Corbyn warned of ‘mass walkout’ as Labour Jewish group considers quitting
Jeremy Corbyn is struggling to contain a major Labour crisis amid the threat of a “mass walkout” of Jewish people from his party.
Yesterday Labour’s only Jewish affiliate group called an emergency meeting to discuss whether to break from the party after almost a century.
The party leader himself said he was determined to try allay concerns about his leadership. But in a sign of his own frustration at the rift in the Labour movement, he argued that MPs who claimed they were not being listened to had not taken opportunities to speak to him.
Two other MPs who have already resigned the Labour whip after falling out with Mr Corbyn and amid allegations of misconduct, signalled they could be willing to join the new centre-ground Independent Group in the House of Commons.
The Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), which has been the party’s official Jewish group for 99 years, called an emergency general meeting (EGM) to discuss ”where we go from here” after eight MPs resigned over Mr Corbyn’s handling of antisemitism and other issues.
The group’s parliamentary chair, Luciana Berger, was one of the MPs who quit on Monday, saying she had reached the “sickening” conclusion that Labour was “institutionally antisemitic”.
Two JLM executive members, former Labour councillors Adam Langleben and Joe Goldberg, also announced they were leaving the party and JLM sources said Ms Berger’s decision to quit could trigger an exodus of Jewish members.
One told The Independent: “A lot of people have taken the view that they’d stay as long as Luciana stays, given the amount of abuse she’s received over a sustained period of time.
“[Monday] was a really big moment. There has been an outpouring of people responding to Luciana’s resignation and there are a lot of people who need the space to have that conversation [about whether to quit].
“The party is at real risk of seeing a mass walkout of Jewish Labour members as a result of the failure to tackle antisemitism and the bullying of Luciana out of the party.”
The member added: “You only have to look at the response from some senior members of the shadow cabinet in the last 24 hours – it’s not as if they are particularly inclined to accept they have got thing wrong in the last three years and need to put things right.
“John McDonnell talks about a ‘mammoth listening exercise’ but we’ve been shouting pretty loudly for the last few years about what they need to do and no one’s listened to us, so why would we have any confidence they will now?”
Following the EGM, a vote of all JLM members could be held to decide whether to disaffiliate – something one source said was now a ”strong possibility”.
JLM has come under mounting pressure from some parts of the Jewish community to end its affiliation with Labour amid the ongoing row about antisemitism in the party.
In an email to members following Ms Berger’s resignation, JLM national secretary Peter Mason said the emergency meetings would take place in London and Manchester on 6 March to discuss the group’s future.
He said: “Far too little has been achieved for the party to be able to claim in all honesty that it upholds the ‘zero tolerance’ environment promised to us and the Jewish community those many months ago. Instead, we have seen the entrenching of a culture of antisemitism, obfuscation and denial.”
Mr Mason said Ms Berger’s resignation was “a deeply depressing evolution in the abject failure of the leadership of the Labour Party to properly and comprehensively address the ongoing crisis of antisemitism”, adding: “Her decision is a culmination of the same dilemma that each of us has been forced to contended with for a very long time.”
JLM members needed to “come together as a movement to decide collectively where we go from here”, he said, adding: “At the EGM, we will hear from Jewish parliamentarians, and allow members the opportunity to discuss how we move forward collectively as a movement.”
It is unclear whether Ms Berger will remain as JLM’s parliamentary chair, with sources saying a decision would be made at the group’s AGM in April.
She and the six other members of the new Independent Group in parliament broke away from Labour on Monday, leading Mr Corbyn to say again yesterday that he was “disappointed”.
But speaking at a conference he insisted he was open to discussion about the party’s policies and that he recognised the need to take people with him.
He said: “Anyone who thinks they are not being consulted are not taking up, in my view, the opportunities that are available there and open and ready for them at all times to do that.”
Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock, already independent having resigned from Labour, indicated he could now also join the group, as long as it supported the Trident nuclear deterrent and had a robust complaints procedure.
Meanwhile, Ivan Lewis, also now an independent, said that while he had common values with those who had left, he also had areas of disagreement, for example over their potential support for a new Brexit referendum.
“I’m not joining at the moment but I’ve expressed my respect and support for the decision the MPs have taken,” he said. “We need to see how things are going to develop in the period ahead.”