Burka row is a gift to Labour

It is hard to state too strongly how serious the latest revelations about Jeremy Corbyn really are. A picture has emerged of him, less than a year before he became Labour leader, holding a wreath at the graves of members of the Black September terrorists, vile fanatics who carried out the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered. Labour says that he was visiting the cemetery in Tunisia for another purpose. But the picture appears to tell a different story, and Mr Corbyn has a damning history of association with extremist groups, including infamously calling Hizbollah and Hamas “friends” at an event he was hosting for them in Parliament.

Footage has also emerged of Mr Corbyn likening Israel’s actions on the West Bank to the Nazi occupation of Europe, in breach of the internationally recognised definition of anti-Semitism. This states that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is racist, a definition, incidentally, that Labour under Mr Corbyn has refused to adopt. The least that can be said is that the Leader of the Opposition is unhealthily obsessed with Israel.

What will it take for Labour’s supposed moderates to do something? Anti-Semitism has crawled out of the gutter and has been welcomed at the top of a party that could, terrifyingly, form the next government. Labour is truly now the nasty party.

This is not apparently what Remainers in the Conservative Party hierarchy think, however. In a gift to the opposition, the Tories have been tearing themselves apart over a bizarre controversy whereby an article in this newspaper in which Boris Johnson defended free religious expression has been turned into something dark and sinister.

Mr Johnson is facing an investigation into his comments, but there is no equivalence between his liberal argument about religious dress and the odious views all too regularly emanating from Labour. Mr Johnson’s Tory rivals, who think they can tarnish the popularity of the former foreign secretary by implying otherwise, are not only wounding their own party but giving Labour an excuse for doing nothing about the racism in its own ranks.