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Fifth of Europeans think “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own needs” and that a Jewish cabal rules the world

A new survey has found that a fifth of Europeans think that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own needs” and that a Jewish cabal rules the world.

The survey was conducted by the European Jewish Association in December 2019 and presented at the organisation’s conference in Paris this week, at which Campaign Against Antisemitism participated. The survey polled a representative sample of 1,000 adults who were presented with 45 questions in face-to-face interviews in sixteen countries, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, the UK and Poland.

It is understood that the organisers found it difficult to find pollsters prepared to enter certain neighbourhoods, for example in Paris and Brussels, which was necessary to garner a representative sample.

According to the survey, a quarter of respondents believe that Israel’s policies make them understand why some people hate Jews; and more than a third believe that “during World War II, people from our nation suffered as much as Jews”.

The survey reportedly showed that Judeophobic antisemitic stereotypes and Holocaust revisionism were more common in Eastern Europe, whereas anti-Zionist antisemitic beliefs were more prevalent in Western Europe.

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Former Labour activist to be prosecuted over alleged “rid the Jews” comments is named, but prosecutors reduced charges on other offenders so that it is now too late to prosecute

The former Labour activist who has been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after Campaign Against Antisemitism reported a leaked secret Labour dossier to the Metropolitan Police live on LBC has been named.

According to a source, Mohson Rasool, a 60-year-old from Hollybank Road, Birmingham, commented on Facebook that “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all [sic]”. He is also alleged to have suggested that the Jews should be sent into the Red Sea rather than expending expensive gas on them in what appeared to be an allusion to the use of gas chambers by the Nazis to murder Jews. Among other alleged remarks, he claimed that “hatred of Jews and Hindus is in my DNA”.

Mr Rasool is being charged with sending a grossly offensive message or other matter on a public electronic communications network on 10th February, 2018, in breach of section 127 of the Communications Act, and will appear at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on 25th March.

It is understood that Mr Rasool had been expelled by the Labour Party prior to his arrest.

Of the ten cases so far referred to the CPS considered, five apparently remain under consideration, four will be dropped and Mr Rasool will be prosecuted.

However, it is understood that the four cases being dropped may have passed the threshold for lesser offences, but because the CPS took so long reviewing the cases, it is now too late to bring charges.

This is despite Lord MacDonald, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, saying last month that he believed that the CPS had had sufficient time to review the cases and should announce its conclusions, and that charges should be brought.

In a statement released yesterday, Gideon Falter, the chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, addressed this point, saying: “This sad tale exemplifies why two thirds of British Jews have lost faith in the CPS, which simply cannot be relied upon to bring anti-Jewish racists to justice. When the CPS has failed to prosecute antisemites in the past we have successfully instigated private prosecutions and brought judicial review proceedings against the CPS. We had hoped that these measures would not be necessary every time antisemitic hate crimes come before the CPS, but yet again we find ourselves having to consider our options with our lawyers in order to deliver justice for the Jewish community, because the CPS has failed us.”

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. The research also showed that 42% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics, and close to two thirds of British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

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.

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Watch Baroness Tonge make yet another antisemitic statement in the House of Lords, calling the Israel “America’s puppetmaster”

The disgraced peer, Jenny Tonge, has made yet another antisemitic statement, describing Israel as “America’s puppetmaster” in a remark in the House of Lords.

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions” is an example of antisemitism, as is: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism to characterise Israel or Israelis.”

Baroness Tonge, who was suspended from the Liberal Democrats before eventually resigning, has a long history of Jew-baiting, denouncing Campaign Against Antisemitism, suggesting that the antisemitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue might be Israel’s fault, blaming Israel for a rise in antisemitism, and sharing a cartoon comparing Israel’s policies to those of the Nazis, which is a breach of the International Definition.

In December 2019, Campaign Against Antisemitism joined 88 members of the House of Lords in condemning remarks on Facebook by Baroness Tonge following the general election, in which she commented: “The Chief RabbI must be dancing in the street. The pro-Israel lobby won our General Election by lying about Jeremy Corbyn.”

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CAA considering private prosecution and judicial review after CPS refuses to charge four Labour activists over incitement to racial hatred and says it will now only prosecute one

The Metropolitan Police Service has informed Campaign Against Antisemitism that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will only charge one of the Labour Party activists reported by Campaign Against Antisemitism over antisemitism.

The decision comes well over a year after Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chief Executive, Gideon Falter, referred an 86-page secret internal Labour Party dossier of evidence to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick live during a radio phone-in on LBC.

Mak Chishty, a former Commander in charge of hate crime at the Metropolitan Police Service, reviewed the dossier on air and found 45 cases of antisemitism in it, classifying seventeen cases as “race-hate incidents” which should have been reported to the police. According to Mr Chishty and Charlie Sherrard QC, a criminal barrister who works with Campaign Against Antisemitism, at least four further cases warranted criminal investigation. Mr Chishty said the incidents were “abhorrent” and described the language used as “absolutely horrible.”

The cases included:

  1. an activist who attacked a Jewish Labour MP as a “Zionist Extremist” who “hates civilized people” and was “about to get a good kicking” for spreading “Zionists propaganda”;
  2. an activist who posted an article containing Holocaust denial and antisemitic cartoons of Jews from a blog claiming to provide “intelligent antisemitism for the thinking gentile”;
  3. a Party member posting that “we shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all” and that “these Jewish f***ers are the devils”; and
  4. a party member accused of physically and verbally abusing a seven-year-old boy using racist epitaphs including “Paki” and “Jew-boy”.

Following the analysis of the dossier by Mr Chishty and Mr Sherrard, Dame Cressida Dick, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, joined LBC’s Nick Ferrari for a phone-in. Mr Falter called in and officially reported the dossier live on air to the Commissioner.

Officers at New Scotland Yard then visited Mr Falter and opened a criminal investigation.

On 8th January 2020, Commissioner Dick reappeared on LBC and disclosed that six arrests had been made in the case in early 2019 and five files were passed to the CPS in September 2019.

The Commissioner explained that these cases represent a “very complex crime type” and therefore it was difficult to anticipate when the CPS would make a decision on whether to charge the individuals, based on whether there is sufficient evidence and if charging the offenders would be in the public interest.

The CPS has commented at the time: “We’ve received a file of evidence [from the Metropolitan Police Service] in relation to antisemitic hate crimes. We are reviewing this material to consider further charging decisions.”

Later that day, Lord MacDonald QC, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, intervened to say that he believed the CPS had had sufficient time to review the cases and should announce its conclusions, and that the evidence suggests that crimes have indeed been committed. He opined that “these are allegations about the conduct of members of a major political party and so there is obviously a strong public interest in this being resolved, and resolved as quickly as possible.” Moreover, he noted that a long delay fuels “rumours” and “unease” and therefore that “safe conclusions are needed sooner rather than later.”

Lord MacDonald went on to say that “the sensitivity in these cases is that prosecutors have to balance two things: one is the suggestion that these messages, these posts may comprise incitement to racial hatred, or other hate crimes, on the one hand, and then on the other hand, free expression rights,” adding that this “can sometimes be a tricky analysis but I should have thought that three months is plenty of time to come to conclusions in this case.” He observed that “there is some very extreme material here,” concluding: “This is very extreme stuff, which I’d have thought is well capable of comprising a criminal offence. Speech has to be pretty extreme to amount to incitement to racial or religious hatred but some of this speech does look to be very extreme indeed.”

The Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, also commented, saying: “the very fact we are talking about it on national radio, and the importance of this issue — antisemitism as you know is a serious issue not just because of itself but because it is a gateway to other types of prejudice in my view — I very much hope that everybody involved in the investigation will do it thoroughly. Obviously, it has to be looked at properly, but that it can be expedited.”

However the CPS has now confirmed that of the ten cases currently under consideration, five remain under consideration, one will be prosecuted, and four will be dropped.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “This case has received national media attention as part of one of the most explosive political issues of our time — anti-Jewish racism at the forefront of British politics. This is not complex. Labour activists posted extreme Jew-hatred on social media. The evidence is there in black and white. The evidence has been reviewed by the Commander formerly in charge of hate crimes at the Met and a former Director of Public Prosecutions. Yet the CPS dragged its feet for over a year, only now to conclude that it has charged just one solitary offender.

“This sad tale exemplifies why two thirds of British Jews have lost faith in the CPS, which simply cannot be relied upon to bring anti-Jewish racists to justice. When the CPS has failed to prosecute antisemites in the past we have successfully instigated private prosecutions and brought judicial review proceedings against the CPS. We had hoped that these measures would not be necessary every time antisemitic hate crimes come before the CPS, but yet again we find ourselves having to consider our options with our lawyers in order to deliver justice for the Jewish community, because the CPS has failed us.

“This unacceptable outcome shows that the CPS is not fit for purpose when it comes to prosecuting antisemitism. We therefore call for the CPS to treat antisemitic hate crime prosecutions as Special Crime, submitting junior prosecutors’ decisions to the scrutiny of more senior colleagues, and we urge the CPS to agree that its senior prosecutors receive training from Campaign Against Antisemitism and work with us to draft clear guidelines for prosecutors which link antisemitic acts to the corresponding offences, with worked examples for different kinds of antisemitic acts and evidential requirements. We have also sought a meeting with the Attorney General.”

