Top activist: ‘Only hate is Jews vs Jews’
A LABOUR member backed by John McDonnell to be an MP told Labour members that the “only” antisemitism she had seen in the party was “Jews attacking other Jews for having the wrong attitude on Israel”, just after someone else had detailed their own experience of Jew-hate.
Speaking at a meeting of the Walthamstow Labour Party last Monday, Jenny Lennox, the Jewish former chair of East Walthamstow local Labour branch, said: “The only antisemitism I’ve seen in the Labour party has been in the last few years and has been Jews attacking other Jews for having the wrong attitude on Israel.”
She was speaking minutes after another Jewish member had described, in detail, their own experiences of antisemitism within Labour.
Ms Lennox said that she was “aware of stuff online I haven’t seen”, but then said she had seen some things online “by people who claim to be Labour members — I can’t say one way or another
— they are always challenged.”
She was taking part in a debate on an emergency motion about the news that the party was dropping the Jewish Labour Movement as its provider of antisemitism training for members.
The proposed motion noted “with concern” that Labour was moving to “other groups without consultation with the JLM”.
It resolved to “stand with the Jewish community and Jewish Labour members” and to recognise JLM as “the legitimate representative of the Jewish community in the Labour party.”
A number of those taking in the debate part tried to introduce amendments to the motion. Ms Lennox argued in support of a change in the wording from saying JLM was “the legitimate representative” to “a legitimate representative”. She added: “This idea that there is one uniform view I find really, really upsetting.”
A member of Jewish Voice for Labour, Roland Rance, also spoke at the meeting, urging people to reject the motion.
He said the JLM was “not an organisation of Jews in Labour, it is an organisation of Israel supporters attempting to influence the Labour party.”
Although he did not deny that there were cases of antisemitism in the Labour party, “as in society”, he described the idea that the Labour party is institutionally antisemitic and that Jeremy Corbyn has unleashed a wave of antisemitism as “false, it’s an attack … to undermine the best left leader that the Labour party has ever had.”
The meeting voted by 31 to five in favour of adopting the motion, with four extensions. The amendment to the motion had previously been defeated by 19 votes to ten.
Last June, the Labour List website revealed that Mr McDonnell was backing Ms Lennox in her attempt to be Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for the Chingford and Wood Green seat. She was not ultimately selected.
Ms Lennox is on the executive of the Labour Representation Committee, a far-left group within the party of which John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, is the honorary president.