One of the first things I learned as an undergrad was that historians of the hard left tend to have a completely different approach to facts to almost anyone else practicing the discipline.
For them, prior to recruitment, facts have to be interrogated for ideological soundness. Indeed facts are never viewed as primary material, more like the fuel for existing theoretical models and worldviews, which are always in charge of centrally-planning the argument and weeding out any interfering, 'free thinking' information.
You can witness this approach in its peak form by reading any Marxist account of the French Revolution, where blame for the Terror - aka the bad bit that needs to be explained away or at least contained - is usually pinned on reactionary forces within France and beyond, especially somehow on us Brits.
Hard-Leftists go through a phase of fact-resistant ‘ideological ‘enchantment’ where they lose track of the absurdity of some of the maneuvers they come up with to dispose of uncomfortable realities. Only later when ‘ideological disenchantment’ has started to take its toll, does honesty in historiography start to re-assert itself.
Corbyn’s Labour party is now very much in the former phase when it comes to its anti-semitism problem. And so we hear of Blairite conspiracies and all kinds of ad hominem attacks on anyone who might dare to point the finger.
In fact, just about anything except a conscientious, unfeigned confrontation with the facts.
