Oh, well, we're just normal Labour members who we
happen to support the state of Israel, the apartheid state of Israel." Although
obviously they deny it's an apartheid state. But in reality, what the undercover journalists
found was that they actually work very, very closely with the Israeli embassy. The
Labour Friends is essentially a front group. One of their staff members whose name is
Michael Rubin, who's now the director, who's then a junior employee of Labour Friends of
Israel, but is now the leader of Labour Friends. He was caught on camera in that investigation
saying that they speak to the Israeli embassy quote, unquote "most days." We like to
have Labour Friends as a separate identity to the Israeli embassy. Because it helps
us to get into places where we wouldn't necessarily be able to do as Labour Friends
of Israeli embassy was the way he put it. I only have four minutes left, and I want to talk
about the role of the media. We should also be clear that Al Jazeera did a similar undercover
operation in the United States on the power of the Israel lobby in the United States, which
Israel managed to block broadcast. It never was broadcast on Al Jazeera. A pirated copy was
up on Electronic Intifada. I hope it still is, because everyone should watch it. It's quite
disturbing. But let's talk about the role of the media, because they amplified this smear of
antisemitism. Every time they interviewed Corbyn, you have examples in the book, they just
hammered him and hammered him and hammered him. Even times not even letting him answer.
But they were a major part in this character assassination, or they played a major part.
That's right. Yeah. I opened the book with a really quite good example, early example of that
by Channel four News. Now, channel four news is well known in the UK as the Liberal TV channel,
as the Liberal News program. It doesn't have that much advertising on it. It's subsidized by the
state in a similar way to the BBC, although it doesn't quite have the budget of the BBC. But it's
well known as a liberal news program. But they were really adamantly against Corbyn. They were
really quite vociferous against him. The liberal media in general was really his worst enemy.
The Guardian was awful. It was. Even their news reporting
was just very, very anti Corbyn. Never mind the op-eds, the opinion pieces
and so forth. The Guardian was really, really strongly opposed to him. It just showed
that when it came down to it, they were really more about their advertisers.
What happens? He's essentially his own supporters are purged
and right down to the lowest levels. Initially, you're right, the senior leadership supported
him is purged. But local groups are purged from Labour. Really ruthlessly down to the grassroots.
He's bereft of support within the party, in essence Labour, by the time he challenges
Boris Johnson. By that time Labour has gutted or destroyed his own campaign on purpose.
Yeah. There was a really blatant form of internal sabotage to the point where there was
Labour MPs who were really working against their own campaigns. Some of them did actually lose
their seats. But it was so important to them that Corbyn not win, not become Prime Minister, that
they'd rather lose their own seats. We saw that. There were several Labour MPs who actually left
the party and tried to start a new party, which I forget the name of. It's in the book. It was
such a forgettable project that it was very clear that it was just a sabotage project to try and
stop Corbyn winning. To the point where there was money set aside, leaked documents later showed
there was money set aside. Labour Party money to work against the Corbyn's Labour Party. It was
an internal sabotage. It was very, very extreme. The same thing happened to George McGovern,
the Democratic Party hierarchy. They again, had liberalized the rules by which candidates
could get votes or support. The same thing. They joined forces with the Republican Party to destroy
McGovern. Corbyn, of course, has now been pushed out of the Labour Party as an independent. When he
stands for reelection, he's still sitting in the House of Commons. When he stands for reelection,
he actually will be challenged by a Labour Party candidate. I want to thank the Real News Network
and its production team, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley, David Hebden, and Kayla Rivara.
You can find me@chrishedges.substack.com.
