Javid is forced to backtrack as he links Corbyn to Holocaust denial
SAJID JAVID has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown by Jeremy Corbyn after the Labour leader threatened legal action against him for implying that he was a Holocaust denier.
The Home Secretary has had to issue a ‘clarification’ after directing a comment at a Twitter user who doubted whether the Nazis had carried out the mass extermination of Jewish people in the Second World War. Mr Javid wrote: ‘How can you even question the Holocaust... don’t be misled by Corbyn.’
The tweet led to a furious response from Mr Corbyn, who ordered Labour Party lawyers to send a letter to Mr Javid threatening a libel action if the message was not retracted.
Late on Friday evening, Mr Javid posted a second message which said: ‘Corbyn is not a Holocaust denier. I am happy to make that clear.’
The o wn goal has been greeted with dismay in Downing Street, which had been making political capital out of the Labour Party’s convulsions over anti-Semitism.
Labour grandee Margaret Hodge was embroiled in an extraordinary bust-up with Mr Corbyn in the Commons chamber last week when she called him an ‘anti-Semite and a racist’. Dame Margaret, who is the granddaughter of a Holocaust victim, was furious that Labour’s r ul i ng NEC had approved a new anti-Semitism code which had been condemned by the Jewish community, following months of bitter recriminations in the party over the issue.
Some Holocaust deniers contend that any deaths of Jews that did occur under the Nazis were the result of wartime privations, not of systematic persecution and state-organised mass murder.
Unlike countries such as Germany and Israel, being a Holocaust denier is not against the law in the UK – but it would be potential l y defamatory to falsely accuse a politician of holding those beliefs. Within minutes of Mr Javid posting his original message, another Twitter user had written: ‘I think this is libel.’
Mr Javid, the Muslim son of a bus driver and the first Home Secretary from an Asian background, is seen as one of the frontrunners to succeed Theresa May as Tory leader.
Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn will today promise to boost the pay of rural workers in England by reinstating an Agricultural Wages Board.
He will tell the Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival – an annual c o mmemoration o f trade unionism and the struggle by agricultural workers for fair pay – that the board would ensure that rural employees are entitled to minimum rates of pay which may be above the National Minimum Wage and certain other benefits.
He is expected to say: ‘This decision will bring back millions of pounds to workers across the English countryside, in addition to guaranteed paid holiday, sick pay and rest breaks. Rural workers have been consistently ignored by the Tories.’