‘Anti-semitic’ activist voted on to Labour ruling body
Labour Party facing deeper divisions after coterie of Left-wing campaigners is elected to the NEC
LABOUR members last night defied criticism from Jewish groups to elect a controversial activist who is embroiled in a row over anti-semitism to the party’s ruling body.
Peter Willsman, an ally of Jeremy Corbyn who blamed Jewish “Trump fanatics” for “making up” allegations of anti-semitism, was last night re-elected to the National Executive Committee.
More than 70,000 Labour members voted for him, despite widespread condemnation of his comments by the Jewish community and warnings that his appointment would “taint the party’s already tattered reputation”. The move is likely to deepen divisions between Mr Corbyn and the Jewish community. Last night Mr Willsman told Channel
4 News he would use his position to “defend our leader” and issued a stark warning to MPS. He said: “Labour voters expect all Labour MPS to get behind Jerry, my friend of 41 years. Voters do not want to read every day about plotting and scheming by assorted malcontents.”
His appointment increases pressure on Mr Corbyn, who today faces the prospect of a mass revolt by Labour MPS as the NEC votes on whether to adopt the international definition of anti-semitism. There is mounting concern that the definition will be significantly watered down and include caveats banning investigations into past allegations of anti-semitism.
At least three Labour MPS are considering quitting the party if it fails to accept the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance code without amendment, while others have warned they could go on strike.
Last night the appointment of Mr Willsman prompted criticism from leading Jewish groups. Jennifer Gerber, the director of the Labour Friends of Israel group, said: “It is deplorable that Peter Willsman has been re-elected to the NEC and a terrible reflection on Labour’s commitment to tackling anti-semitism. Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum should immediately call upon him not to take his seat, so his shameful remarks do not further taint the party’s already tattered reputation.”
But Chris Williamson, a Labour MP and supporter of Mr Corbyn, said Mr Willsman and other allies of the Labour leader had been appointed “despite the efforts of the haters and the smearers”.
Mr Corbyn last night ignored calls from the Jewish community to condemn Mr Willsman’s appointment. Amanda Bowman, the vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: “The election of Peter Willsman to Labour’s NEC following his reprehensible comments about Jews is deeply concerning. This has not been helped by Labour’s appalling attitude to tackling prejudice, as evidenced by Jeremy Corbyn failing to rebuke Peter Willsman during his anti-semitic tirade and general secretary Jennie Formby letting him off the hook. This has all taken place during a summer of equivocation and denial emanating from the Labour leadership.”
Mr Willsman, one of the so-called “JC9” group of pro-corbyn candidates, won the ninth and final seat on the NEC after he narrowly beat Eddie Izzard, the comedian and Labour activist, by 70,321 votes to 67,819. He secured his re-election despite Momentum, the pro-corbyn campaign group, formally withdrawing its support for him after a recording emerged of his controversial comments at a meeting attended by the Labour leader.
Mr Willsman said he would “not be lectured” by Jewish supporters of the US president “making up duff information without any evidence at all”.
He also appeared to suggest that examples of anti-semitism within Labour were being “falsified on social media”.
He apologised for his remarks and referred himself for equalities training but Jewish leaders called for him to be expelled from the party.
PETER WILLSMAN, the man at the centre of a fresh row over Labour’s attitude towards Jewish people and antisemitism, is a long-standing Left-wing activist with a history of making controversial remarks.
In 2017, just a year after Jo Cox MP was shot dead in her own constituency, he said some Labour MPS “deserve to be attacked” if they did not show enough loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn.
Alongside Jon Lansman, a close friend until the pair fell out recently, he has spent his life campaigning for Leftwing policies to be included in mainstream Labour thinking.
Mr Willsman was one of a group of four activists, known as the Grassroots Alliance, who won a spot on the national executive committee (NEC), the Labour Party’s ruling body, during the height of Tony Blair’s reign in 1998.
But he is a controversial figure who drew intense criticism after audio footage emerged of him making unsavoury comments about Jewish people at a recent Labour meeting where Mr Corbyn was present, but did not intervene.
He was later dropped from a slate of Left-wing candidates by Momentum, the group led by Mr Lansman, after a public outcry over his remarks.
During the meeting, he referred to some Jews as “Trump fanatics” and claimed they made up “duff information”. He also claimed that allegations of anti-semitism are linked to “our political enemies” who would not “be appeased by us bowing to their demands”.
Despite his link to Momentum being severed ahead of the vote, Mr Willsman was re-elected yesterday alongside the other eight original candidates who make up the so-called JC9.
He has been a long-standing member of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) group, which has battled for years to get Left-wing ideas into the party’s manifestos.
The group also defended Ken Livingstone after his remarks about the Nazis prompted the party to take disciplinary action against him.
Mr Willsman was forced to apologise for his remarks, which he was recorded making earlier this year, but last night he appeared unrepentant after claiming he gave diversity trainers “a list of questions I would like them to answer” in comments to Channel 4 News.
He added that he was delighted to have been elected by Labour members to “protect the leader”, calling Mr Corbyn “my friend Jerry of 41 years”.
Alongside Mr Willsman are another eight candidates who make up the procorbyn JC9 slate for the NEC elections.
They include Yasmine Dar, who was criticised for sharing a platform at a pro-iran rally with a man who made alleged anti-semitic remarks. She later claimed to have been unaware of the comments.
Claudia Webbe is an Islington councillor and long-standing backer of the Labour leader who worked as an adviser to Mr Livingstone.
She defended the former mayor in 2006 when he was suspended from the party after comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard. She has been a member of the NEC since 2016 and recently also became a member of the disputes panel that judges whether members have breached the party’s code of practice.
She also chaired an event at the 2017 party conference in which she was attacked for not shutting down anti-semitic tropes.
Rachel Garnham, another member of the JC9 group, openly attacked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-semitism.
During a recent meeting, she said the guidelines, which Labour has yet to adopt in full, “conflate criticisms of the state of Israel with anti-semitism”, citing this as a reason not to use them as the basis for the party’s own rule book.
Huda Elmi, another of the nine, also did not support the adoption of the alliance definition of anti-semitism, claiming it would be a backwards step and would cause rows between Labour members. She is also an officer in Mr Willsman’s CLPD group.
Ann Henderson, another of the JC9, is a regional organiser of Mr Willsman’s CLPD group in Scotland.
She was one of Scotland’s first female train drivers but was recently criticised by Lily Madigan, Labour women’s officer and a trans activist, for following an anti-trans hate group on Twitter.
Jon Lansman is one of the most well known, being the founder of Momentum. Darren Williams is a long-time Labour supporter who came under fire recently for liking a tweet that said there was a Jewish conspiracy within the party.
The final JC9 member is Navendu Mishra, a Unison activist.