Labour dumps JLM courses
LABOUR HAS committed to a university course on Jew-hate, ending a threeyear antisemitism-training project run with the Jewish Labour Movement.
The course has been devised by Birkbeck, University of London, and the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism.
One JLM source was furious, saying: “For Labour to institute training without the consultation of their Jewish affiliate at this point is an astonishing level of arrogance. JLM should continue to train those who wish to stand in solidarity with Jewish members”.
JLM has carried out training sessions at local Labour branches over the past three years.
But some branches made false allegations of Israeli involvement and one Labour member in Birkenhead claimed that JLM was somehow affiliated to Isis.
Labour’s Birkbeck project has been developed with Professor David Feldman, Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism.
Prof Feldman was vice-chairman
David Feldman on Baroness Chakrabarti’s report into Labour antisemitism, which was widely criticised as a “whitewash”.
After Baroness Chakrabarti was offered a Labour peerage, Prof Feldman was forced to admit this damaged the credibility of the report she produced alongside him. Prof Feldman has been an outspoken critic of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
The JLM later said it was suspending all further CLP training while “the Equalities and Human Rights Commission explore our referral of the Labour Party for institutional racism. Over the last few weeks, JLM has been contacted by hundreds of people asking us to run our antisemitism awareness training at CLPs, branches, Labour groups. “For a number of years we have provided this training to the party for free, often to hostile audiences. We have made this training available to the Labour Party NEC, NCC, and staff which has not been taken up. The party leadership have a choice. They can either address the concerns of its Jewish affiliate and those of the Jewish community. Alternatively, they can continue to act in a reckless way.”