Actor John Davies suspended from Labour after reportedly claiming that Jewish Labour MP’s loyalties “lie elsewhere”
Actor and Labour Party activist John Davies has reportedly been suspended from the Labour Party after claiming that Jewish Labour MP’s loyalties “lie elsewhere”.
Mr Davies, who played the role of Les Hunter in the soap-opera Hollyoaks and appeared in Coronation Street, was chair of the St Michael’s branch of Liverpool Riverside Labour Party.
According to the JC, Mr Davies said that Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth’s loyalties lie elsewhere: “Her prime interests are neither socialism nor the Labour Party — they lie elsewhere.” The newspaper said that Mr Davies suggested that Jews who identify with Israel “have a big problem” and justified historical comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.
Mr Davies, who is said by the JC to use the alias Johnny Beggs, also criticised his local MP Dame Louise Ellman and falsely claimed that she had used a parliamentary speech to express support for “Israel’s child prisoner policy.”
He is also reported to have suggested that Luciana Berger was not interested in challenging racism but “in damaging Corbyn and making Palestinian advocacy risky.”
When someone questioned linking those accusing Labour of antisemitism with Hitler, Mr Davies wrote that: “I think historical comparisons need to be made sometimes.”
Last month a letter titled “Hands Off the Left!” with the names of 53 Merseyside Labour activists, including John Davies, was posted on Johnny Beggs’ Facebook page. It said that: “The current antisemitism witch-hunt against Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker and others, and against our own Labour Party constituencies is a fraud. It is a continuation of a three-year-long campaign aimed at derailing the movement around Jeremy Corbyn. These pro-Israel Labour MPs know that such a government would oppose attacks on the Palestinian people. It is clear that they would prefer a pro-Israel Conservative government, to a socialist Labour government, critical of Israel.”
The JC has claimed that since the newspaper brought his behaviour to the Labour Party’s attention, Mr Davies has been suspended, but he claims, however, that his suspension is “only partial.” A statement was posted on Johnny Beggs’ Facebook page yesterday which said: “I’ve been suspended from the Labour Party, after a joint campaign by some hard right members of my CLP, our MP and the Jewish Chronicle. I will fight my suspension, which is only partial, and challenge the usual concoction of lies and distortions.”
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has begun pre-enforcement proceedings against the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant. The pre-enforcement proceedings are a precursor to opening a full statutory investigation.
In recent months, eleven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism, along with numerous councillors and members.
Almost 50,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”
