WITHIN the canon of beliefs of the authentic leftie there are several that ought to be considered inviolable. Underpinning all is the fundamental principle that considers all men and women to be equal and that each must have the opportunity to thrive unhindered by the encroachments of unearned privilege, military might or financial predation. It holds that each of us has gifts and that a just and enlightened state will recognise these and utilise them for the common good and at a fair rate of pay. In an affluent country like the UK the minimum wage ought to be sufficient to ensure a degree of material comfort and an expectation of robust health. The right to withdraw your gifts when these basic obligations are not being met is a sacred one and permits those who have little power to curb the baser instincts of those who have much.

Flowing from this are other principles: that a child has a right to an education and healthcare that is not based on the ability of his family to pay for it and that the innate humanity of the person will be upheld and protected from forces that would seek to erode these. This doesn’t mean that a degree of capitalism or financial speculation isn’t permitted but it does hold that the profit motive can never take precedence over the basic human right to dignity and respect.

Other beliefs in the catechism of the leftie are a little more uncertain and can be subject to the influences of a person’s religious faith or ethnic custom. Indeed the right to practise a religious faith at all and to be permitted to express your ethnic and cultural identity evoke a civilised, enlightened and just society that is at peace with itself. Nor should those rights rest on the mere numbers of those who identify as such.

If you were to unravel the DNA of my own belief structure you would see the ribbons of socialism and Christianity curling round each other as they rise and fall together. Each informs and nourishes the other. Within this too are some beliefs which I suppose would tilt me against those of others in the wider Labour movement. Three immediately spring to mind: my support for an independent Scotland; my belief that an unborn child is fully human and thus deserving of protection under the European Convention on Human Rights and my deep affection for the Jewish faith. It’s this faith, after all that underpins everything else. My saviour was born an orthodox Jew, lived as an orthodox Jew and died as one. Without the faith that Jesus lived there would be no Christianity and no salvation.

Labour, though, is a broad church and while I’ve enjoyed some robust debates on these issues with leftie chums I’ve never felt assailed to the point where I would consider leaving the movement. In any case, they are all subordinate to something bigger and most eloquently articulated in recent years by Jeremy Corbyn and his proclamation “for the many not the few”. It‘s best encapsulated by this line from a speech he made at a manufacturing conference in February. “For a generation, instead of finance serving industry, politicians have served finance. We’ve seen where that ends: the productive economy, our public services and people’s lives being held hostage by a small number of too-big-to-fail banks and casino financial institutions.”

My love for Judaism has not blinded me to the actions of the Israeli government in its treatment of Palestinians living on the West Bank. In recent times this has begun once more to be characterised by callousness with the building of illegal settlements in defiance of international law and the recent legislation that effectively makes Palestinians second-class citizens.

Only a fool though would deny though, that some on the left have slaked their malevolent anti-Semitism under the cover of disgust at the actions of the Israeli Government. Part of this is the suggestion that any equivalence between modern Israeli policies and the horrors of the Holocaust is unacceptable. The Nazis engaged in a truly evil project to exterminate an entire race and to wipe all traces of it from the face of the earth. It was fuelled by centuries of fear, suspicion and resentment that relied on our basest human behaviour for its oxygen; something that sought to dehumanise this people by mocking their physical appearance; their psyche; their beliefs and their behaviour. In every country where they appeared they were criminalised; good for nothing but making money (we banned them from doing anything else) and when they succeeded at that we dehumanised them further still. Any attempt to understand the conduct of the modern Israeli state can’t begin until you also try to understand what it must feel like to live with such a legacy and to be surrounded by countries whose stated aim is your ultimate annihilation.

I believe Mr Corbyn to be sincere in his aim of eliminating all traces of anti-Semitism from his party and I believe he has made much progress in this. I also accept that he was unwise in choosing to share platforms with people possessing darker motives. Yet, what can we say about the sincerity of those currently trying to destroy him for these? Just as some on the left have used the Palestinian conflict to camouflage their anti-Semitism so too have many on the right deployed a wholly manufactured and insincere horror of anti-Semitism to pursue their own agenda. This carries an iniquity all of its own. When did their purported hatred of anti-Semitism start? Does it extend to the curious pastime of holding Nazi-themed fancy dress parties as favoured by generations of our Royal family and their aristocratic fluffers? Does it include making common cause with far right demagogues who march under the swastika and favour solutions to immigration issues that recall the horrors of the Third Reich? Or does it begin and end merely with destroying a figure whose stated aim is to put an end to your centuries of unearned privileges?

Mr Corbyn still has much to do to rid his party of the anti-Semites and he could do worse than making this the main theme of his closing speech to the party’s autumn conference. In the meantime he needs no lessons from those who have only lately discovered their horror of anti-Semitism.