I’m a hate-fest victim, says MP
ONE OF the community’s biggest allies in parliament says he is being targeted by a “hate fest” organised by a fellow Labour MP.
John Mann missed Sunday’s Jewish Labour Movement conference because “some members of my local party are participating in the Williamson/Walker hatefest where they will be targeting me today”.
This refers to a series of events organised by Chris Williamson, one of Mr Corbyn’s biggest defenders in parliament who has defended those accused of antisemitism.
He has appeared alongside Jackie Walker, the party member who is suspended over allegations of antisemitism.
In a letter to JLM, Mr Mann said: “(Attendees include) those who say that I am ‘loyal to a foreign power’ and ‘paid by the Jews’. I will be celebrating their attendance by
Absent: John Mann referring them for expulsion.” Mr Mann, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on antisemitism, reiterated his call for Jewish Labour MPs be automatically re-selected as candidates in the next election, in the face of threats of de-selection by proCorbyn party members.
He added “the brutality and the consistency of the racism” directed against Jewish Labour MPs Luciana Berger, Dame Louise Ellman, Ruth Smeeth and Dame Margaret Hodge “demonstrates that the Labour Party is now becoming an institutionally racist party, with several thousand openly racist members all claiming to act in the name of Jeremy Corbyn”.
“Labour stands at a crossroad. A failure to tackle this insipid racism will mean that the party no longer deserves to exist and will slowly and painfully die,” he said in his letter. Labour MPs who have criticised Mr Corbyn have long faced the threat of being de-selected as parliamentary candidates.