Methodology
Data Sources
The data in this project comes mainly from two sources.
The first is from press reports, be they national or local.
The second is anti-racism campaigners, this can be in the forms of blogs on specific individuals, blogs mentioning individuals or tweets highlighting racism.
Many of the press reports are actually based on the work of activists that were tweeted previously. Where this is the case generally the press report will be given precedence as it is less likely to be removed at some point in the future.
Sadly occasionally anti-racism accounts are suspended due to malicious mass reporting, in these cases if alternative data sources cannot be found for an individual they will be removed.
Location
Locations are found in multiple ways, but they are not intended to be definitive. And they are not actual known addresses of the person.
Usually location data comes from either press reports or public social media information. Press reports often give a local constiuency for example, in such cases a part of the constiuency is chosen at random, but normally the largest town in rural ones. And then smaller areas for any subsequent points in the area. The same applies for County level locations.
Where the information is at the City/Town level people are assigned a street/area purely to ensure map points are not put on top of each other. With the first person in a city/town generally getting a centre area, and other points being spaced out around that. As an example many peoples location is given merely as "London" so they will be assigned a street somewhere in London. To repeat these are entirely for aesthetic purposes and are not residential addresses. At no point are house numbers used.
Where no location information could be found members have been placed in the Southfields area of London. Where Labour HQ is
Dates
Dates are the date of press reports, blogs or tweets etc exposing the antisemitism. Not the date the person posted something antisemitic.
The main reason for this is ease of tracking the data. Many articles for example will have multiple examples of someones antisemitism. Which to pick? The first? The most recent? The date of "discovery" makes things more consistent.
Sometimes people have been listed with an initial date of discovery by an anti-racism campaigner but then a press report has come out, in these cases the press report takes precedence.
For many people the data comes from the most recent press report I was able to find, this is not to say there were not others prior, in many cases there are, it's just the simplest way to track the data as I need a spreadsheet for each year.
Thus the map does not show "antisemitism occurring" in a given year, but "antisemitism reported" in a given year.
Roles
Where a person sits in the labour party can be a very complex issue.
Of course many people have no role and are thus listed as "members". But many have had roles, do have roles, have more than one role at different "levels" of the party etc
In general people are listed in the roll as listed in any press reports. This tends to be the position they had at the time. However members who were previously in a role that aren't now tend to be highlighted that they used to have a role, "Former" is used to denote this both on the map and in most press reports.
Where people have multiple roles the highest level role is listed, though as the Labour party is something of an organisational giant this can be tricky with people with multiple roles at the same sort of "level", in which case the one they are most likely to be known as publicly or the one most people would recognise is listed.
In a few cases peoples current role rather than the role at the time of press reports, or previous highest office in the party are listed. So for example a former MEP who is now an MP would be listed as an MP even though the press reports might list them as an MEP. A former cabinet minister who is now a Lord would be listed as a Lord etc.
The goal is to show that antisemitism is prevalent at all levels in the labour party, but like locations roles are only a rough guide, they are not meant to be definitive or a reflection of everyones current "power" in the party.
Eligibility
To be included on the map a person must have been a member of the Labour party.
If a person leaves or is expelled from the party any further antisemitism is not included, leaving or expulsion is not a reason to remove someone off the map as this map looks at incidents over time and someones leaving does not mean that incident didn't happen and nor does it erase the fact they were members of the labour party.
Similarly just because labours internal processes may have "let someone off" does not mean they are not included on the map. This map is not looking at what the Labour Party decide is punishable antisemitism.
As a general rule the IHRA definition of antisemitism is used when deciding if someone should be included on the map. Usually this is clear for all to see, occasionally expert advice is used and if there is doubt they are not included.
In many cases there are multiple sources or stories about someone, only one can be used for the map but in most cases more evidence is available on those included.
Finally this project makes no judgement on if someone is an antisemite or not, only that they have done or said things which have been reported in the press as such, or called out as such by antisemitism campaigners. Such judgements are for others to make, this project merely seeks to highlight some of the available evidence.