When sorry proved too hard to say
JEREMY CORBYN refused four times to apologise for the way he has dealt with antisemitism in the party in a BBC interview with Andrew Neil.
The Labour leader was taken to task over his party’s record on antisemitism on the same day that Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis launched an unprecedented attack on its “utterly inadequate” response.
In an article in which he wrote with “the heaviest of hearts”, the Chief Rabbi attacked as “mendacious fiction” Mr Corbyn’s claim in last week’s televised general election debate that Labour had “investigated every single case” of anti-Jewish racism.
When Mr Neil raised the Chief Rabbi’s allegation on BBC One on Tuesday, Mr Corbyn rejected it, saying : “He’s not right. Because he would have to produce the evidence to say that’s mendacious.”
When asked whether he would “take this opportunity tonight to apologise to the British Jewish community for what’s happened”, Mr Corbyn avoided doing so.
Instead he replied: “What I’ll say is this. I am determined that our society will be safe for people of all faiths. I don’t want anyone to be feeling insecure in our society and our government will protect every community against the abuse they receive on the streets, on the trains or any other form of life.”
The Labour leader also struggled to answer whether it was antisemitic “to say Rothschilds Zionists run Israel and world governments”.
Mr Corbyn replied: “The Chakrabarti Report [into racism in Labour] asked that people did not use comparisons about conspiracies.”
When pushed to say if he believed the statement to be antisemitic, he said it was “the belief of Shami [Chakrabarti], and I support her on this in that report”.
He said it could be “constructed as being an antisemitic statement” before Mr Neil said “it should not be used and it is”.
The Labour leader argued the party had “developed a much stronger process” in the last six months and sanctioned and removed members who had been antisemitic.
He made the response after Mr Neil
Jeremy Corbyn is grilled by Andrew Neil on BBC One on Tuesday asked whether it was acceptable for a Labour member to question “whether six million Jews died in the Holocaust.”
Mr Corbyn replied: “It’s completely unacceptable and should not be happening.”
Mr Corbyn rejected Mr Neil’s claim that antisemitism had risen in the party since he became leader.
“It didn’t rise after I became leader,” he said. “Antisemitism is there in society, there are a very, very small number of people in the Labour Party that have been sanctioned as a result about their antisemitic behaviour.
“We will not allow antisemitism in any form in our society because it is poisonous and divisive, just as much as Islamophobia or far-right racism is.”
Meanwhile Labour peer Lord Falconer, whom Mr Corbyn previously asked to carry out an inquiry into the handling of antisemitism, said the Chief Rabbi’s attack on Labour was “deserved”.
The former Lord Chancellor said there had been a “failure of leadership” by the party.
He said there were “hundreds, maybe thousands” more cases of antisemitism in the party that should be investigated. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s
Lord Falconer, who previously served in Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet, insisted that Labour was still not dealing “properly” with antisemitism. “We are not dealing with the cases within the party — still not,” he said.”
He hoped Rabbi Mirvis’s “absolutely extraordinary but justified intervention will be listened to by my party”.
The Chief Rabbi said the overwhelming majority of British Jews were “gripped by anxiety” at the prospect of a Labour Government ahead of the general election on December 12.