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. The research also showed that 42% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics, and close to two thirds of British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

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.

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John McDonnell shamefully downplays Dreyfus Trial antisemitism in comparison with Julian Assange’s legal woes

The Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, has shamefully downplayed the antisemitism at the heart of the Dreyfus Trial in his advocacy of the controversial activist Julian Assange.

Mr Assange, who heads the Wikileaks website, is facing extradition proceedings to the United States after spending years in refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

Referring to the trial of the French army captain, Alfred Dreyfus, who was wrongfully charged with espionage in the 1890s because he was Jewish, Mr McDonnell said: “I want to make it absolutely clear what my view is on this [Assange] case: I think this is one of the most important and significant political trials of this generation, in fact, longer. I think it’s the Dreyfus case of our age. The way in which a person is being persecuted for political reasons, for simply exposing the truth of what went on in relation to recent wars.”

Alfred Dreyfus was not persecuted for “political reasons” or for “simply exposing the truth of what went on in relation to recent wars” but because he was a Jew.

Defending his comments, Mr McDonnell insisted that “It was quite clear what I meant. Just like the Dreyfus case, the legal action against Julian Assange is a major political trial in which the establishment is out to victimise an innocent. On that basis, of course it’s right to assert that it’s a parallel.”

Joe Glasman, Head of Political investigations at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “For John McDonnell to invoke the Dreyfus trial, one of the most heinous and consequential episodes of antisemitism in modern history, in order to promote his own foreign policy agenda, is utterly shameful.

“Yet again the Shadow Chancellor has managed to downplay antisemitism, this time not in his own party but in a historical event which is remembered not principally as a miscarriage of justice in a matter of espionage but because it was a concerted effort to malign a military hero simply because he was Jewish.

“There is a straight line between Mr McDonnell’s dubious reading of history and his sordid leadership role in an institutionally antisemitic Labour Party.”

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.

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CAA welcomes Home Secretary Priti Patel’s proscription of neo-Nazi Sonnenkrieg Division as a terrorist group

The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has proscribed the neo-Nazi Sonnenkrieg Division as a terrorist group. This follows the proscription of National Action in 2016, for which Campaign Against Antisemitism had called.

Last year, two teenage members of Sonnenkrieg Division were prosecuted, as the court heard that they had posted messages that threatened Jews, non-white people and others “perceived to be complicit in the perpetuation of multiculturalism”.

Sonnenkrieg Division is believed to be a Nazi Satanist violent sexual festish group that formed after a split with another neo-Nazi group, System Resistance Network, which is itself an offshoot of National Action.

Campaign Against Antisemitism continues to call for the proscription of System Resistance Network as well.

Ms Patel said: “Recent attacks here and in Germany have highlighted the threat we continue to face from violent extremism. We are working to keep the public safe by increasing funding for counter-terror police and strengthening the law to keep terrorists locked up for longer. By proscribing these groups, we are making it much harder for them to spread their hateful rhetoric.”

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CAA calls for answers after Hodder Education removes from sale a school textbook that asks how Israel could be a “long-term cause” of 9/11

A school textbook has been removed from sale after research revealed that it included the question: “How could it be argued that the creation of Israel was a long-term cause of the 9/11 attacks?” It is understood that this is the only time Israel is mentioned in the entire book.

The history textbook, titled Understanding History: Britain in the Wider World, Roman Times – Present and designed for secondary school pupils aged eleven to thirteen studying history at Key Stage 3 level, was published by Hodder Education, an imprint of Hachette, one of the world’s ‘big six’ publishing houses.

The problematic question alludes to a popular nonsense antisemitic conspiracy theory that Israel or its intelligence services were somehow connected to or to blame for the 9/11 Islamist terrorist attacks.

The researcher David Collier brought the offending material to light, and the Hodder Education Group said on Thursday that it was removing the textbook from sale and would publish a revised issue.

In a statement, the publisher said: “We appreciate the phrasing of the question is not as precise as it might have been and we are very sorry for any offence this has caused.”

However, the fact that an antisemitic conspiracy theory could make its way into a textbook for children by a reputable publisher illustrates just how commonplace such anti-Jewish beliefs have become. Campaign Against Antisemitism calls for answers as to how the offending question was included in the book and what measures or training the publisher is taking to prevent the problem recurring in future.

The revelation comes as the Government pledged to act against textbooks in the Middle East funded by taxpayer money that encourage children to commit violent acts against Jews, using the language of genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisations, and which are reportedly taught in classrooms by teachers who describe Jews as “pigs and apes” and call for them to be murdered, and praise Hitler.

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Disabled Jewish lady using buggy for support attacked by man who tried to kick the buggy away

A disabled Jewish lady who was using a buggy for support was attacked by a man who tried to kick the buggy away from her. The assailant had been walking alongside the victim for some time, who believed that she was targeted because she was Jewish and disabled.

The incident took place in Stamford Hill at 09:30 and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD7749 24/02/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Largest Facebook group supporting Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey reportedly replete with antisemitic material

The largest Facebook group supporting the Labour leadership candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey is reportedly replete with antisemitic material.

The We Support Rebecca Long-Bailey group currently has 6,683 members, apparently including the new Labour MP, Tahir Ali, who is one of only three sitting MPs not to have signed up to the International Definition of Antisemitism; three Labour councillors; at least one member of Ms Long-Bailey’s campaign team; and family members of the current leader of the Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Among the problematic posts are that “Zionist Jews…do everything in their power to fight socialism”; that Israel “supplied ISIS, Al Qaeda, FSA [Free Syrian Army] with weapons and funding for years”; suggestions that Jewish organisations are “now running the Labour Party”; and references to “Labour’s fake antisemitism crisis”, “fake antisemitism accusations fomented by Israel” and “MI5 [who] conspired with right-wing Zionists to treasonously undermine free and fair elections.”

The social media group has numerous administrators but reportedly none of the posts had been deleted and the members who made the comments remained in the group.

The revelation comes as Ms Long-Bailey has been criticised for refusing to condemn a comment made by an attendee at a rally of hers referencing an “Israeli lobby”.

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.

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“I hate you Jews…the only reason I don’t kill you is because I just got my British passport and I don’t want to lose it,” Jewish tourist told at Green Park tube station

A passerby told an American Jew visiting the UK: “I hate you Jews, you are all full of bulls***, you f*** up the country – the only reason I don’t kill you is because I just got my British passport and I don’t want to lose it.”

The Jewish tourist was on the westbound platform of the Piccadilly Line at Green Park Underground Station, waiting for the train to Heathrow to travel home, when the incident took place. 

The victim was left shaken and jumped onto the next train to get away from the suspect, who was described as a 5”8 black male with a black beard and wearing a dark cap and a dark green jacket.

The incident took place at around 08:30 in the morning of Sunday 23rd February and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123. The offence is being reported to British Transport Police.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Labour suspends another NEC candidate and a councillor over antisemitism allegations

The Labour Party has suspended another candidate for its ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) and a councillor over antisemitism allegations.

Graham Durham, a member of the Brent Central Labour Party and of the Unite union, told a rally for Rebecca Long-Bailey, a candidate for the Party’s leadership, that she was guilty of “cuddling up to…the Chief Rabbi, a well-known Tory,” for which he was cheered by others in the room. “We should not be allowing that,” he said.

Mr Durham has now reportedly been suspended (although earlier this week he apparently disputed this), which makes him ineligible to run for the NEC, despite his thirteen nominations from branches of the Labour Party across the country. Mr Durham also said earlier this week: “whilst anti-racist to my core, I did call the Chief Rabbi a Tory…are facts illegal now?”

The Chief Rabbi courageously spoke out against antisemitism in the Labour Party.

It comes after the “Jew process” councillor and NEC candidate, Jo Bird, was suspended for several days for a second time before her suspension was lifted, enabling her to continue her run for Labour’s top body.

Meanwhile, Labour has also suspended a Blackburn councillor alleged to have claimed that Jews created the ISIS terrorist organisation, a popular antisemitic trope.

Cllr Tasleem Fazal reportedly made a video during an anti-Israel protest in 2014 when he called peace protestors “murderers” and during which he was asked by a demonstrator wearing a skullcap: “ISIS – is ISIS Jewish?” From behind the camera, he responded: “Who’s created it? Who’s created it? Do your homework.”

In a statement, Labour said: “The Labour Party takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.”

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.

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Chelsea to host antisemitism conference with Chief Rabbi, prominent politicians and leading Israeli newspaper

Chelsea football club intends to host a conference on antisemitism in conjunction with The Jerusalem Post newspaper, which will feature Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the Israeli ambassador.

Other proposed speakers at the March event, which will also cover bilateral ties between the UK and Israel, include the former Labour MP Lord Mann, who now serves as the Government’s independent advisor on antisemitism, as well as the parliamentary chair of Conservative Friends of Israel and senior Israeli politicians. The captain of Israel’s national women’s football team is also due to feature.

