Corbyn is tas in anti-Semitic online rants at Hodge
DAME Margaret Hodge has faced a stream of vile online abuse from acolytes of Jeremy Corbyn, the Mail can reveal.
The Jewish Labour MP was called a ‘stupid bitch’, ‘traitor’ and ‘Blairite scab’ by members of the Facebook group called We Support Jeremy Corbyn after she criticised the party leader.
In a Sky interview, Dame Margaret warned that the ‘cult of Corbynism’ had allowed anti-Semitic attitudes to emerge in the party. Supporters of Mr Corbyn then used Facebook to spout hatred – including sickening anti-Semitic slurs.
One wrote: ‘She is clearly in the pocket of the Zionists’ while another said: ‘I wonder how many pieces of silver Israel paid her to spread her lies’.
There were also calls for Dame Margaret to be removed as a Labour MP at the next election. One wrote: ‘The woman is unhinged, she needs to be slung out of the party’. Another called for her to be ‘deselected and confined to history’.
Other comments included: ‘F*** off to Israel’. Dame Margaret, 74, was called a ‘disgusting vile monster’, a ‘scumbag’, an ‘old hag’ in the private group in messages seen by the Mail.
The group, which has 68,000 members, is the largest pro-Corbyn page on the site.
The comments were placed under a link to the Sky interview with Dame Margaret, in which the veteran MP described how being subjected to an investigation by her party reminded her of her family’s escape from Nazism. The former minister, who lost family in the Holocaust, had faced disciplinary action after calling Mr Corbyn an anti-Semite during a heated exchange in the Commons. It was later dropped after a backlash from MPs.
She said learning she was under investigation meant she knew ‘what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s’. ‘It felt almost as if they were coming for me,’ she told Sky News. On Twitter, Corbyn supporters ridiculed the comparison.
Ben Seller, an aide to shadow minister Laura Pidcock, posted: ‘The other day I had to queue for a good five minutes for a poor-quality mince pie and a Bovril at a local non-league ground. It was a bit like
being rounded up by Pinochet’s forces and getting a bullet through the temple in Chile’s national stadium back in ‘73.’
But Labour MP Anna Turley defended Dame Margaret. ‘The Holocaust didn’t happen in a vacuum,’ she tweeted.
‘It happened because ordinary people turned a blind eye to racism & antiSemitism.’ Holocaust Educational Trust chief executive Karen Pollock said: ‘Rather than question the motive of those highlighting the problem, how about questioning the motives of those who defend the indefensible?’
Labour officials said the Facebook page was not linked to the party. A party spokesman said Labour is committed to ‘tackling anti-Semitism in all its forms’.