‘I’ll fight anti-Semitism in honour of my late father’

THE Brexit Secretary yesterday pledged to fight ‘anti-Semitism and racism until my dying breath’ in honour of his late father as he condemned Labour as a ‘stain on Britain’.

In a highly personal conference speech, Dominic Raab described how his Jewish refugee father Peter, then six, came to Britain in 193 after Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia.

While his grandparents and most of his relatives were ‘systematically murdered’ because of their religion, Mr Raab Snr fled and built a life in Britain, working in Marks and Spencer, and married his mother Jean, a ‘Church of England girl from Bromley’.

Mr Raab won a standing ovation after he pledged to honour his father’s memory ‘by fighting the scourge of anti-Semitism and racism until my last breath’.

And he turned his fire on the Labour leadership, saying: ‘None of us can rest until Corbyn, McDonnell and their extremist gang have been driven back to the margins where they belong.’

Mr Raab told his moving personal story in his first speech as a Cabinet Minister. He told how ‘one Jewish family arrived in England with a little boy called Peter’ in 193 .

‘That little boy grew up knowing that his grandmother, grandfather, most of his relatives, the loved ones left behind, had been systematically murdered for no other reason than that they were Jews.

‘That little boy was my father. And I will honour his memory by fighting the scourge of anti-semitism and racism until my last breath.’

Under Mr Corbyn, he said Leftwing extremists had taken over Labour and allowed anti-Semitism to flourish. He said: ‘They are using all the tools in the extremist armoury – intimidation, fanaticism, scapegoating, especially against Jews. That a once great mainstream party would stoop so low is a stain on Britain.’