This is a documentary video about the campaign, unfortunately successful, to falsely portray Corbyn as anti-semitic. The campaign was initiated when Corbyn was elected leader of the British Labour Party: it came to a head in 2019 during the British General Election. The Labour Party lost that election to the Conservative Party. This was another example of how the British media, led by what is known as ‘The Tabloid Press’, orchestrated a campaign against the Labour Party and/or its leadership. The earliest example is the forged  ‘Zinoviev Letter’ in 1924. More recent examples include the ‘Winter of Discontent’ in 1979 and then the ‘turn out the lights’ in 1992. Predictably the right-wing Blair governments did not suffer such campaigns. However, the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn saw one of the most virulent and fraudulent media campaigns in the history of the Labour Party.

And its distinguishing feature was  that the campaign was joined wholeheartedly by institutions such as the BBC and The Guardian newspaper. The other distinguishing feature was the use of the dubious ‘anti-semitic’  trope. The role and stimulus of that issue in British Politics is best understood by watching the excellent investigation in Ala Jazeera’s  ‘The Lobby‘.

This video documentary produced by Platform Films and directed by Chris Reeves studies how the victimisation of Corbyn was achieved with examples of the media disinformation . The documentary includes contributions by socialists, Labour Party members, Trade Unionists, sociologists and a Labour Member of Parliament. It is a sorry example of a contemporary issue, ‘fake news’.

The screening in Leeds will also include a Q & A with Naomi Wimborne Idrissa from the Jewish Voice for Labour. As well as supporting the film and its exhibition she has written a critical discussion of the documentary, ‘Reasons to See . . . ‘. She points out both the strengths and the weaknesses of this documentary.

The Leeds screening is one of a number of such around Britain. However, as the poster points out, the documentary has itself suffered censorship, not only at Glastonbury but also by the Head Office of UNITE The Union. If your area is one that suffers this blight you could view the earlier Witch Hunt which deals with much the same issues in relation to ordinary Labour Party members.

I rather expect that this post, like earlier ones, will suffer at least one of the epithets directed at Jeremy Corbyn.  So I thought it would be helpful to conclude with one of the comments by Naomi;

“Through interviews with a number of knowledgeable Corbyn supporters, most of them Jewish and most now expelled from the party, The Big Lie explains how antisemitism, properly understood as hostility towards Jews because they are Jews, was re-defined to encompass criticism of the state of Israel.”