The event is due to take place at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium, and is part of the club’s “Say No To Antisemitism” campaign, which was launched in January 2018.

The club’s chairman said that the event could “further highlight the importance to tackle the rise of antisemitism we have seen across the world.”

The announcement comes only a week after undercover footage taken for a BBC documentary was reported to have shown supporters of Chelsea Football Club singing antisemitic songs, making gas chamber noises and performing Nazi salutes.

In January, Chelsea unveiled a mural dedicated to footballers who were interned in concentration camps, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. The club has also adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism.

At the unveiling of the mural, Lord Mann told football clubs to enhance their efforts to tackle antisemitism and racism in stadiums, warning that “I have a voice and it will get more brutal if they don’t.”

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Labour Party expels councillor who said “Jewish leaders are worse than Nazis” after brief suspension

The Labour Party has expelled a councillor who said that “Jewish leaders are worse than Nazis” after suspending him last month.

Andy Kay, who has also referenced “Zionists’ attempts to influence our political processes” and added for good measure that those supposed efforts were “racist”, had been serving as a cabinet member for finance and governance on Darwen Council in Lancashire.

Cllr Kay also wrote that “Jewish leaders are worse than Nazis” in 2014 in a post on Facebook that was reportedly ‘liked’ by Kate Hollern MP, who went on to become a Labour MP and Private Parliamentary Secretary to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. She subsequently apologised.

In 2018, Cllr Kay also shared an article on social media describing Labour’s antisemitism crisis as a “blatant attempt to undermine Corbyn’s leadership”, adding the remark about Zionists. In the comments section of that post in a discussion about the International Definition of Antisemitism, Cllr Kay also said: “I was taught that Judaism was/is a religion, not a nation. In fact one of the tenets of Judaism prohibits the nation state… but I suppose that also depends on which wing of the fantasy you believe.”

Three days later, Cllr Kay reportedly shared an article that claimed that the Definition was “designed by Israeli propagandists to aid their many mass lobby attempts” and referenced the “largely-mythical antisemitism ‘crisis’ in the Labour Party,” which was described as “one of the few tools left to ailing and desperate establishment hacks wanting to smear Corbyn and maintain UK support for Israel.”

In 2019, Cllr Kay shared yet another article, which he described as “food for thought….. real thought!”, that portrayed Labour’s antisemitism crisis as part of a “disgraceful environment” of “disinformation and downright lies cooked up by those with vested interests and promoted by the billionaire offshore owners of the press and fellow travellers such as [the Jewish Labour then-MP] Ruth Smeeth.”

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.

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TalkRADIO fined £75,000 over George Galloway’s lack of partiality in discussion of Labour antisemitism, days after the former MP spread false story of murder of Arab child

The radio channel, TalkRADIO, has been fined £75,000 for breaching rules on impartiality in three programmes hosted by the controversial former MP, George Galloway. Two of the programmes concerned antisemitism in the Labour Party.

In assessing the breaches, Ofcom concluded that the programmes, one of which covered the poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal, had “failed to preserve due impartiality on a matter of major political controversy or a major matter of current public policy”. Ofcom observed that “alternative viewpoints were only reflected to an extremely limited extent over the course of these programmes, each of which was three hours in duration”.

Ofcom further noted that “it was also the case that the limited viewpoints featured in the programmes which did not align with Mr Galloway’s were treated in a very different way to those that did.” For example, in the programmes on antisemitism, Mr Galloway apparently described one listener who expressed a dissenting view as “gutless coward”, “ignorant moron”, and “cowardly”. “These statements had the effect of dismissing and denigrating listeners who held views that did not reflect Mr Galloway’s,” Ofcom explained, “and constituted a clear difference in the treatment of such views.”

Ofcom found the breaches to be both serious and repeated, because the same set of rules were breached on three separate occasions over five months, and in two of the occasions in respect of the same topic.

The fine comes after Mr Galloway again courted controversy by falsely suggesting that “illegal Israeli settlers” had murdered an Arab child who was in fact tragically drowned by rainwater. At least one other broadcaster echoed the accusation.

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CAA to write to Oxford English Dictionary calling for edit to proposed definition of “Yiddo” to note controversy over its use and for review of other problematic terms

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has published its list of new words for inclusion in its definitive guide to the English language in a January update.

Among the new entries are a disproportionate number of Yiddish words and phrases and others relating to Jews and Judaism, including: “anti-Semiticism”; “bagel”; “bochur”; “broigus”; “chicken soup”; “chrain”; “chutzpadik”; “farbrengen”; “Farkakte”; “futzing”; “glatt kosher”; “Japhetan”; “Jewdar”; “Jewfro”; “Jew-hating”; “Jewish American”; “Jewish-Christian”; “Jewish Christianity”; “Jew town”; “Jew York”; “Kvetching”; “kvetchy”; “Semiticist”; “Shabbat goyah”; “Shaliach”; “shticky”; “Unterfirer”; “yeshiva bochur”; and “yiddo”.

There are also numerous new sub-entries relating to Jews and Judaism, including “Hanukkah gelt”; “to make Shabbat”; and “shiksa goddess”, as well as new senses, including: “anti-Semite”; “bagel”; “chutzpah”; “kibitzer”; “kugel”; “kvell”; “kvetch”; “schlimazel”; “Semite”; “shtup”; “Yekke”; and “Yid”.

It is unclear why there is such a large number of words relating to Jews in this recent batch, and there is significant concern over the inclusion and definitions of certain words. In particular, there are concerns over the word “Yiddo”, which is defined as: “A Jewish person. Also in extended use: a supporter of or player for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.” This definition fails to take into account the controversy over the use of this word and its pejorative connotation when used by rival clubs. Including the term in the dictionary without context may suggest that it cannot be an offensive term and may retard efforts to control its use.

These concerns arise not only because of the practical implications for policing racism in football, but also because the dictionary must reflect the word’s actual use, which is often in a pejorative context. By omitting this detail, the definition is deficient. Other definitions do note that a word is “usually derogatory”, therefore there is no excuse not to include a similar disclaimer for “Yiddo”.

Other words are also questionable choices, such as “Jew York”, which is defined as “A name for: New York,” again with no context; and “anti-Semiticism”, which is defined as “Prejudice, hostility, or discrimination towards Jewish people on religious, cultural, or ethnic grounds; = anti-Semitism,” despite the dearth of evidence suggesting that it is anything more than a mispelling of “anti-Semitism”, which in any event is preferably spelled “antisemitism”.

Oxford University Press, which publishes the OED, said in a statement that the word “Yiddo” is being labelled as “offensive and derogatory” and says it “will ensure the context for this connection [with Tottenham Hotspur and the Jewish community] is very clear” in the definition.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The purpose of new entries in a dictionary is to reflect how words have come to be used. If the Oxford English Dictionary feels that it must incorporate a word such as ‘Yiddo’, it must also note that its use is controversial and can be pejorative, especially when used by the supporters of rival football clubs. Omitting this detail leaves an inadequate definition that does not fully reflect how the term is used. Moreover, why there are so many words related to Jews in this recent update to the dictionary, including other derogatory terms that are not marked as such, is also disturbing. Campaign Against Antisemitism shall be writing to the OED on all of these points.”

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Watch as a woman performs a Nazi salute as she passes a kosher grocery shop in Manchester

A woman has been caught on CCTV performing a Nazi salute at shoppers in a kosher grocery store in Manchester.

In the video, which can be viewed below, the woman is seen passing by the shop, noticing the Jewish shoppers and stopping to perform an antisemitic gesture.

Greater Manchester Police have been notified.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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“Jew process” Labour councillor Jo Bird has second suspension lifted within days, clearing way for her to run for Party’s ruling body

The controversial Labour councillor, Jo Bird, has had her second suspension from the Party lifted within days, clearing the way for her to run for the Party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC). She is apparently considered to be a frontrunner in the race to become a Constituency Labour Party representative on the NEC.

This was Cllr Bird’s second suspension from the Labour Party, and it came just days after it emerged that the Labour Representation Committee, a pro-Corbyn pressure group with a long history of belittling claims of antisemitism and publishing extremely disturbing articles and of which the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, is President, was backing Cllr Bird to join the NEC. With her suspension lifted, Cllr Bird is now able to continue to stand as a candidate for the NEC.

Cllr Bird represents the Bromborough Ward on Wirral Council and has a long history of controversy relating to Jews, including renaming ‘due process’ in the Labour Party as “Jew process”, for which she was suspended; supporting the expelled Labour activist and friend of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Marc Wadsworth, who was thrown out of the Party after a confrontation with Jewish then-MP Ruth Smeeth; and worrying about the “privileging of racism against Jews, over and above — as more worthy of resources than other forms of racism.”

Elected to Wirral Council in August 2018, Cllr Bird is a member of the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, Jewish Voice for Labour, and has described Labour’s institutional antisemitism as based on mere “accusations, witch-huntery and allegations without evidence”. 

