Labour Shadow Minister Lyn Brown reportedly endorses JVL member who said antisemitism is a “smear” promoted by “Israeli diplomatic service” for Party’s ruling NEC
A Shadow Minister has reportedly endorsed a candidate for the Labour Party’s ruling National Executive Committee who said that antisemitism is a “smear” promoted by the “Israeli diplomatic service”.
Lyn Brown, the MP for West Ham and Shadow Minister for Prisons and Probation, backed Roger Silverman in an email to local members.
Mr Silverman, who is a member of Jewish Voice for Labour, the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, has reportedly written: “The charge that the Labour Party and specifically Jeremy Corbyn are soft on antisemitism is outrageous. It is the latest and most bizarre of a series of monstrous smears by the right-wing establishment…I wouldn’t blame the Israeli diplomatic service for promoting such accusations; it is their job to use every means at their disposal to avoid the election of a British government sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. In this case the smear campaign has been taken up by the British establishment.”
He also wrote in 2016: “Zionism today is one of the most virulent manifestations of racism.”
Nevertheless, Ms Brown said in her email that Mr Silverman’s candidacy “encapsulate[s] the truth” and that she was “hopeful” that he would be nominated.
According to the JC, Mr Silverman was suspended by Labour in 2016 over his alleged involvement with Militant and online comments about the direction of the Party, but was reinstated by Jeremy Corbyn. He apparently become involved in Jewish Voice for Labour and also backed the disgraced then-MP Chris Williamson.
A spokesperson for Ms Brown, told the JC: “Lyn was not aware of any complaints about Roger Silverman and wrote the email in an inclusive way to support members of her local party. She would never support anyone who holds antisemitic views.”
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.
