Lipman: There’s an anti-Semite at head of Labour
MAUREEN Lipman joined hundreds of protesters outside Labour’s HQ yesterday demanding that leader Jeremy Corbyn be held to account for failing to tackle antiSemitism in his party.
The Jewish actress, a former Labour supporter, said she could no longer back it because it has an ‘anti-Semite at its head’.
She attacked the Labour leader for his ‘appalling behaviour’ following revelations that he defended an anti-Semitic mural and was a member of five Facebook groups that hosted anti-Semitic posts.
Last month Mr Corbyn said he ‘utterly condemns’ antiSemitism and apologised for the pain caused by ‘pockets of anti-Semitism’ in Labour.
But addressing the demonstration in London, Miss Lipman, 71, called on Mr Corbyn to quit, and said: ‘Everything points to the fact we have an anti-Semite at the head of the Labour Party.’
She said Mr Corbyn’s decision to attend a recent meal organised by far-Left group Jewdas – which has called Israel ‘a steaming pile of sewage’ – was ‘the absolute cherry on the top of his behaviour’. She added: ‘It was organised on the wrong night, with the wrong people, behaving as we have come to expect him to behave.’
When the Labour leader was named by speakers, there were boos and shouts of ‘Corbyn out’, ‘racists’ and ‘shame’.
The protest was organised by the Campaign Against AntiSemitism, which has filed a complaint with Labour accusing Mr Corbyn of bringing the party into disrepute, and demanding disciplinary action.
Chairman Gideon Falter said: ‘Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour has become a safe haven for racists. He is at home among them, having spent his political career seeking out and giving succour to Holocaust deniers, genocidal anti-Semitic terrorist groups and a litany of Jew-haters.’
Miss Lipman, whose speech was applauded, said she identified with a placard reading ‘Corbyn made me a Tory’. She added: ‘ People think he is benign. He is standing with elements who are against everything that we stand for. Today makes me feel like crying, why should we have to do this? We are citizens, why should we have to fight anti-Semitism?’
The protest came as Labour’s education spokesman Angela Rayner, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show she was ‘frustrated’ at the slow pace of the party’s steps to tackle anti-Semitism.
Housing minister Dominic Raab yesterday accused Mr Corbyn of a ‘wholesale lack of moral clarity’ over antiSemitism. He said: ‘I don’t think anyone could say that through his acts, or his failure to act, Jeremy Corbyn has done anything to assuage the concerns of people that Labour takes a soft approach to anti-Semitism.’