Shown as Kremlin stooge<\/h3>\n
The media have been only happy too to vilify<\/a> Corbyn as a Kremlin stooge and a former Soviet spy. Senior Tory Iain Duncan Smith today called<\/a> Corbyn “a Marxist whose sole purpose in life is to do real damage to the country” \u2013 a remark that, as ever went, entirely unchallenged by the BBC interviewer giving him a platform. Just imagine a Labour MP being allowed to accuse Theresa May of being a fascist whose only goal is to destroy the country.<\/p>\n But the BBC has never bothered to conceal its intense dislike of Corbyn. Its news shows have even photoshopped the Labour leader to make him look \u201cRussian\u201d \u2013 or “more Russian”, as the BBC and the rest of the media mischievously<\/a> phrased it. Those who protested were told they were reading too much into it. They needed to lighten up and not take themselves so seriously.<\/p>\n Senior Conservatives, including the former defence secretary Michael Fallon, have regularly portrayed<\/a> Corbyn as a threat to national security, especially over concerns about the Trident nuclear missile system. Many senior members of Corbyn’s own party have echoed such smears \u2013 all amplified, of course, by the media.<\/p>\n Those who suggested that the government and media needed to engage with Corbyn’s well-grounded doubts about the safety of nuclear weapons, or the economics and practicalities of the Trident programme, were derided \u2013 like Corbyn \u2013 as \u201cpacifists\u201d and \u201ctraitors\u201d.<\/p>\n And the mood music to these political clashes was the quite literal demonisation of Corbyn by the red-top dailies. Most famously, the Daily Mail photoshopped the Labour leader as Dracula, above the headline: \u201cLabour must KILL vampire Jezza.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Corbyn became the target of another sustained smear campaign. It was claimed that this lifelong, very public anti-racism activist \u2013 who over decades had forged strong ties to sections of the British Jewish community, despite being a steadfast critic of Israel \u2013 was a secret anti-semite or, at best, providing succour to anti-semites as they overran the Labour party.<\/p>\n Was there any factual basis or evidence for these claims? No. But the British public was assured by rightwing Jews like the Board of Deputies and by \u201cleftwing\u201d Jewish supporters of Israel like Jonathan Freedland that evidence wasn\u2019t necessary, that they had a sixth sense for these things.<\/p>\n Corbyn’s supporters were told that they should not question the wildly inflammatory and evidence-free denunciations of Corbyn and the wider Labour membership for a supposed “institutional anti-semitism” \u2013 and, with a satisfyingly circular logic, that to do so was itself proof of anti-semitism.<\/p>\n The weaponisation of anti-semitism through spin by Corbyn\u2019s political enemies, including the Blairite faction of the parliamentary Labour party, was and is a dangerous assault on public life, one that has very obviously degraded Britain\u2019s political culture.<\/p>\n The smear was meant to override the membership’s wishes and make Corbyn too toxic to lead Labour.<\/p>\n It has also politicised the anti-semitism allegation, weakening it for a section of the population, and irresponsibly inflaming fears among other sections. It has deflected attention from the very real threat of a rising tide of rightwing racism, both Islamophobia and the kind of anti-semitism that relates to Jews, not Israel.<\/p>\n Then, there was the serving British general who was given a platform by the Sunday Times \u2013 anonymously, of course \u2013 to accuse<\/a> Corbyn of being a threat to British national security. The general warned that the army\u2019s senior command would never allow Corbyn near Number 10. They would launch a coup first.<\/p>\n But no one in the corporate media or the political establishment thought the interview worthy of much attention, or demanded an investigation to find out which general had threatened to overturn the democratic will of the people. The story was quickly dropped down the memory hole. Those who sought to draw attention to it were told to move on, that there was nothing to see.<\/p>\n And now, this week, footage<\/a> has emerged showing British soldiers \u2013 apparently taking their commanders’ expressed wishes more seriously than the media \u2013 using a poster of Corbyn as target practice out in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n Do the media and politicians really care about any of this? Are they concerned, let alone as outraged as they were at Soubry’s earlier discomfort at the verbal abuse she faced? Do they understand the seriousness of this threat to British political life, to the safety of the leader of the opposition, they themselves have stoked?<\/p>\n The signs are still far from reassuring. Theresa May did not think it worth using prime minister\u2019s questions to condemn the video, to send an unequivocal message that Britain’s political choices would never be decided by violence. No one else in the chamber apparently thought to raise the matter either.<\/p>\n Sky News even used the footage to question<\/a> yet again Corbyn\u2019s \u201csecurity credentials\u201d, as though the soldiers might thereby have grounds for treating him as a legitimate target.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/jezza.jpg\")
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Too toxic to lead Labour<\/h3>\n
Questioning ‘security credentials’<\/h3>\n