Anti- Semitism hit Labour vote
THE poisonous row over antiSemitism damaged support for Labour, senior party figures admitted last night.
The Labour vote slumped in areas with large Jewish communities including the Sedgley ward in Bury, Greater Manchester, and the Eastwood constituency in Scotland.
Backbench Labour MP John Mann said: “It is clear that the Jewish vote, which for generations in families has been Labour, has gone against Labour.
“This is a huge challenge. It’s going to define Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. He has to lead from the front and get on top of the problem.”
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell also admitted the row “set us back”.
Ken Livingstone yesterday denied his explosive comments about Adolf Hitler damaged the party’s election results.
The former London mayor, who was suspended from the party over the comments, instead blamed “far-Right” Labour MPs for stoking up division in the party and claimed they used the anti- Semitism row to attempt to damage Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
Shock
Mr Livingstone said last week that Hitler supported Zionism in the 1930s “before he went mad” and killed six million Jews.
Questioned on the fallout from his comments, he said: “The simple fact is, so many people have gone on to the internet now, they have seen Joseph Finkelstein’s brilliant inter- view. A lot of people, it’s a shock to discover there had been that relationship between a small section of the Jewish community in Germany and Adolf Hitler but it’s historically true.
“And the simple reality of all of that is we shouldn’t be ashamed about some of the mistakes our government has made in the past and I don’t think the people of Israel need to be ashamed of what happened 80 years ago.”
The row erupted after social media comments from Labour MP Nas Shah calling for the transportation of Israeli Jews to the US were exposed.
Mr Livingstone, who has clashed with Mr Mann on the issue, added: “If you go back before the Blairites started whipping up all the antiSemitism stuff, Labour was about five points ahead in the polls.”