Well the EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party has just come out. From what I have seen it is damning. This has to be one of the worst days in the Party's history, despite being expected. It's how they react that determines how this will be viewed in retrospect but so far the signs are good in that regard. I don't think you can underestimate what a massive row this will cause. Speaking as an outside observer looking in, one of the most striking things to me about radical left politics in the Labour Party, trades unions and activist groups more generally over the last few years has been the decline of old-fashioned socialism, mostly about economics, a critique of the capitalist economic order and an an articulation of what are seen as working class or producer interests as opposed to those of capital owners.
All that has become a kind of minor accompaniment. Instead there's a quite manic focus on other things. One is identity but the other, even more important, is a kind of anti-imperialism that sees the West and particularly the US and Israel, as the source of all the world's ills. (Everyone else gets a pass - I'm not a fan of a lot of US foreign policy myself but to claim that it's somehow exceptionally bad is ridiculous). It's a perspective that you can trace back all the way to the 1960s - it's concentrated Chomsky basically. Thing is for many on the left that has become a definitional feature of their politics and so a radical anti-Zionism (that denies that Israel has any legitimacy as a state) has become central to their political identity.
So this is going to cause huge ructions. Time to lay in some popcorn and enjoy the fireworks. Twitter must be having a total meltdown right now. In the longer term this will be crucial in determining the direction the Labour Party takes because it will have a big effect on the kind of membership it has. As I say the very first signs are good but there's a long way to go yet.