Corbyn needs to change, says Brown
Gordon Brown has warned that Jeremy Corbyn “must change” and show that he understands the “deep hurt” caused by the anti-semitism row blighting the Labour Party. The former Labour prime minister also said the party must “immediately” adopt the full international definition of anti-semitism. More pictures emerged yesterday that further undermined Mr Corbyn’s account of the wreathlaying ceremony he attended in Tunisia in 2014.
GORDON BROWN has refused to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as a future prime minister as he said the Labour leader had “got to change” if he was to heal the “running sore” of anti-semitism blighting the party.
The former prime minister, who campaigned for Mr Corbyn in last year’s general election, said the party leader now needed to show through “actions, not words” that he understood the “deep hurt” that had been caused in recent weeks.
Mr Brown also said Labour must “immediately” adopt the full international definition of anti-semitism, which Mr Corbyn has so far resisted.
It came as fresh pictures emerged of Mr Corbyn at a wreath-laying ceremony at a cemetery in Tunisia to further undermine his version of events.
He also faces fresh questions about his failure to declare to Parliament that the Tunisian government paid for his stay in a five-star hotel where rooms can cost £1,000 per night.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Mr Brown was asked whether Mr Corbyn was a “fit and proper” person to enter No 10.
“Jeremy Corbyn has got to change,” he replied. “He cannot sustain particularly what he is saying about the international agreement on what we do in our attitudes to both the Holocaust and to Israel. I predict that will change within a few weeks … but even that will not be enough. You have got to show by your actions, and not simply by statements of words, that you understand the deep hurt that has been caused.”
Labour’s ruling national executive committee has refused to accept the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism because doing so would prevent members describing Israel as a “racist endeavour” if its policies discriminate against Palestinians.
Mr Brown said: “This cannot keep going on as a running sore and it’s not because it’s an embarrassment. It is because it is simply wrong.
“The persecution that’s been suffered by the Jewish community must never be forgotten. This problem has got to be sorted out and it’s got to be sorted out immediately.”
Madeleine Moon, the Labour MP, also refused to say Mr Corbyn was fit to lead the country. Asked on Talk Radio whether she thought he would be a suitable prime minister, she said: “That will be a decision for the British people to make should we get to an election.”
‘You have got to show by your actions, and not simply by words, that you understand the deep hurt caused’
Mr Corbyn has been at the centre of a week-long row over his attendance at an event in 2014 at which a wreath was laid on the graves of four men regarded as the masterminds behind the Black September terrorist attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes were killed.
He has repeatedly insisted that he was at the event to pay his respects to 47 people killed in an Israeli bombing of a Palestine Liberation Organisation building in Tunisia in 1985.
Pictures of him holding a large wreath and praying next to the graves of the Black September terrorists have been circulating for days, but a new set of pictures shows Mr Corbyn at the 1985 memorial, which is in a different part of the cemetery, where he is standing at the very back of a group, rather than taking part in the wreath-laying. His proximity to the Black September graves and his distance from the 1985 memorial appears to be at odds with his insistence that he was not “involved” in the former but was involved in the latter.
Questions were also being asked yesterday about Mr Corbyn’s failure to declare his trip to Tunis, which was paid for by the Tunisian government.
Labour insists Mr Corbyn did not declare the trip in the register of MPS’ interests because it cost less than the £660 threshold, but it has emerged that he stayed at a five-star hotel called Le Palace for two nights.
James Cleverly, the Conservative Party deputy chairman, said it was “inconceivable” that the trip could have come in below the threshold, but Labour insisted once again last night that it did.