Watson tells Corbyn to act on anti‑semitism

Deputy hands Labour leader a dossier of 50 hate complaints and urges him to investigate them himself Watson challenges Corbyn on anti-semitism

Tom Watson has issued a direct challenge to Jeremy Corbyn over Labour’s anti-semitism crisis, as he handed the party leader a dossier of 50 complaints and urged him personally to investigate them. In a “test” of Mr Corbyn’s sincerity on wiping out anti-jewish hatred, Mr Watson said Mr Corbyn would be required to stage an “intervention” if he was to have any chance of becoming prime minister. It comes just days after seven MPS left to found the Independent Group.

TOM WATSON has issued a direct challenge to Jeremy Corbyn over Labour’s anti-semitism crisis, as he handed the party leader a dossier of 50 complaints yesterday and urged him personally to investigate them.

In a “test” of Mr Corbyn’s sincerity on wiping out anti-jewish hatred, Mr Watson said Mr Corbyn would now be required to stage an “intervention” if

he was to have any chance of becoming prime minister. He also issued a sharp criticism of Jennie Formby, the party’s general secretary, whose overhaul of Labour’s disciplinary processes, he said, had “not been adequate” and had “not succeeded”.

The Daily Telegraph understands that Mr Watson no longer has confidence in Ms Formby, having previously warned her that she had until Christmas last year to resolve the mounting backlog of complaints.

However, in a sign of mounting tensions between the Labour leader and his deputy, a source close to Mr Corbyn last night indicated he would not intervene. Mr Corbyn was “separate” from the party’s disciplinary procedures, the source said, adding that complaints “will continue to be investigated in the usual way”.

It comes just days after seven MPS resigned the Labour whip to found the breakaway Independent Group, citing “institutional anti-semitism” as one of the factors behind their defection.

They were followed out of Labour by Joan Ryan and later Ian Austin, the son of a Holocaust survivor and a personal friend of Mr Watson, who said he would have been unable to “look my dad in the eye” if he had chosen to stay.

Labour is today braced for two more resignations, with Dame Louise Ellman, a veteran Jewish MP, said to be on the brink after weathering a barrage of criticism at a meeting of her local party members on Friday. Party insiders fear that Siobhain Mcdonagh, the MP for Mitcham and Morden, will follow close behind her.

Warning there was now a “crisis for the soul of the Labour Party”, Mr Watson yesterday claimed the situation was “so grave” that Mr Corbyn had no alternative but to personally take control of Labour’s disciplinary processes.

“The test for him as leader is to eradicate anti-semitism and it’s not other Labour Party members who will be the judge of this, it’s the Jewish community,” he told the BBC’S Andrew Marr

Show. “I’ve sent him a file of 50 antisemitic members who have made comments that, in my view, have not been dealt with adequately.

“I think he understands now that if he is ever going to be prime minister he needs to rebuild that trust. The way he will now have to do that is to review those cases, to take them to the NEC. “They will back him if he says these people need to be thrown out. But that is the only solution now, because time is against us.”

The dossier passed to Mr Corbyn contains a litany of anti-semitic comments made by party members. Examples include a Labour member who claimed: “Jews murder people and children”, another who claimed “Hitler is an illegitimate Rothschild”, and one who accused Jews of trying to “pervert democracy in the UK”.

In a move likely to anger some front bench colleagues, Mr Watson also reiterated calls for a shadow cabinet reshuffle, adding that Labour’s “central democratic voice has to be heard”.