► Corbyn supporters attack in wake of Labour defeat
► THE BOARD of Deputies, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the Jewish Labour Movement all came under sustained attack over the past week in a vicious backlash from left-wing activists over Jeremy Corbyn’s general election defeat.
The Board — which on Sunday asked the candidates in Labour’s leadership contest to approve 10 key pledges that they said would “begin healing” the party’s “relationship with the Jewish community” — was labelled a “Tory organisation” attempting to “silence criticism of Israel” for the intervention.
Among the 10 pledges the Board is lobbying candidates to adopt is the promise to resolve outstanding cases of alleged antisemitism, to devolve the disciplinary process to an independent agent and to ensure transparency in the complaints process.
Meanwhile at a Labour rally in central London attended by Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon and Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe and witnessed by the JC, a party member rounded on Rebecca Long-Bailey, the favourite candidate of the hard left, accusing her of “cuddling up to the Jewish Labour Movement and the Chief Rabbi, a wellknown Tory”.
After all five remaining Labour leadership candidates — Jess Phillips, Lisa Nandy, Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Emily Thornberry — agreed to implement the Board’s pledges, the attacks on them from the far left only intensified.
On Monday evening at a branch meeting of the Ilford South Labour Party, a Jewish member and another colleague were both allegedly accused of being “agents of a foreign power” as activists passed a motion that accused the Board of “welcoming the election of Boris Johnson” and of seeking “to proscribe the views of other Jewish groups who don’t agree with them.”
Sam Tarry, the newly elected Ilford South MP, attracted mounting criticism after he issued a statement suggesting there were “differing accounts” of what took place at Monday’s meeting while failing to issue any condemnation of the motion that was passed by local members. By Wednesday, the communist Morning Star newspaper had published a front page article claiming “socialist Jews” belonging to the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice For Labour group “expressed grave concerns over the impact of the pledges” on Labour’s “independence and ability to show solidarity with Palestine”. Those behind the backlash against the Board failed to note that the 10 demands they publicised on Sunday had been the same ones unveiled by the communal organisation ahead of last month’s general election. But the blame directed at Jewish communal groups for Mr Corbyn’s humiliating defeat by the left has only hardened in recent weeks.
Last Thursday, the JC witnessed more than 200 members of hard-left groups, including the Campaign For Labour Party Democracy, packing out the Indian YMCA meeting hall in central London to hear a series of speeches in which Mr Corbyn was repeatedly hailed as a heroic leader.
But as the event organisers awaited the arrival of Labour MP Mr Burgon, who is standing to be the party’s next deputy leader to give his speech, activists were asked to speak from the floor.
Brent Central Labour member Graham Durham, a former school teacher and member of the Unite trade union, was first to take to the microphone.
He told the meeting: “I don’t think we should just be appointing people because they supported Jeremy Corbyn.”
Then, in a reference to Labour members who were suspended or expelled over alleged antisemitism, he asked of leadership candidate Ms Long-Bailey: “Does she oppose the vicious witch-hunt of good socialists in the Labour Party?”
Mr Durham then added: “She has been cuddling up to the Jewish Labour Movement and the Chief Rabbi, a well-known Tory. We should not be allowing that.”
While some in the audience cheered, two people stood up and walked out of the room shouting: “You are an antisemite!”
But Mr Durham continued: “We are in favour of people expressing their views on Israel as much as they feel they need to, as we saw at Labour Party conference.
“You do not spend your time cuddling up to the Chief Rabbi.”
Leicester East MP Ms Webbe, who was seated on the stage at the time of the incident, remained silent and took no steps to counter the comments.
Asked to comment on Mr Durham’s remarks by the JC, Ms Webbe did not respond. Mr Burgon, who arrived at the venue after the comments were made, later said he was “disturbed” by the outburst and added that he would “condemn racism in all its forms.”
The JC also approached David Rosenberg and Julia Bard from the Jewish Socialists Group, who had been seated near the front of the venue, to ask for their view of Mr Durham’s remarks. Neither issued any condemnation.
At Monday evening’s Labour branch meeting in Ilford South, local member Alex Holmes wrote on Twitter that he and another Jewish Labour member were accused of being “agents of a foreign power” during the debate over the motion.
The motion, which passed, said the Board had been “consistent in its support for the Conservative Party” by “fulsomely welcoming the election of Boris Johnson” and complained the pledges did not address “all forms of racism”.
Mr Tarry tweeted about the incident but stopped short of condemning the motion, saying there were “conflicting accounts of what happened and what was said”.
But on Wednesday, after the JC had published an article about the meeting, Mr Tarry responded by saying “Having now seen the motion, and spoken to several members who were in attendance at the meeting, I’ve asked that any complaints go through the party’s formal channels to ensure that this matter is dealt with thoroughly and impartially.”
Local Labour councillors Farah Hussain, Khayer Chowdhury and Varinder Singh Bola issued their own statement in which they “utterly condemned” the motion.
Mr Holmes confirmed on Wednesday that he was lodging a formal complaint about Monday’s events to the Labour Party.
A further article on the left-wing website Mondoweiss written by Jonathan Ofir accused the Board of “weaponising the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working-definition of antisemitism” and seeking to make the “Zionist Jewish Labour Movement” an “exclusive trainer” while excluding the “progressive” Jewish Voice For Labour — a fringe pro-Corbyn group — from the party.