Cllr Bird rejoined the Labour Party in 2015, when Jeremy Corbyn was running for the Party’s leadership, and last year she had previously been tipped to become a candidate to replace Dame Louise Ellman, a Jewish MP who quit Labour prior to the election due to 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.

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.

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CAA calls on new DEFRA Secretary George Eustice to distance himself from previous remarks on religious slaughter and reassure the Jewish community

Concerns have been raised following the appointment of George Eustice as the new Secretary for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, given Mr Eustice’s past scepticism toward Jewish religious slaughter, known as shechitah.

Mr Eustice has previously supported the labelling of meat that is not stunned before slaughter, which would distinguish ritually slaughtered meat, which is traditionally not pre-stunned, from other meat on sale. He has also called for a free vote for MPs on religious slaughter, saying: “There has been an alarming rise in the proportion of farm animals slaughtered without stunning and our regulations in this area are outdated. We are falling behind other developed countries.”

He has even proposed stricter quotas for kosher meat in the UK, as well as post-cut stunning, by which an animal is stunned immediately following slaughter rather than prior to slaughter, and claimed that this practice has “some rabbinical support”, a contention that has been disputed by communal groups.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “While we congratulate George Eustice on his appointment, his past stated positions on Jewish religious slaughter are deeply concerning to the Jewish community. We call on him to distance himself from past comments and reassure the Jewish community that he will safeguard this important expression of religious liberty.”

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Anticipating EHRC report, Labour moves to expel 25 members in one day, while news also emerges of yet another troubling figure vying to join Party’s ruling body

The Labour Party has reportedly expelled 25 members in a single day, as it tries to compensate for years of lacklustre disciplinary enforcement before the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) publishes its report later this year.

The EHRC launched a full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party on 28th May 2019 following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

Following what the Party describes as “significant reforms” to its disciplinary process, it is also believed that Cllr Jo Bird has been suspended and Asa Winstanley resigned his membership after the Party launched its delayed investigation and began asking him questions.

Cllr Bird, who represents the Bromborough Ward on Wirral Council, has a long history of controversy relating to Jews, including renaming ‘due process’ in the Labour Party as “Jew process”, for which she was suspended; supporting the expelled Labour activist and friend of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Marc Wadsworth, who was thrown out of the Party after a confrontation with Jewish then-MP Ruth Smeeth; and worrying about the “privileging of racism against Jews, over and above — as more worthy of resources than other forms of racism.” Cllr Bird is a member of the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, Jewish Voice for Labour, and was elected to Wirral Council in August 2018.

This is Cllr Bird’s second suspension from the Labour Party, and it comes just days after it emerged that the Labour Representation Committee, a pro-Corbyn pressure group with a long history of belittling claims of antisemitism and publishing extremely disturbing articles and of which the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, is President, was backing Cllr Bird to join Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC). Cllr Bird had previously been tipped to become a candidate to replace Dame Louise Ellman, a Jewish MP who quit Labour prior to the election due to antisemitism.

Mr Winstanley, a far-left activist who called the Jewish Labour Movement an “Israeli Embassy proxy” and was reportedly suspended from Labour in March, pending an investigation, observed: “The manufactured ‘antisemitism crisis’ spreads from Labour to a state-backed McCarthyist witch hunt. It was a fatal mistake to indulge these lies, and indulge liars like John Mann.” Lord Mann was a Labour MP who quit the Party and was elevated to the House of Lords as the Government’s independent antisemitism advisor. Last September, Labour Against the Witchhunt, a group that was set up to protest the expulsion of Labour members for alleged antisemitism and that opposes “the false antisemitism smear”, hosted a public meeting with Ken Livingstone and Asa Winstanley.

Expelled members included Maureen Fitzsimmons, whose social media posts suggested that “Jews control everything” and referenced “corrupt Jewish puppet bankers”, and who continues to call antisemitism “the big lie”; Gavin Sealey, who supported notorious antisemite Gilad Atzmon (although it was unclear whether Mr Sealey’s expulsion was related to his expression of support); and Stephen Orme, who reportedly reacted to his expulsion by saying that “friends of Israel are a dominant and obsessive force”. Another member, Sharon Rothwell, reported that she had been suspended for “posting vids” by conspiracy theorist David Icke.

Elleanne Green, the founder of the antisemitic Palestine Live Facebook group, of which Mr Corbyn was a member, has also now been expelled from the Party. It has taken Labour two years since the views expressed in the group became public for Ms Green to face a sanction.

At the same time, it has emerged that, while Cllr Bird’s possible bid to join the NEC may fail due to her suspension, another troubling figure is a candidate to become the BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) representative on the NEC. Keith Hussein has apparently repeatedly described antisemitism allegations against the Labour Party as a “smear”.

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.

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Labour leadership hustings for Jewish community sheds light on candidates’ records and positions on antisemitism

The issue of antisemitism dominated the Labour leadership hustings in London yesterday, which was organised by the Party’s Jewish affiliate and moderated by the Jewish journalist Robert Peston.

In her introductory remarks, Dame Margaret Hodge MP, who is Jewish, said that antisemitism “hasn’t just penetrated the Labour Party but has chronically infected our Labour Party,” describing the last four years under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn as the most “miserable, challenging and lonely”.

She also highlighted how during this leadership campaign history was being “rapidly rewritten by those who are seeking our support,” noting that, despite the candidates making comforting statements now, as Shadow Cabinet ministers they were invisible “when we needed them most,” asking: “what did they actually do to force the leadership to act?” (Three of the four candidates sit in the Shadow Cabinet, with the fourth having served in the Shadow Cabinet for almost a year until mid-2016.)

Dame Margaret said that it was no good speaking up only in the “privacy” of Shadow Cabinet meetings and urged whichever candidate is successful to clean up the Party’s central office, including dealing with senior officials.

In their opening statements, all four candidates — Rebecca Long-Bailey, Emily Thornberry, Sir Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy — pledged to implement the recommendations of the report that is expected to be published in the coming months by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) after it completes the full statutory investigation into Labour antisemitism that it launched on 28th May 2019 following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

Ms Long-Bailey observed how the Party’s antisemitism crisis had caused “palpable” “pain”, “anxiety” and “anger” in the Jewish community in Manchester, part of which lives in her constituency, and that it was “devastating” and “shameful” that Jews did not feel safe in the Labour Party, and apologised for it. Ms Long-Bailey later added that she spoke up on the issue of antisemitism, which elicited cries of “when?” from the audience, and admitted that “I should take responsibility” for not doing enough. “Could I have done more?” she asked rhetorically, before answering: “Yes”.

Ms Thornberry, whose husband’s family is Jewish, said that the Jewish community “wrongly” believed that a Labour government would have made them unsafe, but expressed her “disgust” that that is how Jews were made to feel by the Party. She later noted how a Jewish member of her staff reported that she could not go to family weddings and other occasions and publicise that she works for Labour, out of shame.

Sir Keir, whose parents’ family is Jewish, apologised to the community, saying: “I’m sorry that we let our Party get into the state that you lost faith in us,” and explained that “if you’re antisemitic you should be out [of Labour],” lamenting that “we’ve overcomplicated this.” He described dealing with antisemitism as “going to take time” but insisted that it is a “day one issue” for the successful candidate. He pledged that the test for the Party “isn’t about rules” but rather about whether the victims of antisemitism would feel comfortable to return: “I would not be satisfied that we’ve dealt with this unless people like [Jewish former Labour MP Dame] Louise [Ellman]…feel that they comfortably can come back”. Ms Thornberry agreed.

Ms Nandy declared about her Party: “We’ve lost all our moral authority”. Hers was the only opening statement that received strong applause, and it can be viewed here.

Mr Peston described the processes to deal with antisemitism in the Labour Party as “s***”, and observed that “this is a moral issue”. He went on to ask whether the candidates regard it as antisemitic “to describe Israel, its policies or the circumstances around its foundation as racist because of their discriminatory impact”, an apparent near allusion to one of the examples in the International Definition of Antisemitism. The candidates all appeared to affirm that it would be (or at least none demurred).

But Mr Peston then noted how Mr Corbyn had in 2018 proposed a “code” to the Party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) to be adopted instead of the Definition, and the code deliberately diluted the Definition on points such as the example that Mr Peston had raised. Mr Peston described that episode as “an extraordinary moment” and asked: “Why wasn’t there a deeper reckoning at that point?”

Ms Long-Bailey replied that the Jewish community was meant to be consulted on the code but when it transpired that it had not been, she no longer supported it (she had been a public supporter of it at the time) and instead backed adoption of the full Definition.

Ms Thornberry said that she had supported the adoption of the Definition throughout, and when she tried to raise the issue of antisemitism more generally she was told by Party superiors that it “wasn’t my business” and was told to stick to her foreign policy brief.

Sir Keir said that he supported adoption of the Definition in public and private; argued for an auto-exclude policy for offenders and in particular in high profile cases such as those of the disgraced former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and disgraced former MP Chris Williamson; described the Party’s resistance to adopting the Definition as a “low moment”; called for an independent investigation and disciplinary process; and reported that there had been rows in Shadow Cabinet and that he and Ms Thornberry (but not, by implication, Ms Long-Bailey) had spoken up because the NEC was not dealing with the problem adequately.

