Corbyn refuses to apologise
Jeremy Corbyn has refused to apologise to British Jews after the nation’s chief rabbi put the Labour Party’s antiSemitism crisis at the centre of the election campaign.
The Labour leader said Ephraim Mirvis was ‘‘not right’’ to state in an article for The Times that Labour’s claim to have investigated every case of anti-Semitism was a ‘‘mendacious fiction’’.
Corbyn insisted he had improved the party’s disciplinary processes, and said he was looking forward to talking with Mirvis to ‘‘hear why he would say such a thing’’.
Invited four times by the BBC’s Andrew Neil in an interview yesterday to apologise to British Jews, Corbyn each time declined. Instead, he said he wanted to ensure that ‘‘our society will be safe for people of all faiths’’.
He added that racism was ‘‘a total poison’’ and said: ‘‘I want to work with every community, to make sure it is eliminated. That is what my whole life has been about.’’
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said the refusal to apologise was shameful.
Corbyn spoke after Mirvis, the spiritual leader of Britain’s Orthodox Jewish synagogues, warned that ‘‘a new poison’’ had taken hold in Labour, ‘‘sanctioned from the very top’’, and questioned the Labour leader’s fitness for high office. He warned that the ‘‘very soul of our nation is at stake’’ in the election.
The chief rabbi was backed by Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh leaders yesterday.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was swift to express solidarity, echoing the concerns over antiSemitism but without singling out
Labour or Corbyn.
The Muslim Council of Britain called anti-Semitism in politics ‘‘unacceptable’’ – and also turned its fire on the Conservative Party, accusing it of ‘‘tolerating Islamophobia [and] allowing it to fester in society’’. The council suggested that Muslims should also follow Mirvis’ call to ‘‘vote with their conscience’’ and not vote for the Tories.
The Hindu Council UK said it supported the chief rabbi’s ‘‘comments on [the] Labour Party having become a racist party under Jeremy Corbyn’’, citing a resolution passed at the party conference criticising India’s actions in Kashmir.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon, a Sikh cross-bench peer, said Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists also faced a rise in discrimination, saying this was often ‘‘left on the side’’ of the focus on antiSemitism and Islamophobia.
Senior Labour figures were divided yesterday over how to respond to the criticism. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, said: ‘‘I know the chief rabbi, I have met him many times. And I admire and respect him. But he is wrong.’’
She added: ‘‘Everybody now accepts that we took too long to deal with it.
‘‘That we weren’t strong enough about it. That is now accepted.’’
Thornberry said she did not think Corbyn was himself anti-Semitic.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton, a Labour peer and former lord chancellor, said the chief rabbi’s criticism was ‘‘deserved’’ and that there were ‘‘a lot of cases that have not been properly investigated’’.
He accused Corbyn of being insensitive to ‘‘legitimate concerns’’ after the Labour leader invited three candidates caught up in the anti-Semitism row to share a platform with him as he launched the party’s race and faith manifesto in London yesterday.
Afzal Khan, the candidate for Manchester Gorton, shared a Facebook post in 2015 which referred to an ‘‘Israel-British-Swiss-Rothschilds crime syndicate’’. Apsana Begum, standing in Poplar and Limehouse, said Tel Aviv university was ‘‘offering scholarships to students for spreading Zionist propaganda’’. Claudia Webbe, standing in Leicester East, defended Ken Livingstone after the former London mayor likened a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.
Corbyn told the crowd at the event: ‘‘There is no place whatsoever for antiSemitism in our society, our country or my party, and there never will be.’’