Labour leader hopefuls in clash over anti-Semitism

THE Labour leadership candidates have clashed over responsibility for the party’s anti-Semitism crisis.

Lisa Nandy, who quit Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in 2016, said she spoke out on the issue but questioned her leadership rivals’ response to the allegations of anti-Jewish prejudice.

Campaign frontrunner Sir Keir Starmer insisted he fought on the issue from within Mr Corbyn’s top team, while his main rival, Rebecca Long-Bailey, said she also spoke out.

During a Sky News leadership debate in Dewsbury, one of the seats Labour lost at the general election, Ms Nandy said there had been a “collective failure of leadership at the top of the party for years” where high-profile cases of anti-Semitism had not been dealt with.

The Wigan MP said, as someone who is half-Indian, “I know what racism feels like”.

Taking on Sir Keir, she said: “I believe that you are sincere about this, but if we do not acknowledge how badly the shadow cabinet as a whole got this wrong we will not earn the trust of the Jewish community.”

Sir Keir told her: “You were in the shadow cabinet when this issue came up as well.”

Ms Nandy shot back: “I spoke out publicly and then I left and I didn’t return.”

She added: “The shadow cabinet was offered sight of the submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission which was investigating Labour for institutional racism.

“And apparently not a single person took up the offer of seeing the party’s position.”

Sir Keir told her that was “absolute nonsense”.