Asked whether any of the Shadow Cabinet ministers had considered resigning over antisemitism, none of them answered, although Ms Nandy volunteered that antisemitism was a factor in why she chose not to return to the Shadow Cabinet after resigning with several colleagues in 2016. She also disclosed that she had considered her position in the Labour Party “every single day”. Ms Nandy also received thunderous applause for her complaint that the Party’s submissions to the EHRC have still not been disclosed by Labour to the leadership candidates or the Party’s Jewish affiliate.

Ms Nandy pointed out that the Party did tolerate not only antisemitism but, relatedly, also misogyny, as the most prominent Jewish MPs who were targeted over the past several years were women, and bullying, particularly with respect to the Party’s staff-turned-whistleblowers who featured on the Panorama investigation into Labour antisemitism.

With regard to the reported defamation claims being brought by the Panorama whistleblowers against the Labour Party, all the candidates agreed that the cases should be settled, although Ms Long-Bailey added: “whether we thought what they said was factually correct or not.”

One phrase that kept being repeated throughout the hustings was how much the candidates had “spoken up” during the period of Mr Corbyn’s leadership. Discussion about actual action that had been taken over the past several years, however, was considerably more limited.

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.

The full hustings is available to watch here.

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Exposed: Show Racism The Red Card CEO Ged Grebby’s persistent dismissal of Labour Party antisemitism despite his role heading charity meant to fight racism

The CEO of the charity Show Racism the Red Card is revealed to have a troubling social media history of belittling antisemitism in the Labour Party, whose antisemitic leader, Jeremy Corbyn, he openly backs.

Ged Grebby’s Twitter history includes the following posts, demonstrating a pattern of downplaying anti-Jewish racism — precisely the opposite sentiment that one might expect from the head of a charity that describes itself as an anti-racism educational organisation.

  • January 2015: Promoted an article by the journalist David Conn that criticised Campaign Against Antisemitism for sounding the “alarm” on rising antisemitism, claiming that raising these concerns would “risk seeming a little ungrateful” towards Britain. Mr Geddy described it as an “excellent article”.
  • August 2016: Tweeted that he is “Considering stopping my @guardian subscription over their massively biased coverage of #Corbyn.” The tweet linked to an article in The Guardian about comments by Labour MP Angela Eagle, titled: “Jeremy Corbyn’s failure to tackle bigotry has tarnished Labour”.
  • March 2018: Shared an article titled “As a Jewish Labour member, I’m sick of antisemitism being used as a political weapon against Jeremy Corbyn”, which dismissed claims of “a rise in antisemitic incidents” in the Labour Party as “tiring”, “frustrating” and “dangerous”. The notions that Labour’s antisemitism scandal was being “weaponised” or functioned as a “smear” of the Party’s leadership have been common tropes among deniers of Labour’s institutional antisemitism.
  • July 2018: Shared an article by the co-founder of the ultra-fringe Jews for Justice for Palestinians and the executive director of the highly controversial US-based group, Jewish Voice for Peace, which one leading Jewish organisation in the United States has said “gives cover to antisemites who couch their malice toward Jews as mere anti-Zionism”. The article was titled “As Jews, we reject the myth that it’s antisemitic to call Israel racist”. The article argued against the adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism by the Labour Party and endorsed the movement to boycott Israel, the tactics of which an overwhelming majority of Jews find intimidating. Mr Grebby described the article as an “important read”.
  • July 2018: A further tweet, captured by another user and, it seems, since deleted, also appears to have downplayed antisemitism in the Labour Party by agreeing with a series of tweets backing the infamous “code” that was floated by Labour Party insiders in 2018 as an alternative to the Definition in order to dilute it.
  • August 2018: Shared an article that wrongly claimed that the “[Definition] at heart of Labour row ‘will silence public discussion’, say minority groups.”
  • August 2018: Tweeted that “It is an absolute disgrace that #FrankField is using #Antisemitism in this way,” urging his followers to read an article criticising the backbench MP for observing in his resignation from the Labour Party that the Labour leadership was becoming a “force for antisemitism in British politics” and accusing Mr Corbyn of trying to “deny that past statements and actions by him were antisemitic”.
  • February 2019: Shared a letter that appeared in The Guardian titled “Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour is a crucial ally in the fight against antisemitism”, adding in his tweet the word “#antisemitism”. The letter, which backed Mr Corbyn against the concerns of the mainstream Jewish community, was signed by 200 Jewish members and supporters of the Labour Party.

In addition to his social media pronouncements, in 2019 Mr Geddy also appeared on a platform alongside individuals with their own worrying records, including Labour’s Richard Burgon MP, who said that “Zionism is the enemy of peace” and then lied about having done so, and Mark Serwotka, the General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, who suggested that Israel may have “created” the antisemitism crisis engulfing the Labour Party, as well as Anas Altikriti of the Muslim Association of Britain and Mohammed Kozbar, the Chair of Finsbury Park Mosque.

He also signed a joint letter with Labour frontbenchers and close allies of Mr Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Labour’s Laura Pidcock MP and the Unite chief, Len McCluskey, and others.

Show Racism the Red Card has itself been involved in controversies over antisemitism as well, most recently when it invited the outspoken filmmaker, Ken Loach, to join a panel of judges for a school competition on creative anti-racism designs, despite Mr Loach’s own history of denying Labour antisemitism and his past refusal to denounce Holocaust denial. Mr Geddy described Mr Loach as a “valued supporter” of his organisation, which has included Mr Loach as a guest of honour in the past.

Some of Show Racism the Red Card’s sponsors are trades unions that have dismissed antisemitism in the Labour Party, and Show Racism the Red Card has also hosted Mr Corbyn at a panel at Arsenal. Mr Corbyn has also been featured as a promoter of Show Racism the Red Card’s campaigns, including by Mr Geddy directly.

It has been noted that Show Racism the Red Card receives a significant amount of funding from government departments and public bodies, as well as unions.

It is deeply disturbing that the Chief Executive of a prominent charity charged with educating against racism also downplays it and serves as a cheerleader for an antisemitic political leader who is unfit for public office.

Campaign Against Antisemitism is grateful for research from numerous activists and online monitors, which contributed to this report.

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“The terrorist should come and stab you – I am against Zionists”, Jewish family is told in Covent Garden

A Jewish family was told by a male passerby that he is “against Zionists” and that a “terrorist should come and stab you”.

The encounter, which took place on 10th February, saw the racist individual rantingly tell the family that “You should not come out because you supported Boris; the terrorist should come and stab you! I am against Zionists.” 

The incident took place in Covent Garden and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD4120 10/02/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Recent developments in Labour’s leadership primary provide insight into how candidates might approach Party’s antisemitism crisis

Recent developments in Labour’s leadership primary provide some insight into how candidates might approach the Party’s antisemitism crisis.

Rebecca Long-Bailey’s candidacy has polarised her colleagues, with some defenders of Jeremy Corbyn’s record, such as John McDonnell and Ian Lavery, endorsing her, while others are concerned at the prospect of her assuming the Party’s top job. One backbencher, Neil Coyle, has now suggested that such an outcome would mean that “Antisemitism will continue” and predicted further walkouts by MPs over the issue. Another MP predicted a split in the Party.

In a recent debate between the candidates, there was a suggestion that Ms Long-Bailey had not raised the issue of antisemitism in Shadow Cabinet meetings, but she denied this.

Lisa Nandy has published a document titled “Tackling Antisemitism: An action plan for our party”, in which she describes Labour antisemitism as “a crisis in the soul of our Party”. In the document, she pledges to implement the conclusions of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Party, which was launched on 28th May 2019 following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

She also wishes to reduce the threshold for suspensions from the Party; adopt a “new, independent” complaints process and personally introduce any necessary rule changes; ensure that there is “full transparency” in the disputes process; improve training for Party officials and members; and introduce a “zero-tolerance environment for those who hold antisemitic views, or deny the experience of the victims of antisemitism.”

Sir Keir Starmer recently secured the endorsement of the Labour peer, Lord Dubs, a Holocaust escapee and passionate advocate for child refugees. However, Lord Dubs brought his judgement into question and severely damaged his reputation when he attacked the Chief Rabbi for calling out Mr Corbyn’s antisemitism and defended the Labour leader in late 2019.

Sir Keir has also published his 10 pledges, the tenth of which makes reference to “Robust action to eradicate the scourge of antisemitism”, but without further detail and only in the context of mounting an “Effective opposition to the Tories” rather than, as apparently with the other pledges, because it is a worthy ambition in itself that is befitting to a once fiercely anti-racist party.

Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, travelled to Penzance to drum up support from the local constituency parties that she needs to nominate her. Despite her insistence that tackling antisemitism is the “most urgent and immediate priority,” however, she was happy to meet with Alana Bates, the former local Labour candidate who described claims of antisemitism in Labour as “manipulative smears” and recorded a song with her band that called for the destruction of the Jewish state.

