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There was understandable outrage yesterday when it emerged that Jeremy Corbyn wrote a foreword for the 2011 reissue of JA Hobson’s 1902 work, Imperialism: A Study. The book contains explicit

anti-Semitic and racist tropes, and yet Corbyn never once mentions this. He fails to caveat his gushing praise, nor factor it into his analysis. So far, so typical. It’s also a

fascinatingly telling piece of writing that reveals much about the man and his worldview. It doesn’t necessarily tell us anything new, but it emphasises why Corbyn should never have been

anything more than an eccentric and obscure backbench MP. He is passionately anti-Western, believes firmly in simplistic and sweeping analyses of history, and buys into anti-capitalist

theories soaked in anti-Semitism. And his failure to address anti-Semitism is nothing less than a stain on his character. The foreword contains several criticisms of Hobson’s theories and

the racism of the age it was written in, so his failure to reference the anti-Semitism evident in the book is stark. Most damningly of all, Hobson’s critique of imperialism is built on a

foundation of anti-Semitism and is key to his worldview, expressed in several of his works. In Imperialism, Hobson wrote that: “men of a single and peculiar race, who have behind them many

centuries of financial experience … are in a unique position to control the policy of nations.” He asks if any European state would dare contemplate a great war, “if the house of Rothschild

and its connections set their face against it?” Corbyn’s foreword begins with the line “J. A. Hobson wrote his great tome at a different age”, surely the perfect introduction to a foreword

placing the author in context, but no. The Labour leader heaps praise on the book, with “prescient” becoming something of a buzzword. He also calls it “very powerful”, “brilliant” and

“correct”. Corbyn really engages with the book, assessing specific elements of the text, and so never to acknowledge the racism is unforgivable. Within the foreword he even criticises racist

tropes used against African and Asian people: _“Hobson’s railing against the commercial interests that fuel the role of the popular press with tales of imperial might, that then lead on to

racist caricatures of African and Asian peoples, was both correct and prescient. The way in which the British press portrayed Ghandi in the 1930s, or Kenyatta in the 1950s or, indeed,

Argentina’s soldiers and sailors in the 1980s shows the tricks have not changed dramatically.”_ How could he reference racist caricatures like this without discussing the racist caricatures

of Jews within the text he his wholeheartedly praising? It’s damning, especially as Hobson’s “railing against the commercial interests” includes tropes such as “this little group of

financial kings” and these “cosmopolitan men”, in other words, Jews. He relates the analysis to modern times, criticising the “deliberate media and political attempts to denigrate whole

peoples in the run up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” This is within a book that denigrates whole peoples very clearly without a peep out of Corbyn. He critiques chapter VII of the

book because he finds it “strange” that Hobson’s thesis within it is “at variance” with his general analysis against empire and “not very revolutionary”… but nothing strange about his

anti-Semitism, apparently. We do not owe Jeremy Corbyn the benefit of doubt. He defended a mural depicting hook-nosed Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of the poor. He said two

Jewish critics didn’t understand “English irony”. He leads a Party infected with anti-Semitism and has failed to stamp it out. He chooses to engage with sycophantic groups who deny the

problem rather than mainstream Jewish community and Labour supporting groups. Given all this it’s impossible to forgive that he was willing to write a hugely complimentary foreword for a

book advancing antisemitic conspiracy theories. The only conclusions one can reach is that Corbyn is blind to anti-Semitism, doesn’t care about it, or is himself an anti-Semite. All should

disqualify him from Office, but beyond that his worldview in general is deeply concerning, dangerously simplistic and ill befitting of a prime minister. Essentially, all the worlds ills are

due to Western capitalism and imperialism. Everything else is viewed and distorted by this filter. He rails against the United States, global capitalism and ‘mostly US-based corporations’

while portraying the Soviet Union positively and implying that the Soviet empire was morally better. His worldview allows him to read a book containing tropes that Adolf Hitler later adopted

to blame Jews for Germany’s loss of WWI and for all of society’s ills and completely gloss over the importance of Jewish persecution in his analysis of history. Even in his defence he

damned himself; he condemned Hobson’s language while still praising his “ideas” and “analysis” Anti-Semitism was central to Hobson’s ideas and analysis that imperialism was driven by Jewish

finance and that Jews held global power and could coordinate war and peace. Corbyn claims that imperialism “led directly” to the Holocaust, shockingly ignoring the fact that Nazi

anti-Semitism featured much of the same “analysis” and “ideas”  as Hobson expressed and Corbyn described as “prescient” and “correct”. The foreword is the product of a poorly educated and

deeply dogmatic individual. He simply isn’t qualified to offer worthy analysis of 20th century history, hence why he has produced something so tediously blinkered and myopic. It is yet more

evidence of why he is not fit to lead the Labour Party or this country.