Anti-semitism

Labour might have hoped that the announcement of an independent inquiry into the issue of anti-Semitism in the party would have drawn a line under the matter, and let the party get back to its election message ahead of polling day on Thursday. But comments by senior Labour figures are ensuring that this row continues. This morning, Diane Abbott went on the Marr show and said that ‘It is a smear to say that Labour has a problem with anti-Semitism’—which makes you wonder why Jeremy Corbyn has set up an inquiry into the issue. If this was not enough, Unite leader Len McCluskey declared on the radio that ‘The idea

Normally, when we talk about a party being in ‘crisis’ we are really referring to a policy dispute or a bad set of election results. But the crisis currently engulfing Labour is far more serious than that. It is about the party’s very soul, I argue in The Sun this morning. The events of this week have demonstrated that Labour has a serious, and growing, problem with anti-Semitism. One of the party’s newly elected MPs has been suspended for making anti-Semitic comments and the party’s former Mayor of London has been suspended from the party after a bizarre and distasteful attempt to link Hitler and Zionism. But Jeremy Corbyn has

The Labour party knew that the row over Ken Livingstone’s suspension was not going to disappear overnight. And this morning’s papers show that this story will be bubbling along for some time. All of this comes at a dreadful time for Labour with just days to go until Britain goes to the polls. In particular, it will be interesting to see how these front pages could have an impact on London’s mayoral race. Sadiq Khan has acted swiftly to distance himself from what happened. But with this very public row not likely to go anywhere any time soon, whether this undermining of Labour’s credibility affects Khan remains to be seen.

If I were the Conservative party I’d be getting worried: Labour’s implosion is happening too fast. At this rate they could fall apart and regroup in time to go into the next election with a respectable leader. Everybody knows the latest developments. Naz Shah MP was found to have said some anti-Semitic things on social media. After some bitter internal wrangling she was suspended from the party. Fellow MP Rupa Huq tried to come to her defence and compared anti-Semitism to any old mishap. And then Ken Livingstone smoothed it all over by talking about which of Hitler’s policies he thinks Zionists agree with. The low-point today was probably the

It’s finally happened. Over 24 hours after news first broke of Naz Shah sharing anti-Semitic posts online, the Labour MP has been suspended. While Labour say this is by ‘mutual agreement’, the move comes after several apologies from Shah — and quite a long silence from Corbyn. However, the use of the term ‘mutual agreement’ is of particular intrigue in light of revelations from Buzzfeed. The website reports that Shah had her personal apology diluted after her team sent it to party officials to be approved. In Shah’s original draft, she is said to have written: ‘I helped promote anti-Semitic tropes. This was totally wrong’. However, this along with another mention of anti-Semitism was

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, the party has been dogged by rumours of anti-semitism in certain factions of the party. Matters were only worsened last week with the re-admittance and then re-expulsion of Vicki Kirby, a former Labour parliamentary candidate who has suggested that Isis ought to attack Israel. Now there are concerns that the negative publicity could damage Sadiq Khan’s London mayoral bid. Last week, Jonathan Arkush — the President of the Board of Deputies — claimed that the Labour candidate could struggle to win votes from London’s 180,000 Jews. While Khan has made clear that Labour needs to ditch its ‘anti-Jewish’ image, he may wish to take a closer look

Sir Gerald Kaufman is Jewish, which he seems to use as an excuse to make claims that would, ordinarily, be denounced as anti-Semitic. He has made this a trademark of his career but on Tuesday night, Sir Gerald – now Father of the House of Commons – outdid himself. In an extraordinary speech he allegedly discussed the influence of ‘Jewish money’ over the Conservative party. He also claimed that, according to an email he had received, ‘half’ of the Palestinian knife attacks in Israel over recent weeks have been ‘fabricated’ as an excuse to execute Palestinians, and that the small-circulation weekly newspaper The Jewish Chronicle has biased the Conservatives. Speaking at an event organised by