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.

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Lord Mann says Jeremy Corbyn’s inaction led to growth of antisemitism and not enough people are challenging it

Lord Mann has opined that “Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of action as Labour leader led to a growth of antisemitism on the Left,” adding that “there’s also virulent antisemitism on the Right.”

Lord Mann, who serves as the Government’s independent advisor on antisemitism, lamented that “not enough people are challenging antisemitism. We need to be more robust in standing up to it.”

He also noted that antisemitism was becoming the most acceptable form of racism and that society had a responsibility to tackle it. He urged politicians to address the climate in which people “feel confident” to make antisemitic remarks, noting too that it was a constant issue for the electorate during the general election.

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.

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.

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Dominic Raab’s meeting with antisemitic Malaysian Prime Minister is impossible to justify

Dominic Raab has controversially met with the antisemitic Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahamad Mahathir.

The Foreign Secretary met with Dr Mohamad yesterday during a trip to the region to bolster economic ties.

Dr Mohamad has a long history of making appallingly antisemitic comments. 

In his 1970 book The Makay Dilemma, he wrote that: “The Jews are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively.” In 2012, he wrote on his personal blog that: “Jews rule this world by proxy.” He also notoriously boasted that: “I am glad to be labeled antisemitic…How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies.”

Speaking at the Oxford Union recently, Dr Mohamad was challenged about his comments about Jews, and he responded that: “We talk about freedom of speech, but yet you cannot say anything against Israel, against the Jews, why is that so? If we are free to say what we like, we can say something that is regarded as antisemitic by the Jews, that is their right, to hold such an opinion of me. It is my right to tell them, also, that they have been doing a lot of wrong things.”

Gideon Falter, the Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “Dominic Raab’s decision to meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a vile antisemite, belittles our country and his august office and will be impossible to justify to the Jewish community. No policy goal is worth the price of fraternising with an avowed racist.”

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“You did nothing” on antisemitism, says former MP Ruth Smeeth to Labour’s deputy leadership candidates in blistering attack at hustings

The Jewish former Labour MP, Ruth Smeeth, delivered a blistering rebuke to candidates for the Party’s deputy leadership post at a hustings, telling them that when it came to antisemitism, “you did nothing”.

In fact, she even claimed that some of the candidates “shouted at me for raising” the scandal of antisemitism in the Party, as she lamented that one by one prominent Jewish women MPs in Labour were forced out, quit or lost their seat, with now only one remaining in Parliament.

Addressing the candidates – Angela Rayner, Dawn Butler, Richard Burgon, Ian Murray and Rosena Allin-Khan – Ms Smeeth’s remarked: “I find it very difficult and I’m looking forward to hearing other people’s comments on what they did or did not do over the last three years. But you know that I stood up at every Parliamentary Labour Party [PLP] meeting and called out antisemitism and asked for help. And I didn’t get any. In fact, there have been times where I was dismissed, where colleagues, including some of the people standing for election, shouted at me for raising those issues and shouted at me in my own office for raising those issues.

“And the idea that it should be Jewish women that have to lead this fight by themselves – because that’s what happened, with notable exceptions – is simply a disgrace. So I’m very interested in knowing where people were, I’m very interested in knowing why you were silent, I’m very interested in knowing why it was left to Luciana [Berger], and then me, and Louise [Ellman], and now Margaret [Hodge], who is alone, and for the people in this room, when I stood up at the PLP, when Louise Ellman was sent out and when Louise felt she had to go and said we were going to end up as Jundenfrei [free of Jews], and no-one did anything.

“So this is your responsibility to fix. But more than anything else, you did nothing, and you left it for people like me to lead that fight, and candidly, you should be ashamed.”

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.

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White supremacist posters appear at Bristol University, in Bristol town centre and in Hull

White supremacist posters have appeared on the campus of the University of Bristol as well as in Bristol’s town centre and in the city of Hull.

The posters, which read “It’s okay to be white”, are intended as a racist dog whistle and have been tied to an online group known as the Hundred Handers that encourages users to print and distribute the material.

The phrase was also described by the Bristol Students’ Union as “as a gateway into more serious conspiracies.”

A University spokesperson said: “The University of Bristol aspires to be a community where everyone should feel safe, welcomed and respected.”

In Hull, it was understood that members of the local council are now set to receive training on how to idenitfy white supremacist propaganda.

Similar propaganda has recently appeared in Edinburgh and Sunderland.

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Poll shows nearly three quarters of Labour members think antisemitism in the Party was invented or wildly exaggerated but still thought leadership should have handled it better

Nearly three quarters of Labour members said that the issue of antisemitism in the Party was “invented or wildly exaggerated by the right-wing media and opponents of Jeremy Corbyn”, according to a new poll by Lord Ashcroft. That number rose to over 90% among members of the pro-Corbyn Momentum group.

Nevertheless, most of those Labour members who held this view also thought that the Party’s leadership “should have done a better job of dealing with the issue.”

According to the report, only about one in five Labour members – and only 6% of those who voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the second Labour leadership contest in 2016 – agreed that “antisemitism was a real problem in the Labour Party, and that is why it got so much attention.” Conversely, one in four of those who backed Mr Corbyn in 2016 believed that the right-wing media and opponents of Mr Corbyn are to blame for the amount of attention that the antisemitism crisis received.

This view was echoed by members in focus groups, who made comments such as: “The antisemitism stuff was rubbish. There may have been the odd incident, but it was hyped, weaponised. Other parties didn’t get the same scrutiny.” Others noted: “[Mr Corbyn] should have said there’s no room for prejudice in the Labour Party, it’s not what we stand for, we’re going to have a really open, visible investigation and we’ll stamp it out – not do it all behind closed doors.”

Former Labour voters in the focus groups also apparently often raised the subject of antisemitism spontaneously. 

The pollster interviewed 10,107 adults in Great Britain online between 14th and 20th January and weighted data to be representative of all adults in Great Britain. 1,073 members of the Labour Party were interviewed online between 10th and 14th January. Focus groups of Labour members and former Labour voters were also held in January.

Joe Glasman, Head of Political and Government Investigations at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “This poll makes for very worrying reading. In indicating that they believe that the issue of Labour antisemitism is ‘invented or wildly exaggerated’, an overwhelming proportion of Labour’s vast membership is effectively accusing British Jews of lying. These Labour members are likely to continue to influence the direction of one of the country’s two major parties and their views about Jews and antisemitism will fester in our politics for a generation. This is Jeremy Corbyn’s legacy.”

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.

(Photo credit: Lord Ashcroft Polls)

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Amazon stops selling books by Holocaust denier that blame antisemitism on the Jews and appear to advocate genocide

Amazon has removed two books written by a Holocaust denier, including one that blames antisemitism on the Jews and another that appears to advocate genocide.

Amazon has stopped selling The Jewish Hand in the World Wars and the recently-released Eternal Strangers: Critical Views of Jews and Judaism Through the Ages, both written by an author who goes by the name of Thomas Dalton PhD.

The latter book’s blurb explains that “Jews are seen as pernicious, conniving, shifty liars; they harbor a deep-seated hatred of humanity; they are at once foolish and arrogant; they are socially disruptive and rebellious; they are ruthless exploiters and parasites; they are master criminals – the list goes on. The persistence of such comments is remarkable and strongly suggests that the cause for such animosity resides in the Jews themselves – in their attitudes, their values, their ethnic traits and their beliefs.”

The Jewish Hand in the World Wars expresses similar sentiments, apparently concluding by advocating for genocide against the Jews: “What shall we do? The path forward is quite narrow as Hitler understood. If we are to have any hope of minimizing future wars, we must stay the Jewish hand. Jews must be identified, isolated, sanctioned and removed from positions of power. In two short decades, an uneducated Austrian artist developed an unprecedented vision of national greatness, defeated the potent Jewish Lobby that for so long had ruled his nation, and guided his people to the heights of power. It happened once before. The blueprint still exists. It could happen again.”

The researcher David Collier described the book as a “169-page sewer of raw antisemitic hatred”.

An earlier book by the same author that was not available on Amazon – Debating the Holocaust – says in the introduction: “After considering all the evidence, I find that the revisionists have a very strong case.”

The books are all published by Castle Hill Publishing, which says it was founded by established by Germar Rudolf, a convicted Holocaust denier who served time in prison in Germany.

In a statement, Amazon said: “Our store maintains content guidelines for books that address content that is illegal, infringing or that we otherwise prohibit.”

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“No Jews are allowed to pass here,” says teenage girl brandishing broomstick to Jewish boys on way to synagogue in Golders Green

A teenage girl brandishing a broomstick told Jewish boys on their way to synagogue on Friday evening that “no Jews are allowed to pass here.”

The incident took place at around 16:45 on Friday 7th February on the corner of Armitage Road in Golders Green and was reported by Shomrim North West London, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Chelsea fans caught on video singing antisemitic songs, making gas chamber noises and performing Nazi salutes

Undercover footage taken for a BBC documentary reportedly shows supporters of Chelsea Football Club singing antisemitic songs, making gas chamber noises and performing Nazi salutes.

