Labour frontbenchers defend Jeremy Corbyn over anti-semitic book row
3 min read
Senior Labour frontbenchers have defended Jeremy Corbyn over his praise for a book which suggested banks and the media were controlled by Jews.
The Labour leader wrote a foreword to a 2011 reissue of JA Hobson's 'Imperialism: A Study', which argues that finance in Europe was controlled "by men of a single and peculiar race, who have behind them many centuries of financial experience".
Mr Corbyn described the economist's influential 1902 book as a "great tome" - despite the fact it highlights well-known anti-semitic conspiracy theories about the Rothschild banking family.
Shadow Cabinet minister Barry Gardiner said while the writer should be condemned for expressions of anti-Jewish racism, it would be wrong to “expunge” a book which is regarded as “one of the seminal works on imperialism”.
He also cited an address by Tony Blair, where the former Labour prime minister is said to have viewed Hobson as “the first liberal intellectual to come over to the Labour Party”.
“Nobody said that Tony Blair, in praising Hobson or saying he was the founding father of New Labour, thought he was anti-semitic at all,” the Shadow International Trade Secretary told BBC’s Radio 5Live.
“He’s been quoted extensively, this is one of the sort of key figures in intellectual history. Was he a person of his time? Yes, he was.
“He is a historical figure, who was an intellectual, who understood the transition from imperialism into a new society and insofar as that book is an important book, does it contain the anti-semitism of its period? Yes, it does.
“Do we expunge a book like that from the historical record and say nobody should ever read it? No, of course they should.
“But they should also pick out that, look, this is where the guy was of his time and was anti-semitic and totally wrong.”
Meanwhile Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey said Mr Corbyn was writing in the context of Hobson being “a political thinker of his time” and that MPs from both Labour and the Conservatives have cited his work.
“He in no way sanctions any anti-Semitic comments that are made by any individual never mind this particular individual,” she told Sky News.
“He was commenting in a wider political sense as I understand, I haven't read the foreword myself, or indeed the book.
“This individual was a political thinker of his time, whether you agreed with his opinion or not.
“Labour and Conservative colleagues have commented on him whether that's negatively or positively taking certain parts of his thinking into consideration.”
In his foreword to the 2011 edition, Mr Corbyn flags the author's "correct and prescient" passages "railing against the commercial interests that fuel the role of the popular press with tales of imperial might".
He also highlight's the author's "brilliant" analysis of Western imperialism at the turn of the 20th century and notes that it was "very controversial at the time".
The comments were brought to light in a Times column by Conservative peer Daniel Finkelstein.
A Labour spokesperson said earlier that Mr Corbyn "completely rejects the anti-semitic elements" of the author's analysis.
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