‘Anti-israel MPS can hijack new All-party Group’

PARLIAMENT’S NEW group to promote Jewish issues could be hijacked by anti-Israel campaigners, MPs and peers have warned.

The fall-out from the revelation that the Board of Deputies will form the secretariat to a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Jews continued this week.

Veteran Labour MP Louise Ellman revealed her anger at not being consulted by the Board about the group’s formation, despite being a deputy.

Mrs Ellman was “amazed” by the plans, which she first learned of in last week’s JC. Furious MPs also claimed the Board’s actions “had not been thought through”, were “inept”, “ridiculous” and constituted a “massive cock-up”.

Fears also rose over the prospect of anti-Israel MPs and peers seeking membership. Any Parliamentarian can join the group, gain voting rights and be elected to an officer role.

The Board refused to answer questions on that specific possibility but said that anyone joining “will have the opportunity of learning about issues affecting British Jews”.

It is understood that the secretariat will be led by the Board’s newlyappointed public affairs director Phil Rosenberg but no names have yet been provided officially.

Board president Vivian Wineman said around 30 Parliamentarians had agreed to sign up to the group by Wednesday and that the list included “government spokespeople, shadow spokespeople and MPs from all three major parties… alongside Lords, crossbenchers and faith leaders”.

Relations between the Board and lay leaders of other communal bodies were said to be at their “lowest ever” level, with claims that emails between officials were laden with “strong language”.

One communal source claimed that the Board’s interim chief of operations, Andrea Kelmanson, had been sidelined with Mr Rosenberg acting as a “de facto chief executive”.

While Mr Wineman robustly defended the methods used to create the group, a Board source admitted that “clearly there is some concern about how it came about”. The JC understands only around 15 of the 285 elected deputies have contacted the Board to welcome the development.

Mrs Ellman said she was not among MPs who had agreed to join. She described the Board’s actions as “bizarre” and warned of the potential for the group to be used to attack Israel.

Lib Dem peer Lord Palmer has accepted an invitation to join the group. But he said he had been against a Jewish APPG for fear that it could be used “an excuse for those who are antiIsrael to be pro-Jewish and thus burnish their credentials of Jews being ‘my best friends’”.