The incidents reportedly took place in France in October 2019 on the day that Chelsea beat Lille in the Champions League.

The group of fans were chanting: “We hate Tottenham – Yids! We hate Tottenham – Yids!”. Two members of the group appeared to be making Nazi salutes.

In another segment, a supporter is seen on a train leading a different song about the Tottenham player, Martin Chivers: “Chivers was a Jew. The thing between his eyes was twice the normal size. Yiddo, Yiddo, Yiddo.”

Also on a train in Lille on the same day, fans are heard in the video hissing, apparently to imitate the noise of a gas chamber.

The clips were filmed in the making of a documentary titled Shame In The Game, which explores the persistence of racism in football.

The Club pledged to investigate “as soon as we are able to view the video” after it is broadcasted tomorrow.

This is not the first incident implicating Chelsea fans in behaviour of this kind.

Last month, Chelsea unveiled a mural at its stadium to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

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Labour councillor suspended for claiming George Michael’s music career was damaged by his opposition to “illegal wars by the Zionists”

A Labour councillor has reportedly been suspended for claiming on social media that George Michael’s music career was damaged by his opposition to “illegal wars by the Zionists”.

Lyn Boyd, who serves on the Durham County Council and is the cabinet support member for finance, was accused of promoting a “wide range of antisemitic tropes and far-fetched theories that you would expect from a far-right activist.”

Another Facebook post described former Prime Minister Tony Blair as “the perfect Zionist puppet”.

Yet another post linked to a video of a German Shepherd mauling a child, accompanied by a caption reading: “This is how the Israeli Zionist attack Palestinian children. You won’t see this in the mainstream media as they control most of it. Please watch and share.”

Other posts sought to downplay the extent of Labour’s antisemitism crisis and suggested that the claims of anti-Jewish racism in the Party were “complete rubbish and designed with one aim only. Ruining Corbyn and the party.”

Ms Boyd insisted that, although she would not seek re-election in 2021, she would “continue to campaign against any form of racism or antisemitic behaviour.”

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.

(Photo Credit: Durham County Council)

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Education Secretary Gavin Williamson: “there have been appalling incidents directed at the Jewish community at leading London universities”

The Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, has observed that “there have been appalling incidents directed at the Jewish community at leading London universities.”

Mr Williamson made the remark in an opinion editorial in which he affirmed that if universities do not defend free speech, the Government will do so. His reference to incidents impacting Jewish students was in the context of noting how “activists’ threats are able to shut down events.”

For years Jewish students have seen their events diluted by university authorities or found fellow students and other activists imported from off campus disrupting the events with protests that sometimes even turn violent.

Last year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published a report showing that two-thirds of students who said that they had experienced racial harassment during the first half of the 2018/19 academic year did not report it to their university.

The Universities minister, Chris Skidmore, has called on universities to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, with the Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick suggesting that public funding for institutions that fail to do so may be in jeopardy.

If any students are concerned about antisemitism on campus or need assistance, they can call us on 0330 822 0321, or e-mail [email protected].

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Man with history of browsing antisemitic websites and convicted of downloading terrorist material has his appeal against sentence dismissed in Edinburgh

A man with a history of browsing antisemitic websites who pleaded guilty in 2019 of possessing materials “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism” has had his appeal against his sentence dismissed.

David Dudgeon was sentenced to two years in prison by the Edinburgh Sheriff Court, which reduced the sentence by a year from a three-year starting point, due to his guilty plea.

Mr Dudgeon then appealed to the High Court of Justiciary Appeal Court for the sentence to be reduced on the basis that the three-year starting point was “excessive”. That appeal has now failed.

Mr Dudgeon, who reportedly has a history of mental health issues, was referred to police in March 2019, following which his home was raided. Over the course of the investigation, it was discovered that Mr Dudgeon had an extensive browsing history of extreme far-right websites on topics such as antisemitism, Holocaust denial, racism, conspiracy theores and serial killers, desribed by the court as “violent, sinister and disturbing”.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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John McDonnell’s Labour Representation Committee supporting formerly suspended councillor who talked about “Jew process” for seat on party’s ruling body

A controversial councillor is reportedly being backed to join Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee by the far-left group, the Labour Representation Committee.

Jo Bird, Labour and Co-operative Councillor for the Bromborough Ward on Wirral Council has previously been suspended from the Labour Party and given a formal warning, apparently after joking about renaming ‘due process’ in the Labour Party as “Jew process”.

Cllr Bird is a member of the sham Jewish Voice for Labour group and was elected to Wirral Council in August 2018.

The comments were reportedly made two years ago at a “Justice4Marc” meeting in support of expelled Labour activist and friend of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Marc Wadsworth, who was expelled from the Party after a confrontation with a Jewish MP Ruth Smeeth. According to the recording, Cllr Bird joked that the term ‘due process’ should be dubbed “Jew process”, drawing laughter and applause from the crowd of Labour activists.

Cllr Bird discussed allegations of racism and said that: “Seriously, one of the things that does worry me is the privileging of racism against Jews, over and above — as more worthy of resources than other forms of racism.”

Cllr Bird also came under fire for another part of the recording, in which she adapted the famous “First they came…” poem about the failure of European society to stand up for Jews during the Holocaust by German theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller. Her distorted version said: “They came for the anti-Zionists, and I stood up because I was not a target, I stood up in solidarity. And then they came for the Socialists but they couldn’t get us because we were having a party, the Labour Party.” 

Rachel Riley, the television star and antisemitism campaigner, tweeted at the time: “Absolutely aghast listening to JVL’s Jo Bird, take a poem about the Holocaust, remove the Jews, to replace them with persecution of anti-racists and anti-Zionists.”

Cllr Bird also said that “privileging” antisemitism was “Bad for the many, as well as bad for the Jews,” a play on the Party’s “For the many, not the few” slogan. 

The disgraced former MP, Chris Williamson, is also heard in the recording.

Cllr Bird struck a similar tone on the issue in a Jewish Voice for Labour blog. She wrote that Mr Wadsworth’s expulsion was “unfair” and said ‘due process’ should be known as “Jew process.” The title of the blog was even “Jew Process.”

The Labour Representation Committee is a pro-Corbyn pressure group with a long history of belittling claims of antisemitism and publishing extremely disturbing articles. The Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, is its President.

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.

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Port Vale striker Tom Pope charged with “aggravated breach” of FA rules over “improper” Rothschild tweet

Tom Pope, the Port Vale forward, has been charged by the Football Association (FA) over a tweet referencing the Rothschilds, and may face a sanction.

Responding to a request to predict the course of a hypothetical Third World War, Mr Pope tweeted: “We invade Iran then Cuba then North Korea then the Rothchilds [sic] are crowned champions of every bank on the planet – the end.” The tweet has since been deleted.

After being warned by other Twitter users that his tweet could be construed as racist, he said: “I mentioned them owning the banks which is fact and now I’m facing all this,” adding: “How is it racist?? Seriously is someone out to destroy me or what?”

It is understood that the FA has considered launching an investigation, as is Mr Pope’s Port Vale club.

Mr Pope has since apologised.

The FA said: “Tom Pope has been charged with a breach of FA Rule E3 in relation to a social media post on 5 January 2020.

“It is alleged that his social media activity breaches FA Rule E3(1) as it was abusive and/or insulting and/or improper and/or brought the game into disrepute.

“It is also alleged that his social media activity constitutes an ‘Aggravated Breach’, which is defined in FA Rule E3(2), as it included a reference, whether expressed or implied, to race and/or religion and/or ethnic origin.

“The Port Vale forward has until 12th February 2020 to respond.”

Mr Pope has already been banned for one match and given a fine in connection with other, unrelated “improper comments” on social media.

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Deputy Leader of Green Party Amelia Womack apologises for antisemitic tweet

The Deputy Leader of the Green Party has apologised for tweeting an antisemitic cartoon depicting Israel and the United States as responsible for conflict and death around the world.

Amelia Womack shared an animated image of the Grim Reaper cloaked in an American flag and carrying a scythe emblazoned with the flag of Israel and dripping with blood going door to door – each door representing a country – bringing death.

Ms Womack accompanied the image with the caption: “When a picture paints a thousand words.”

She later deleted the tweet some hours later, saying “That’ll teach me for sharing things just as my battery dies on a train.”

The next morning she apologised, saying: “Yesterday I tweeted a picture which, in my ignorance, I thought was satirising U.S. Imperialism. It wasn’t, it was in fact antisemitic and I apologise wholeheartedly for tweeting it. I abhor antisemitism in all forms. There is no excuse for what I did and I’m truly sorry.”

The incident occurred in January 2019.

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.

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Synagogue and family attacked in multiple antisemitic incidents across London

Worshippers at a synagogue in Stamford Hill, along with a family visiting a medical clinic in South London, were subject to antisemitic abuse in three separate incidents this week.

On 4th February, a group of youths threw eggs and fireworks at worshippers at a synagogue by Clapton Common, and on 5th February the same group climbed to the roof of the synagogue and shouted abuse at those attending.

