David Miliband says he’ll stay in Labour Party as long as Dame Margaret Hodge does

David Miliband, the former Foreign Secretary and Labour MP, has said that he will remain a member of the Labour Party while Dame Margaret Hodge MP, who is also Jewish, does.

Mr Miliband, a former Labour leadership contender, made the comments in a speech at Highgate Synagogue, saying Labour “has become a magnet for some people with absolutely repulsive views over the last three years,” and that the Party has not done enough to “root them out and make sure they never come back.” However, he said, “as long as Margaret Hodge is in the Labour Party fighting to uphold the best of the Labour tradition, I feel it’s incumbent on me to be there as well.”

Dame Margaret famously called Jeremy Corbyn “an antisemitic racist” and withstood an attempt to purge her from the Party. However, the MP for Barking recently lost a vote to avoid triggering her deselection, and faces a re-selection vote today.

On 28th May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

In recent months, thirteen MPs and three peers have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism, along with a large number of MEPs, councillors and members.

Over 55,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”