On Wednesday, 16th December, Paul Iganski and Abe Sweiry attended the Winter Reception of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism in the Terrace Pavilion at the Houses of Parliament. Attendees heard speeches from John Mann MP, the chair of the Group, Commander Dean Haydon from the Metropolitan Police Service and Baroness Williams of Trafford, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government.
The event ended a significant year for the APPG against antisemitism, in which it published its second major inquiry into antisemitism. John Mann MP instigated the report into the lessons that could be learned from the upsurge of anti-Jewish incidents associated with last year’s conflict in Gaza.
Professor Iganski and Dr Sweiry, as part of a team from Lancaster University’s ESRC Centre for Corpus Approaches to Social Science (CASS), were commissioned by the APPG to provide a rapid-response analysis of antisemitism on Twitter during the conflict to inform the Inquiry’s report.
In highlighting the findings from CASS in the Inquiry report, the APPG called the analysis of Tweets ‘a unique piece of research which provides valuable and important early indications of trends that occurred during the summer’. [1]
The report recommended further research of the kind offered by CASS stating that ‘the importance of this research should not be underestimated. It helps identify some of the themes in discourse and with time could help to detect patterns of antisemitism and therefore to better direct resources to combat it’. [2]
In the intervening months between the report’s publication and the Winter reception, a progress review of the implementation of the APPG’s recommendations noted that ‘the CPS has pledged to review its guidance relating to communications sent via social media and review the handling of such cases within CPS Areas.’ [3]
[1] All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism (APPG) (2015) Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, London: APPG, page 51.
[2] All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism (APPG) (2015) Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism, London: APPG, page 53.
[3] All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism (APPG) (2015) Implementation of the All-Party Parliamentary Report into Antisemitism: feedback and responses, London: APPG, page 4.