‘Not all Corbyn fans buy all his claims’

A POLL showing 38 per cent of the public believe Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic also suggests the Labour leader’s supporters do not all believe his defence against Jew-hate allegations, the head of the research centre behind the survey has said.

Polling firm Populus asked 2,035 people to choose between contrasting statements on Mr Corbyn, on behalf of Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (Bicom).

It found that 38 per cent of people agreed that Mr Corbyn was an antisemite; while a quarter felt he was a “committed campaigner against racism of all kinds, including antisemitism”.

Bicom chief executive James Sorene said the two options reflected the different narratives about the Labour leader. He added that he was “slightly surprised” at the lack of support for the common belief on the left about Mr Corbyn’s approach to the Middle East.

While 35 per cent agreed that Mr Corbyn “only seems interested in talking to those organisations which have been deemed terrorists by the British Government, the EU and the US State Department”, only 19 per cent felt he has “worked hard to deliver peace between Israel and the Palestinians”.

Mr Sorene said: “I was surprised how low the support for him was in the polls. The fact that he could only muster 25 per cent and 19 per cent shows that even his own loyalists and his own base don’t quite believe his explanations.”

But a Labour source said the decision not to include questions about other party leaders “calls into question the independence of this poll and Bicom’s intentions in commissioning it”.

Mr Sorene and Populus designed the questions in the wake of the summer’s “Wreathgate” controversy, which

38%

of the UK public think Corbyn is antisemitic

19%

think he has “worked hard to deliver peace in Israel-Palestine” centred on Mr Corbyn’s attendance at a 2014 ceremony in a Tunisian cemetery which contained the graves of two Black September terrorists.

Mr Sorene said he wanted to know how many people were buying Mr Corbyn’s explanation of the event, “or following the argument of his critics. The questions were designed to measure [Mr Corbyn’s] own excuses, versus what people are throwing at him.”

Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, urged caution in interpreting the results, saying a “very large section of the public was unwilling” to agree with either a positive or negative view of Mr Corbyn.

Prof Ford said: “The statements are easy to understand… However, both pairs of statements seems a bit unbalanced. [They] leave out quite a lot of middle ground.”

A recent JC survey found that 85 per cent of British Jews think the Labour leader is antisemitic. A separate Survation poll of the general public, published in September, found 39 per cent agreed.