Corbyn’s ‘head in the sand over anti-semitism’

Jeremy Corbyn has been accused by one of his own MPS of having an “ostrich strategy” to anti-semitism after Israel was compared to Nazi Germany at a fringe meeting during the Labour Party conference in Brighton. Labour activists discussed expelling Jewish groups from the party.

JEREMY CORBYN has been accused by one of his own MPS of having an “ostrich strategy” to anti-semitism as Israel was compared to Nazi Germany at a conference fringe meeting yesterday.

Wes Streeting, the Labour MP for Ilford North made the comments after Labour activists discussed expelling Jewish groups from the party in what was described as a “thinly veiled call to purge Jews from the Labour Party”.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party admitted he had seen anti-semitic tweets from party members “that would make your hair stand on end” that he said were “redolent of the Thirties”.

Mr Corbyn has faced persistent accusations that his party has an institutional problem with anti-semitism and that he has not done enough to tackle it. Yesterday, party members again attacked Israel and compared its treatment of the Palestinian territories to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews.

At a fringe event titled Free Speech on Israel, speakers called for the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) to be “kicked out” of the party and said Israel had committed “genocide” in Gaza.

However, Jeremy Newmark, chairman of the JLM, said yesterday: “It is a stark example of why conference must vote decidedly tomorrow to pass JLM’S rule change on anti-semitism. The group whose meeting provided an arena for this hate speech was allowed to advertise it on official party literature. That is far from the zero tolerance on anti-semitism that the leadership have promised.”

Jennifer Gerber, LFI director, described the calls to kick out the two groups as “beyond disgraceful”.

Mr Streeting said: “People say there is no anti-semitism problem. We see it there in black and white, we have heard it on the fringes. There are too many people in the party – including at the top – who have adopted an ostrich strategy, saying ‘this is not a problem, this is not an anti-semitism issue’.”

Asked later if this included the party leader, he said: “Yes. I am afraid so”, although he added that he did not believe Mr Corbyn was anti-semitic.

It comes as analysis of social media use among national and local election candidates suggested 61 per cent of allegedly anti-semitic posts were sent by Labour officials – eight times higher than second-placed parties. Researchers for the charity Campaign Against Antisemitism looked at four million social media posts by more than two thousand candidates.