Former Labour MP Laura Smith defends Twitter user who says Labour is now under “Zionist control”, calling criticism a “witch hunt”
A former Labour MP has been discovered to have defended a Twitter user who said that the Labour Party is now under “Zionist control”, calling criticism a “witchhunt”
Laura Smith narrowly won election in Crewe and Nantwich in 2017 but lost the seat in 2019. She is currently a councillor on Cheshire East Council.
Ms Smith tweeted a defence of the controversial General Secretary of the Labour Party, Jennie Formby on 17th April.
A Twitter user replied to that tweet saying: “Sadly our Labour Party is now under Zionist control. Let’s form a new Socialist party with JC as leader”, presumably in reference to Jeremy Corbyn.
Another user, doubtless noting the suggestion that Labour was under the control of Israel or, if ‘Zionist’ was meant as a euphemism, the Jews, replied “antisemite”.
Ms Smith then replied to the second user saying “I’m sorry Joe but you witch hunting people on Twitter makes you as bad as the factions you supposedly despite.”
It is extraordinary that a recent MP should defend someone on social media suggesting that her Party is under “Zionist control” and rely on offensive tropes such as “witch hunt” to do so, instead of taking the opportunity to call out anti-Jewish racism.
On 28th May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.
In the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that Labour Party candidates for Parliament in the 2019 general election accounted for 82 percent of all incidents of antisemitic discourse by parliamentary candidates.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
