STURGEON ON RACK OVER DEAL WITH CORBYN

SNP leader accused of turning ‘deaf ear’ to anti-Semitism scandal

NICOLA Sturgeon was last night accused of turning a ‘deaf ear’ to Labour’s antiSemitism scandal as she came under pressure from both the Jewish community and her own candidates.

Miss sturgeon’s sNP manifesto launch was overshadowed by the racism row as she was accused of doing a ‘deal with the devil’ by preparing to help Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn into No10 in return for another independence referendum.

the sNP leader admitted people are ‘understandably worried’ about a government led by Mr Corbyn, who has been accused of failing to tackle poisonous anti-Jewish racism in his party, but she will press ahead with plans for a possible pact with Labour.

It came after the scottish Daily Mail revealed growing fears among scotland’s Jewish community that they would be ‘thrown under a

bus’ to fulfil the SNP’s ‘core mission of splitting apart the UK’.

We told yesterday how Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has strongly criticised Labour, claiming it is not doing enough to stamp out anti-Semitism.

Mr Corbyn declined four times to apologise to the Jewish community in a BBC interview with Andrew Neil on Tuesday evening.

Yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I deplore Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of leadership on the issue of anti-Semitism and I do not condone in any way, shape or form that failure on the part of him and the Labour Party to eradicate that from their ranks.’

Quizzed on her apparent willingness to work with him, she said: ‘I say this to people who are worried, understandably worried, about aspects – including the one you mentioned – of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership: if we are in this position it’s because Jeremy Corbyn in England has managed to get himself into a position to be able to potentially form a government. The SNP has a job to do in those circumstances.’

The SNP leader said she would stipulate that if the Labour leadership was looking for Nationalist support in the event of a hung parliament, it would have to ‘make clear its zero tolerance to antiSemitism, Islamophobia, any form of prejudice and racism’.

She added: ‘I think to those worried about Jeremy Corbyn it should give a degree of reassurance that SNP MPs – with the right values and the right approach on these issues – are able to apply that pressure.’

But some SNP General Election candidates have raised concerns that Miss Sturgeon has not gone far enough, and have demanded she is ‘robust’ in urging Labour to stamp out anti-Semitism before working with Mr Corbyn.

Dr Lisa Cameron, standing for the party in East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, said: ‘I feel very reassured by what Nicola Sturgeon said.

‘If we are linked with the Labour Party it must be on the condition that they root out anti-Semitism. This is something that is causing anxiety. People, whether they are Jewish or not, are bringing anti-Semitism up on the doorstep – there is concern.’

She admitted she would ‘struggle’ to work with Labour unless Miss Sturgeon is as ‘robust as she stated’.

Asked whether Miss Sturgeon could attempt to force Mr Corbyn to root out antiSemitism before striking any deal, another SNP candidate said: ‘It might come to that.’

Edinburgh East SNP candidate Tommy Sheppard said it was ‘something the Labour Party has to sort out for itself’. Owen Thompson, SNP candidate for Midlothian, claimed that if Mr Corbyn is ‘in the position of forming a government, the people of the UK will have decided he should be in that position’.

Another SNP candidate admitted it is ‘a very good question’ to ask if being prepared to help Mr Corbyn into power will damage the SNP.

Last night, Kirsten Oswald, SNP candidate for East Renfrewshire – the constituency with Scotland’s largest Jewish population – refused to criticise her leader’s position.

Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw, who represents part of East Renfrewshire, said the SNP leader was effectively ‘turning a deaf ear’, to Labour’s anti-Semitism row.

He added: ‘When it comes to Nicola Sturgeon’s nationalism, nothing must get in the way of her obsession with dividing Britain, not even a deal with the most incompetent and dangerous opposition leader in recent history.’

Writing in yesterday’s Mail, Elliot Davis, chairman of the Judeo-Christian Alliance, said that many Jews would see an SNP-Labour pact as ‘abject surrender that would effectively throw their community under a bus in a bid to fulfil the SNP’s core mission of splitting apart the UK’.

Paul Edlin, president of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, said the First Minister would be doing a ‘deal with the devil’.

Ezra Golombok, 97, from East Renfrewshire, whose Hungarian wife Susan was an Auschwitz survivor, said: ‘People have not begun to pack up yet but are contemplating the prospect of moving to a place where they might feel safe.’

Comment – Page 16

‘Incompetent and dangerous’