| Justin Schlosberg: For all the nuanced language of the long-awaited Forde report, there is one key finding that lays bare a carefully constructed lie. It was a lie that implicated not just the right of the Labour party but a great swathe of Britain's political and media class. And it was a lie that underpinned much of the dominant narrative leading up to, during and since Labour's disastrous performance in the 2019 general election. This lie was not that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn had a real and serious problem with antisemitism. The Forde Report is right to call out those on the left who sought to deny or downplay the existence of anti-Jewish prejudice within the party. Of course it's true that the vast majority of Labour's half a million members under Corbyn were not implicated in antisemitism complaints. And it's true – as the Forde Report acknowledges – that there was some double counting of complaints and several based on people who turned out not to be Labour members. But suggestions that allegations of antisemitism were nothing more than a smokescreen, smear job or conspiracy were always wrong: both morally and factually. The Forde report is equally clear that the antisemitism issue was indeed weaponised by Corbyn's ideological opponents. The problem for them, however, was that the existence of antisemitism within the party – even in some of the shocking and pernicious forms exposed in a leaked report – proved on its own insufficient to topple the leadership. This was especially clear following the root and branch reforms introduced by Corbyn's ally Jennie Formby after she took over as Labour's general secretary in April 2018. In order to fatally undermine the Corbyn project, it had to be shown that Corbyn himself, or at least his office, was somehow complicit in the problem: that the leadership was the problem. | 
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