Corbyn denounces ‘vile’ anti-Semitism
JEREMY CORBYN has said Labour does not tolerate anti-Semitism “in any form whatsoever” after the Chief Rabbi warned his failure to tackle the issue made him unfit to be prime minister.
The Labour leader insisted anti-Jewish racism was “vile and wrong” and that the party had a “rapid and effective system” for dealing with complaints.
But in a speech to launch Labour’s race and faith manifesto in north London, he made no direct mention of the comments by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
Instead it was left to the Labour peer Lord Dubs – who came to Britain in the 1930s as a child refugee fleeing the Nazis – to say he believed the attack had been “unjustified and unfair”.
Writing in The Times, Rabbi Mirvis said Labour’s handling of the issue, which has dogged the party under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, was “incompatible” with British values. He said the overwhelming majority of Britain’s Jews were “gripped with anxiety” ahead of the General Election on December 12, warning “the very soul of our nation is at stake”.
His comments were seized on by Prime
Minister Boris Johnson, who said Mr Corbyn’s inability to stamp out the “virus” of anti-Semitism in Labour represented a “failure of leadership”.
Mr Corbyn was greeted with shouts of “racist” by demonstrators as he arrived at the launch venue in Tottenham.
A series of posters on vans parked outside read “Keep anti-Semitism out of Downing Street” and “A home for Holocaust denial and terrorist supporters”.
In his speech, Mr Corbyn described antiSemitism as “an evil within our society” which had led to the Holocaust.
“There is no place whatsoever for antiSemitism in any shape or form or in any place whatsoever in modern Britain, and under a Labour government it will not be tolerated in any form whatsoever,” he said.
Later, in response to journalists’ questions, he said that as party leader he had introduced new disciplinary procedures which meant those who committed antiSemitic acts were “brought to book” and, if necessary, expelled from the party or suspended. He offered to meet with faith leaders, including the Chief Rabbi, to discuss their concerns.
“Be absolutely clear of this assurance from me – no community will be at risk because of their identity, their faith, their ethnicity or their language,” he said.
His comments appeared unlikely to quell the political firestorm unleashed by Rabbi Mirvis’s intervention, which threatened to knock Labour’s General Election campaigning off track. In his article, Rabbi Mirvis dismissed Labour’s claims to be doing everything it could to deal with anti-Semitism as a “mendacious fiction”.
He received high-profile backing from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who said his “unprecedented intervention” reflected the “deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews”.