NIALL FERGUSON: The resurfacing of anti-Semitism in Britain.

Last week’s controversy is of course not really about the history of 1930s Germany, but about the much more recent history of the British Labour Party. Since the late 1960s — the era when both Ken Livingstone and the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined the party — a significant element of the British left has aligned itself with the Palestine Liberation Organization and other groups hostile to the state of Israel. Close to half a century of anti-Zionist rhetoric lies behind Livingstone’s complaint that “there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticizes Israeli policy as anti-Semitic.”

Yet Livingstone and Corbyn are no longer the devious “entryists” of their early militant years. Rather, they have become the useful idiots of an entirely new generation of Labour infiltrators.

Remember: Livingstone’s comments were made in defense of two 2014 Facebook posts by Naseem (“Naz”) Shah, who became the Labour Party member of Parliament for the Bradford West constituency last year. One stated: “Solution for Israel-Palestine conflict — relocate Israel into United States. Problem solved.” The other explicitly equated “Apartheid Israel” with Hitler’s Germany.

Now, ask yourself why the MP for Bradford West was systematically using the Palestinian issue to mobilize voters.

It is not that Naz Shah is herself an Islamist. If she were, I doubt she would appear with her head uncovered in the House of Commons. It is just that bashing Israel appears to be an effective way of mobilizing Muslim voters, who account for roughly half the electorate in Bradford West.

Read the whole thing.

And try not to dwell on the fact that a place named “Bradford West” has a half-Islamic electorate.