Labour's Antisemitism School Story Just Met the Parents

A Bristol school cancelled a Labour MP’s visit, Labour responded by implying antisemitism instead of answering the objection. Now the parents fight back. Right, so Labour Minister Steve Reed has gone on a stage and implied a Jewish MP was blocked from visiting a school, and Keir Starmer has followed up by saying the people who stopped it will be “held to account”. A school decision that would normally sit under safeguarding and local judgement has just been dragged into national politics, with a moral label stapled to it before anyone is even allowed to hear the objection. Oh God forbid we actually hear the objection. The shortcut everyone relies on here is the same one they always reach for: say “antisemitism”, skip the facts, and treat the story as finished. That shortcut has just stopped working, because the parents have put their reasons in writing and they’re not the reasons being broadcast. So now the question isn’t whether a school did something naughty, it’s who gets to define what this story is, and who gets to be punished for not playing along. If you’ve wondered what the parents side of this story actually is, wonder no more. Right, so the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed stood on a conference stage and described a school that had refused a visit from a Jewish MP, he also told a story about some antisemitic biscuits too, so this is the level we’re working with. He did not name the school. He did not name the MP. He did not describe the objection. He did not explain what had actually happened. He relied on implication, and he relied on the audience doing the rest.