Ash Sarkar complains she was “crucified” for criticising Labour antisemitism as she and Owen Jones continue to whitewash their role in defending Jeremy Corbyn amid antisemitism allegations

The controversial far-left activist-journalists, Ash Sarkar and Owen Jones, are continuing their effort to distance themselves from the antisemitism scandal that engulfed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, now that the electorate rendered its verdict clear and the Equality and Human Rights Commission prepares its report into the Party.

In an interview to promote Mr Jones’ new book, Ms Sarkar, a contributing editor of Novara Media, lamented how both she and Mr Jones had been “really crucified” in the “debate” over the antisemitism scandal.

She said: “The most emotionally challenging and difficult part of the book to read, especially for me, was on antisemitism. And I think the reason why it was so emotionally difficult was [that] both you and I have a shared experience of being really crucified by both polarised sides of the debate. On the one hand, doing media appearances and being seen as, you know, the living embodiment of vicious, vitriolic antisemitism; and then, on the other hand, certain sections of the Left decrying me as a ‘traitor’ for saying more needs to be done, or maybe this needs to be handled in this way, or maybe it’s not all a ‘smear’ and that there are these things that need to be dealt with. So I think, as a chapter, it’s very emotionally painful.”

It is extraordinary that Ms Sarkar and Mr Jones (to the extent that he agrees with her) could see themselves as victims of Labour’s antisemitism scandal, when they used their considerable influence and wide-reaching platforms to defend Mr Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party at every opportunity, in spite of its rampant antisemitism and the terror it caused British Jews.

One might forgive Ms Sarkar’s use of the phrase “really crucified” as an unintended further insult, suggesting as it does that it is the Jewish community that is to blame for her “emotional pain”.

Viewers will draw their own conclusions from Ms Sarkar’s revelation that it was her, rather than the Jewish community, who was the real victim in this sorry saga.

Ms Sarkar has previously defended activist Ewa Jasiewicz’s graffitiing of the Warsaw Ghetto and complained of the “silencing effects” of the International Definition of Antisemitism.

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.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right. It also showed that 42% of British Jews considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics.