Morning Star: from blind loyalty to Corbyn to endorsing antisemitic conspiracy theories

Loyalty to old friends is an admirable thing, but it can be taken too far – especially in politics.

The Morning Star is nothing if not loyal towards Jeremy Corbyn, who wrote a weekly column for the paper between 2005 and 2015 and still features in its advertising and publicity material. In 2016 Corbyn defended the paper as Assad’s forces advanced towards rebel-held Aleppo and the front page headline stated: “Final liberation of Aleppo is in sight” (though he did say he disagreed with the headline).

Let us be clear about Corbyn’s surpise victory in the 2015 Labour leadership election: it represented the possibility of rebuilding the labour movement at the base, both ideologically and in organisation in workplaces and neighbourhoods. That rebuilding would have made many other things possible, including the election of a leftist Labour government led by Corbyn and the implementation and consolidation of reforms. Without that rebuilding, the “JC4PM” (“Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister”) strategy was never going to work. There was some rebuilding: the Corbyn period showed that a left-led Labour Party could be popular. It freed discussion to go beyond puzzling over what would go down well with “focus groups”, and on to what was right and necessary for the working class. But, ultimately the “JC4PM” strategy prevailed and – at its worst – it was not even a “strategy” but more of an apolitical personality cult-cum-fan club. As the main publication backing Corbyn, the Morning Star (and its masters at the Communist Party of Britain), must bear a large part of the responsibility for this, especially as at least three of Corbyn’s closest advisers (Seumas Milne, Andrew Murray and Steve Howell) came from the CPB/Morning Star ambit.

In its 10-11 June edition, the Morning Star devoted no less than eight pages to a “celebration” of Corbyn’s 40 years as an MP. There’s a chummy interview with editor Ben Chacko, Lindsey German (of the so-called ‘Stop the War Coalition’) praises Corbyn for “calling for peace in Ukraine” (ie for Ukraine to capitulate), Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn hail him as “A man of the people” and one Chelley Ryan describes how she and her friends “grew to respect, trust and even love him as a leader.” Chelley says “we were accused of being a cult with our ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ chant, scarves and badges. Frankly, we didn’t care.” David Rosenburg of the Jewish Socialists’ Group notes that Corbyn often spoke at Cable Street commemoration events: David was particularly impressed by “his no-frills persona and the ease with which he mingled with activists.”

If all this sounds like uncritical adulation that’s because it is.

Just one piece attempted to analyse why “Corbynism” eventually failed, and it’s by Andrew Murray, who formally “resigned” from the Communist Party of Britain in order to become a key member of Corbyn’s team between 2018 and 2019. Murray has written many articles and a book, all blaming the 2019 election defeat on Labour’s failure to accept Brexit (also the line taken by innumerable Morning Star editorials).

In his June 10-11 article, Murray once again blames “Remain” supporters for Corbyn’s failure: “the movement and its leadership impaled itself on the Brexit issue and ended up abandoning the successful 2017 policy of accepting the referendum decision to leave the EU in favour of giving the Remain side another crack at winning a majority before the first decision had even been implemented.”

Murray has to admit that: “Undoubtably that is what many Corbyn supporters wanted” but he’s made it clear in previous articles and his book that he thinks Corbyn should have overruled the wishes of the membership: in his Morning Star piece he argues that “most Corbyn supporters were surely much more invested in getting their leader into Downing Street to implement his agenda than in staying in the EU.”

Even if Murray is right about that, he ignores a fundamental point: in survey after survey, the reason given by voters for not backing Labour in 2019 was not Brexit … but Jeremy Corbyn himself. This may well have been, at least in part, the result of a vicious media campaign against him, but all the polling evidence is that voters had gone off Corbyn in a big way since 2017.

YouGov, for instance, conducted a survey of nearly 500 voters who’d voted Labour in 2017 but defected in 2019. The biggest reason for defection, mentioned by 35% of those surveyed, was Corbyn’s leadership.

True, Brexit was next on the list of reasons, with 19% saying it was their main reason for defecting. But even here, the story’s not quite what Murray and the Morning Star would have you believe. YouGov commented at the time: “It wasn’t just due to [Corbyn’s] position being too far towards Remain (just 3% thought that) or too far towards Leave (just 6% said this), but rather the fact that he doesn’t seem to have any position at all – making him look weak and indecisive.”

To his credit, Murray – unlike many Morning Star contributors and editorials – does not fall back on conspiracy theories about supposed ‘Zionist plots’ and, in fact explicitly rejects the idea that claims of antisemitism were concocted: “When 85 per cent of Jewish people feel there is a problem, there is a problem, no avoiding it.”

Previously (8 March 2023) in his Morning Star column (Eyes Left), Murray had written: “Even many [left MPs] who otherwise admire Corbyn’s leadership do not claim that he handled [antisemitism] well. It is no MP’s hill of choice to die on.”

In a Morning Star article (22 July 2022) about the Forde Report, Murray was even clearer: “However, I do share [Forde’s] view — rejected as it is on parts of the left — that some of Corbyn’s supporters simply denied that there was a problem with anti-semitism in the party, and that this inhibited the necessary handling of what was a genuine issue, with the result that it bedevilled Corbyn’s leadership to the end.

“I saw too much evidence of anti-semitic attitudes, sometimes inadvertent ones, to disagree with Forde on that point. The “leaked report” itself collated much of that evidence and Forde is right that its authors worked in good faith to challenge the ‘denial’ narrative.”

Murray’s frankness on that particular issue makes his participation in the film Oh, Jeremy Corbyn: the Big Lie (which does claim that allegations of antisemitism were made up and/or exaggerated as part of a ‘Zionist conspiracy’ against Corbyn) almost inexplicable. Meanwhile, the Morning Star (editorial 21 June) has described the film – without qualification – as being about “the forces that brought down the Corbyn movement”.

So, in the absence of a coherent analysis of Corbynism’s failings, the Morning Star once again falls back on a factually inaccurate fairy story about Brexit and backs antisemitic conspiracy theories.

• This is a slightly expanded version of the ‘Antidoto’ column I’ve written for the this week’s Solidarity.