Labour rejects ‘shameful’ Corbyn statement
JEREMY CORBYN has said he does not believe it is anti-semitic to describe the creation of Israel as racist in a move which has seen his relationship with the Jewish community plumb new depths.
The Labour leader was last night accused by Jewish leaders of “shamefully” attempting to “undermine” an internationally recognised definition of anti-semitism and siding with those “who hate Israel” over British Jews.
The row erupted after Mr Corbyn called for Labour to adopt his personal statement alongside its revised definition of anti-semitism which would have allowed activists to describe “Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist”.
However, he was overruled by the party’s ruling body, which chose instead to accept the international definition of anti-semitism in full while acknowledging the right of Palestinians to free speech.
Last night Simon Johnson, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, warned that the addition of caveats was an attempt to drive “a coach and horses through” the original definition set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Mr Johnson also lashed out at the Labour leadership, who he alleged had misled Jewish groups by failing to disclose Mr Corbyn’s failed proposal.
“It has now become absolutely clear that the leader of the party attempted shamefully to undermine the entire IHRA definition,” he added. “It is clearly more important to the Labour leader to protect the free speech of
those who hate Israel than it is to protect the Jewish community from the real threats that it faces.”
The original IHRA definition makes clear that any attempt to deny Jewish people the right to self-determination, or to describe the creation of Israel as a “racist endeavour”, is likely to be seen as anti-semitic.
A version of Mr Corbyn’s statement, leaked last night, said: “[It should not be] regarded as anti-semitic to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact, or to support another settlement of the Israel-palestine conflict.”
A Labour source close to Mr Corbyn did not deny that he had put forward the statement, adding that he had “set out some of the clarifications and protections” to ensure that the “rights of Palestinians or their supporters” were not “undermined”.
However, Labour insiders said his proposal was “completely scrapped” following opposition from members of the NEC, who met yesterday afternoon to decide whether to amend their highly-contested definition of antisemitism.
It is understood that Jon Lansman, the founder and chairman of the procorbyn campaign group Momentum, was among those strongly opposed to the statement (as put forward by Mr Corbyn yesterday).
Jennifer Gerber, the director of Labour Friends of Israel, said: “It is contemptible but utterly unsurprising that Jeremy Corbyn prioritised and fought for the right of anti-semites to describe the world’s only Jewish state as racist in a meeting supposedly about combating anti-semitism.”
Ian Austin, a Labour MP and the adopted son of Jewish refugees, told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Corbyn’s statement highlighted why Labour “had got itself into this terrible mess”.
“You would have thought after the last few months that he would understand the hurt and distress that has been caused to Jewish people of Britain,” he said.
Dame Margaret Hodge, a veteran Jewish MP who also lost relatives in the Holocaust, said the meeting was “two steps forward, one step back”. The controversy followed ugly scenes that occured earlier in the day, as Labour supporters clashed with Jewish counterprotesters outside the party’s London headquarters.
Separately, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police chief, said that her officers would investigate a leaked dossier detailing alleged cases of anti-semitism in the Labour Party.
The dossier contains 45 cases of Labour members accused of anti-semitism, nearly half of which were deemed race-hate incidents, according to Mak Chishty, a former Met hate-crime investigator.