JLM pair were ‘played’
NEW JEWISH Labour Movement chair Ivor Caplin is at the centre of a furious row after it emerged he attended a meeting with Labour general secretary Jennie Formby one day before controversial guidelines on antisemitism were unanimously agreed by the party’s ruling body.
Mr Caplin and JLM political officer Neil Nerva met Ms Formby on Monday for what she later described as a “very positive and helpful meeting”.
Details of the Labour leadership’s attempt to amend the IHRA definition of antisemitism were shared with the JLM officials ahead of Tuesday’s meeting of Labour’s ruling body.
The new rules on what Labour now accepts to be Jew-hate have serious implications for the scores of outstanding disciplinary cases of alleged antisemitism in the party.
But the JC understands Mr Caplin and Mr Nerva subsequently faced angry questions from senior JLM figures and communal organisations over their conduct.
The pair furiously denied suggestions they “waved through” the new guidelines.
But one angry source insisted:
Ivor Caplin “Effectively those two went into the meeting unprepared, having been prewarned about how important it was to know what to look out for and what to ask.
“Labour’s attempt to rewrite the IHRA definition is a red-line issue for the JLM and for the whole Jewish community.
“But in the aftermath of Monday’s meeting, it just looks like the pair of them have been played.”
When the JC attempted to contact Mr Caplin on Wednesday he said he was busy and suggested Mr Nerva would speak on his behalf.
Mr Nerva, a Labour councillor in Queens Park, North West London, said the meeting with Ms Formby had been an “update meeting” at which the pair were “not able to take away any documents to consult further with colleagues in JLM. It was a meeting to share information and not a negotiating meeting”.
The JC has seen a copy of the letter sent by Ms Formby on Tuesday to the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust in which she confirmed the “positive” nature of Monday’s meeting and invited representatives of the three organisations to attend a “feedback” meeting on July 17.
The letter also included the new 16-point code of conduct approved by Labour’s NEC. Senior communal figures said they were “hugely concerned” by the new antisemitism guidelines.
The document includes a suggestion there is a need to prove “antisemitic intent” in relation to criticism of the state of Israel along with the suggestion that “it is not antisemitism to refer to ‘Zionism’ and ‘Zionists’ as part of a considered discussion about the Israeli state”.
One senior Jewish community figure said: “We don’t accept that the IHRA working definition needs to be re-written. But even if we did, the current Labour Party leadership are the last people we would choose to do it.
“It is insulting for them to think they are in a position to tell the Jewish community how to define antisemitism.”
A letter sent by JLM’s parliamentary chair Luciana Berger to Ms Formby on Wednesday accused her of ignoring the group’s “three-year engagement on Labour’s antisemitism crisis”.
The letter, co-signed by Mr Caplin, said the new definition suggested the work of senior JLM figures including national secretary Peter Mason had been “ignored” and called for Labour to “abandon this definition without haste and make clear it has already adopted, and is actively using, IHRA”.
They denied ‘waving through’ the new guidelines