As if mainstream media is suddenly so concerned about antisemitism when it has attacked 'the other' for years

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

People know Jeremy Corbyn’s long record of fighting racism (Getty)

Newspapers, radio stations and television studios that have provided the likes of UK’s Nigel Farage, Katie Hopkins and Tommy Robinson with a regular platform from which to broadcast their views have worked together to associate parliament’s foremost anti-racist politician with “antisemitism”.

We are now asked to accept that the British mass media which has vilified immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers on a daily basis for decades are now suddenly “concerned” about antisemitism in society and that the anti-racist Corbyn is an antisemite.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so disgusting. I can only imagine the distress this must have caused Corbyn.

But I think those smearing him have overdone it. Propaganda is like a conjuring trick. It is only really effective if you can’t see how it’s done.

For example, when the Daily Mail – a newspaper which stood with Hitler and Mosley’s Blackshirts in the 1930s, a paper that only three years ago ran a cartoon comparing refugees to vermin – declares that Corbyn is “worse than the BNP” even the most unaware must smell a rat.

People know Jeremy Corbyn’s long record of fighting racism. They also know the British mass media is racist to the core and it lies.

Sasha Simic
London N16

Do not weaponise antisemitism – it is insulting and makes our fight against real antisemitism harder

I am a Holocaust child survivor. Because of my background – and because of a very special request by my mother – I have been exposing and fighting antisemitism all my life.

I have not come across any antisemitism in the Labour Party. However, I see non-balanced media reports that increase fear of antisemitism in the Jewish community.

The 26 March Parliament Square rally (organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews) against alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party was accompanied by a rally of Jewish people who are opposed to false antisemitism charges.

As far as I know, the media ignored and continues to ignore the other side of the coin. Whatever happened to balanced journalism?

Weaponising “antisemitism” is a deeply upsetting insult to the six million who were murdered.

It is also an insult to those who are concerned about the resurgence of REAL antisemitism across the EU and thus are determined to expose and, if necessary, fight it.

Agnes Kory
London NW3

Young men need real hope for the future to stop knife crime

The increase in knife crime has created a worrying situation: senseless killings of young lives caught up in gang warfare, caused by youth unemployment. This is a sorry state of affairs where youth in the community have no sports, youth centres or learning music facilities to occupy their time in a constructive way.

The Office for National Statistics has said knife offences rose by 23 per cent in the capital – meaning it now has a higher murder rate than New York.

Sadiq Khan has given assurances that he is taking youth violence and knife crime in London “extremely seriously”. He also outlined proposals to tackle knife crime across the capital as part of a strategy which will be published in June. Schools and communities will also have a role in knife crime prevention and early intervention.

The root cause of knife and gun crime is that young men do not have anything constructive or better to do and they see a bleak future in front of them because of racism, inequality and discrimination. These impediments have to be removed first to give these young men hope of a better life.

Baldev Sharma
Harrow

Stephen Hawking was a passionate seeker of truth

Surely it was somewhat insensitive of David Ashton to describe the Christian burial of Stephen Hawking in a Cambridge Church as the “height of hypocrisy” (Letters, 2 April)?

It is true Hawking has stated that he was an atheist. Later he was a shade less absolute, adding a qualifying thought that he just didn’t believe in a “personal god”. Like every great scientific genius he was a passionate seeker of truth which in its essence carries the burden of proof. But he was also a dedicated humanist with the broadest of interests and a wonderful sense of irony. I’m certain he would have found the service appropriate in its recognition of his life’s work but touching in the love that underscored all that was said.

Donald Zec
London

We are all immigrants, that is the irony

The widespread objections to immigration that are driving Brexit are a joke. Every family in the UK originated, at some point in time, abroad. We have a family with Greek and German blood as crowned heads! There are no native English people. Thus we have the absurd situation of people from immigrant families objecting to immigrants. Perhaps Remainers should find out where the objecting immigrants originated and send them back to their points of origin. Or, since the objectors want to keep immigrants out, they should bog off voluntarily. That would remove a lot of the immigrants they hate.

Tony Culver
Address supplied

Leave or Remain, neither of us knew what we were in for

Martyn Rees makes a point (Letters) that, due to the behaviour of “Blair, Miller, Campbell and so on”, he would change his mind from what he believes to be the best course of action for the UK in respect of EU membership. I fear that this rationale is precisely what led a lot of people to vote Leave in the referendum. A kind of “a rich person isn’t going to tell me what to do” mentality and I fully understand that.

However, the options we were given did little to accurately qualify what our options were. Admittedly we had a fair idea of what remain would mean, after all we have been in the EU for a number of years, but there were so many promises made if we were to vote leave, like £350m to the NHS, that perhaps many people were blinkered into voting that way.

Surely a democratic society is one that offers people a further choice once we have a definitive idea of what either route presents?

John Schluter
Guildford