Gary Younge (Pictures of dead migrants need to inspire more than sympathy, 29 June) rightly draws our attention to the way in which language is misused to “create a dehumanised political culture”. He is right to call on us all to challenge this. It was therefore shocking to see Marina Hyde (Of all the hills to die on, why on earth has Labour chosen Chris Williamson?, 29 June) use “slithered” to describe Chris Williamson’s return as a Labour MP.
Steve Quinn
Salford
• In her piece, Marina Hyde hasn’t written what Williamson actually said: “The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say, I think our party is partly responsible for that. In my opinion we have backed off far too much; we have given too much ground; we’ve been too apologetic. We’ve done more to address the scourge of antisemitism than any other party.” The party is in a state of fear that legitimate criticisms of Israel’s government will cause it to be called antisemitic, and if it defends Williamson it will unfairly be given this most insulting of names.
Cath Ryde
Bolton
• It’s hard to tell from Michael Segalov’s accusation of “a litany of unacceptable behaviour” by Chris Williamson if the MP is in the dock for an opinion he expressed in Sheffield (shared incidentally by many rank-and-file Labour members), if he’s “guilty” of something else, or if the attack on him is simply part of the anti-Corbyn bandwagon (theguardian.com, 27 June). As a lifelong opponent of racism, I know that I’m not alone in being highly dubious about the regular claims in the media of Labour’s alleged antisemitism problem.
Joe McCarthy
Dublin
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