Someone who might usually support the Labour party, and traditionally considers themselves 'left wing' (as I have done), are often of the conviction, for ideological reasons I'll not expand upon here, that 'their side' is the side of moral worth and all opposition is therefore morally less worthy. Thus when confronted with the evidence of anti-Semitism in the Labour party, the very common instinctive reaction is to point to 'Islamophobia' in the Tory party. Afterall, (the reasoning goes) this sounds like an equivalent kind of prejudice that must be as rampant as anti-Semitism in the Labour party, if it is not even worse. Although there may be apparent issues with prejudices in all the large political organizations, including the Conservative party, this 'whataboutary' comparison of Labour anti-Semitism and Tory 'Islamophobia' is a false equivalence fallacy. I've looked into some of the details and tried to briefly outline them here.
