I'm linking this because he's successfully articulated a lot of my own discomfort about the way that this discussion has gone. I really hope everyone reads this in full before immediately starting to type. I think there's something in this argument for everyone, regardless of where you actually came down on Loach individually. Twitter thread here. Here's the thread in full (emphasis mine).

Now that the initial clamour has died down (a bit), gonna attempt putting some thoughts on the expulsion of Ken Loach down in a bit more detail. I oppose it. Supporters of the expulsion have focused on Loach’s undeniably dodgy track record on antisemitism, especially his directing of the play ‘Perdition’ in 1987, an antisemitic revisioning of Holocaust history written by someone formed politically by the toxic WRP. But he wasn’t expelled for having directed a crap antisemitic play in 1987, nor for his bizarre 2017 remarks about “all of history being up for debate” in response to a question about Holocaust denial. Nor was he expelled for having himself once been WRP-adjacent. None of those would be grounds for summary expulsion in my view either, but in any case, it’s moot, as that’s not why he was expelled. He was “auto-excluded” for his “association” with a “proscribed group”, Labour Against the Witch-Hunt. “Auto-exclusion”, with no right of appeal, for “association” with “proscribed groups” is an affront to due process. What does “association” mean? Could you be “auto-excluded” for speaking at a meeting, even if you were critical? For liking a Facebook page? Or what? But the Labour left has really shot itself in the foot by basing its opposition to expulsion on hagiographical, fawning defences of Loach, stressing how good his films are (as if that’s relevant here?!) and painting him as completely unimpeachable and beyond reproach. That basically makes the issue a kind of “referendum on Loach” for most Labour members. If you think he’s great (i.e., if you don’t have any problem with the crap things in his record), you oppose the expulsion. If you feel you don’t want to defend that record, you support it. It doesn’t have to be like that. The response could have been: “Whatever you think of Loach - and many of us are critical of him too - it’s dangerous to allow the leadership this kind of summary power. What happens when a group you’re ‘associated’ with is proscribed?” Many might think, “well, I’ll never be in that position.” But it’s far from inconceivable that, in a PR-focused drive to clean up the party’s optics, there are much wider proscriptions, or renewed invocation of Rule 2.I.4.B, which could be used to exclude almost anyone.

A member of the Party who joins and/or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member, subject to the provisions of Chapter 6.1.2 below of the disciplinary rules.

At the same time as it’s auto-excluding KL, what’s being done to educate against antisemitism, or any other reactionary idea present in the party? The JLM has run a couple of online training sessions, but that’s it. Expelling individuals does not deal with the problem. Ultimately, the left is going to keep getting itself in knots over these issues while it idealises and hero-worships, and until we’re able to win it to a critical understanding of antisemitism and the party as a whole will fail to improve its culture as long as it foregrounds disciplinary procedure over political education.

I believe this "Referendum on Loach" framing of the issue, in which you either think Loach did nothing wrong or being a "good socialist" counterbalances his undeniably poor record on antisemitism, is why the discussion of this issue has been so toxic. I myself am deeply uncomfortable offering him uncritical support. He's made some great films, but he's not a hero or a martyr. He's a flawed human being, who's been undeniably in the wrong some of the time. I am not willing to defend his record.

Instead, I think the response on the Left to proscription should have focused on due process and the amount of power and discretion proscription ends up ceding to the leadership and how this power is ripe for factional abuse. Instead, I fear we've walked into the trap that was set for us by accepting the framing that the views of groups like LATW are intrinsically linked with the modern socialist wing of the Labour Party.