Fury as Labour official hits out at Jewish MP who quit
A LABOUR official was condemned yesterday for responding to the resignation of a Jewish MP by dismissing her claims about antiSemitism and accusing her of whipping up ‘panic’.
Dame Louise Ellman, 73, quit the party on Wednesday night, saying that Jeremy Corbyn was ‘not fit’ to be prime minister.
The Liverpool Riverside MP, a party member for 55 years, said in a letter that she had been ‘deeply troubled’ by the ‘growth of anti-Semitism’ in Labour.
‘The overwhelming majority of the Jewish community is fearful of what a Corbyn government might mean for Britain’s Jews,’ she wrote. ‘I share those concerns.’
Dame Louise, whose resignation was reported in later editions of yesterday’s Daily Mail, is the second female Jewish MP to quit the party over antiSemitism this year after Luciana Berger left in February.
But while many Labour MPs expressed sadness at her departure, one member of the party’s ruling body launched an attack.
Lara McNeill, youth representative on the National Executive Committee, wrote on Twitter: ‘How can you think that the phrase “what a Corbyn government might mean for Britain’s Jews” is a proportionate response and doesn’t simply whip up panic amongst many?’
Responding to Miss McNeill’s criticism, Karen Pollock, of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: ‘ Absolutely disgusting. Sadly demonstrative of the huge problem the party has.’