Corbyn, you’re a liar!
Leader heckled as he tells Jewish group he’s tough on anti-Semitism
JEREMY Corbyn was heckled and called a liar as he tried to persuade Jewish activists his party had ‘zero tolerance’ of anti-Semitism.
The Labour leader was accused of hating Jewish people as he delivered a speech to the Jewish Labour Movement’s Chanukah party.
He turned up at the event after claims he was not doing enough to clamp down on anti-Semitism in Labour. The issue dominated this year’s party conference, with one fringe event hearing calls for the JLM to be expelled from Labour.
At the party, Mr Corbyn told JLM members: ‘I’m here because I want the party to be strong in all areas, I want the Jewish Labour Movement to be absolutely part of and involved with the party at all levels.’
According to the Jewish Chronicle, a female heckler responded with the words: ‘But you hate us.’ Later she shouted, ‘Corbyn, you’re a liar’, before she was removed.
Earlier this week it emerged that Mr Corbyn and other Labour MPs helped launch an organisation headed by an activist who has said that Israel ‘has no right to exist’.
Ali Milani, who has also branded Jewish people stingy, hosted the party leader, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and MP Dawn Butler in Parliament on Monday night for the launch of the Labour Muslim Network.
Mr Milani has accused Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing and colonialism’ and war-mongering. Speaking at Wednesday night’s party, which was held at Labour’s headquarters in central London, Mr Corbyn said: ‘The issues of racism in our society are serious.
‘The issues of anti-Semitism are very, very serious indeed.
‘That’s why I asked Shami Chakrabarti to undertake an investigation and a report.
‘It’s why we have achieved by very broad consensus a rule change in the party which has gone through, and why we have an investigative process for any claims of anti-Semitism against anyone in the party. There is zero tolerance of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and that is how it must remain.’
A male heckler then said: ‘What about Ken?’ He was referring to Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor who was suspended from Labour after saying Hitler had supported Zionism. A year on, he has still not been expelled.
Mr Corbyn also said: ‘We have to call out people who use racist language or anti-Semitic language or any other kind of intolerance within our party.
‘Because fascism arose in Europe we had the Holocaust, the greatest tragedy in history against any one people.
‘The lesson from that has to be you don’t compromise with fascism, you don’t compromise with racism, you don’t compromise with the far-Right.’
Jeremy Newmark, chairman of the JLM, said the organisation had been ‘pilloried and attacked as traitors’ both from Labour members and people from the Jewish community ‘because the relationship between our community and party is broken’.