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LUCIANA BERGER, the most senior Jewish figure in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, has called Ken Livingstone an “absolute disgrace”.
Ms Berger, the Shadow Minister for Mental Health, said the Labour party was right to have launched an internal inquiry into antisemitism after a series of high-profilesuspensions, includingformerMayorof LondonMrLivingstone.He claimed Hitler supported Zionism last month.
SpeakingataJewishWomen’s Aid fundraising lunch on Tuesday, Ms Berger revealed she hadmetlawyerShamiChakrabarti,who will chair the inquiry.
Ms Berger said: “I think it is worth repeating today that Ken Livingstone’s an absolute disgrace with his antisemitic comments. He certainly does not speak for my party.
“Iwishsuchaninquirywasnot needed;butitisnecessaryandit will do very important work.”
Mr Berger said she would not resign from her shadow ministerial role as a result of the crisis. “I think it would be absolutely perverse if people like me and my Jewish parliamentary colleagues — Louise Ell- Luciana Berger man, Ivan Lewis, Ruth Smeeth — if we left the Labour party, and it was not the antisemites who left the Labour party.” More than 20 Labour members have now been suspended over allegations of antisemitism. In Brent, Labour councillors Muhammed Butt and Aslam Choudry faced calls for their suspensions this week over controversial social media posts. Brent Council leader Mr Butt initially apologised after he compared Israel to Daesh in a shared Facebook post — before he went on to send an email to colleagues warning them to alter their privacy settings on social media. Mr Choudry shared a Facebook post that called Zionists “worse than animals”. He later apologised and said he had shared the video “without realising what was in it”. In Birmingham, Labour councillor Waseem Zaffar claimed UK government backing for Israel had fuelled support for terrorists including Daesh in a letter to a member of the local Jewish community. Mr Zaffar was also filmed during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war accusing the Israeli government of sanctioning “state-supported terrorism”. A Labour spokesp e r s o n s a i d : “These views are not shared by the Labour party and Councillor Zaffar has been reminded of his responsibilities as a Labour councillor.”
David White, the secretary of Croydon Central Labour Party, tweeted that he had been suspended for supporting Mr Livingstone.
Meanwhile a former president of Oxford University’s Jewish and Israel societies has been backed to replace Mr Livingstone on Labour’s National Executive Committee. Rhea Wolfson has the support of the pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum. She is expected to represent the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance.
A former outreach manager for the New Israel Fund, Ms Wolfson supported Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign last summer.
She said: “Britain needs a Labour Party that can deliver a confident and credible democratic socialist agenda.”