A mural that helped to bring down Jeremy Corbyn

In the 2017 elections, the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn did much better than expected, in spite of being denounced by the established British media for its radical anti-capitalist agenda. To turn the tables, the media then shifted their attack from this political programme to Corbyn’s alleged blindness towards antisemitic manifestations. The resulting loss of sympathy with voters cost Labour dearly in the 2019 elections and brought his leadership to an end. As key evidence for his moral failure to tackle the antisemitism issue, the media cited, in a barrage of pieces, his 2012 comments on a short lived London mural. Was it anti-capitalist or antisemitic? In the absence of any serious dialogue between contrary views, the judgment passed reasserted the underlying media agenda.