Also on 5th February, a Jewish family visiting a medical clinic had a stone thrown at their car by three males. The incident occured on Marine Street in SE16 and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD5236 05/02/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Show Racism the Red Card involved in another antisemitism controversy as it invites Ken Loach to join a panel of judges for an anti-racism school contest

The activist group, Show Racism the Red Card, has become involved in another controversy over antisemitism following an invitation to the outspoken filmmaker, Ken Loach, to join a panel of judges for a school competition on creative anti-racism designs.

Mr Loach has a history of inflammatory comments on the subject of antisemitism. Mr Loach’s voice has been among the loudest of those who attempt to dismiss Labour’s antisemitism crisis as non-existent and a right-wing smear campaign. He claimed that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was subjected to a “torrent of abuse” that was “off the scale” and that regardless of what he did, the “campaign” of antisemitism accusations was “going to run and run”. He described the BBC’s Panorama investigation into Labour antisemitism as “disgusting because it raised the horror of racism against Jews in the most atrocious propagandistic way, with crude journalism…and it bought the propaganda from people who were intent on destroying Corbyn.” He was also reportedly behind a motion passed by Bath Labour Party branding the Panorama programme a “dishonest hatchet job with potentially undemocratic consequences” and asserting that it “disgraced the name of Panorama and exposed the bias endemic within the BBC.” John Ware, the programme’s reporter, is apparently considering legal action against Mr Loach for his comments.

In 2017, Mr Loach caused outrage when, during an interview with the BBC, he refused to denounce Holocaust denial. The International Definition of Antisemitism states that “denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)” is a manifestation of antisemitism. Although Mr Loach later sought to clarify his remarks, he has continued to make inflammatory and provocative statements about Labour’s antisemitism scandal. While speaking at a meeting of the Kingswood Constituency Labour Party, Mr Loach advocated the removal from the Party of those Labour MPs, some of whom are Jewish, who have taken a principled stand against antisemitism. Shortly after that incident, the Labour Party announced that it would no longer use Mr Loach as a producer of their election broadcasts.

Another invitee to the panel, Michael Rosen, is a former backer of the Socialist Workers Party who has also reportedly defended Jeremy Corbyn against charges of antisemitism.

The group’s chief executive described Mr Loach and Mr Rosen as “valued supporters” and said that he could not “think of two people better qualified to choose winners.”

Show Racism the Red Card describes itself as an anti-racism educational charity and appears to focus on discrimination and hate towards Black and Asian communities in the UK. It does not appear to offer resources on antisemitism.

The organisation has also itself hosted Mr Corbyn, along with fellow Labour Party frontbencher Emily Thornberry, at a panel at Arsenal.

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Daniel Kawczynski MP attends ‘national conservatism’ conference featuring controversial European politicians

Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski has come under fire for attending a ‘national conservatism’ conference featuring controversial European politicians, including the prominent Italian politician, Matteo Salvini, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán and Marion Maréchal of France’s National Rally.

Defending his attendance, Mr Kawczynski said: “ Clearly, Messrs. Orbán and Salvini are not to everyone’s tastes. But they represent serious ideas and concerns, some of which are shared by many citizens of the UK.”

A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The polarisation of politics on the continent means that parties with hard right and hard left views are now part of the mainstream, as happened in the UK with the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. It is important that the Conservative Party not be enticed by such views and those who espouse them.”

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School in Lincolnshire to edit 95-year-old logo to remove association with antisemitic blood libel

A school in Lincolnshire intends to edit its 95-year-old logo to remove its historic association with an antisemitic blood libel.

St Hugh’s School’s logo features a ball flying over a wall, which represents the story of ‘Little Saint Hugh’ who, in antisemitic folklore, was murdered by a Jewish family after losing his ball over their wall and being invited to retrieve it.

It is understood that the myth was known to the school’s founders, who wanted it to “remind [the] boys to maintain control, both of the ball and where they were allowed to play with it.”

The school’s new headmaster reportedly discussed the issue with the governing board and it was decided to remove the circle from the logo (representing the ball), retaining only the bricks “to reiterate the significance of the educational building blocks.”

The headmaster said: “As a school, we base every element of the education that we offer on fundamental British values and we hold dear the principles of mutual respect and inclusivity,” adding that the school cirrculum includes a visit to the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottingham “which complements the work done in school in RE, PSHE lessons and tutorials” and stressing that “there is no place for discrimination of any kind” at the school.

Former pupils include the late television host, David Frost.

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SNP activists invite conspiracy theorist Craig Murray for speech in Edinburgh

Activists from the Scottish National Party (SNP) have invited a controversial former diplomat, Craig Murray, to address them at an event in Edinburgh.

Mr Murray, a blogger and conspiracy theorist, suggested in March 2018 that Israel was more likely than Russia to have been behind the Salisbury poisoning of the Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, reportedly writing on his blog: “While I am struggling to see a Russian motive for damaging its own international reputation so grievously, Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation.”

It is understood that Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s Justice Spokesperson in Parliament, will not be present at the event at the Party’s Braidburn branch to hear Mr Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan who failed vetting to become an SNP candidate in 2014 apparently due to a “lack of a commitment to group discipline”.

A spokesman for Ms Cherry said that she planned to leave the branch before Mr Murray’s speech.

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.

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Urban Dictionary apologises for offensive “Auschwitz” definitions and merchandise and pledges to remove them from website

Urban Dictionary, an online crowd-sourced dictionary of slang words, has apologised for needless and offensive definitions of the word “Auschwitz” and related phrases, and has pledged to remove them, along with merchandise using the word.

The dictionary, which has been operating for over twenty years, contains more than eight million slang words and definitions and attracts some 65 million monthly visitors to the website, boasting 180 million page views. It functions as a platform for user-generated definitions, which are often tongue in cheek, however, its operators have readily conceded that numerous definitions of the Nazi concentration camp and related terms are needlessly offensive and should be removed.

Definitions of Auschwitz available on the popular site include describing it as “a summer camp for Jews – a Disneyland for its time”; “a place there are too many Jews”; “The happy resort for Jews during WW2”; and numerous references to flatulence.

Other terms include:

  • “Auschwism”, defined as “when you’re getting roasted but you’re too socially awkward to respond”; “The hopes that all autistic people will go to a concentration camp (Aka Auschwitz)”; and “When a person is so autistic or stupid, they need to be gassed.”
  • “Auschwitz burger”, defined as “when you put German bologna on Jewish rye and cook it in a gas oven”.
  • “Auschwistic”, defined as “an adjective to describe someone so stupid they deserve to be put in Auschwits [sic]”.
  • “Auschwitz diet”, defined as “a nutritional approach to losing weight, based on simply consuming less food.”
  • “Auschwitz Express”, defined as “the 16:46 Central to Caboolture train, so name[d] because it is usually more crowded than one of Eichmann’s Auschwitz trains – although Eichmann’s trains generally ran on time.
  • “Auschwitz Dining Hall”, defined as “another name for Ohio University’s Boyd Dining Hall located on the West Green. The nickname derives from the reference to the nutritionally void rations the Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz were fed under Nazi rule. Many students on West Green refer to Boyd as Auschwitz because, while Boyd is conveniently located in the center of West Green, it’s [sic] foods look just as bad, if not worse, than the food that was given to Auschwitz inmates.”
  • “Auschwistic meltdown”, defined as “an autistic meltdown where you spontaneously combust into ashes.”

Further terms include “Auschwitz gas chamber”, “Auschwitz abortion”, “Auschwitz oven”, “Auschwitz pencil pusher”, and others, typically referencing flatulence, the use of natural gas or a sexual act.

Urban Dictionary also sells branded merchandise, including mugs, t-shirts and other items which carry the definitions on the website. Options include, for example, a £19 mug, £23 t-shirt or £36 sweatshirt marked “Auschwitz abs”, another of the related terms which the website defines as “a particular set of circumstances in which one has a deficient amount of body fat causing them to look like a Nazi concentration camp tenant.”

Responding to complaints about the terms and definitions, Urban Dictionary said: “Thank you for speaking up – we’re deeply sorry and honestly, we must do better. We encourage anyone to flag definitions that use hate speech.”

Urban Dictionary’s terms of service prohibits uploading material that is “detrimental to the quality or intended spirit”of the platform, and users are also able to report abusive or harmful content on the site, with entries deemed to violate policy usually removed within two days, according to the website.

When asked about the merchandise, Urban Dictionary provided a further statement: “Thanks again for holding us accountable. Every definition automatically generates options to print – we agree that it’s inappropriate for these items to be printed or even offered, and we’ve blocked the ability to do so. It may take 24 hours for pages to fully update.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism applauds Urban Dictionary for its pledge to act swiftly to remove the offensive material, and urges the operators to follow through.

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Labour Party expels member who claimed Jewish TV personality Rachel Riley “prostituted your religion” and was “poisoning the memory of your ancestors”

The Labour Party has expelled a member who claimed that the Jewish TV personality and anti-extremism campaigner, Rachel Riley, “prostituted your religion” and was “poisoning the memory of your ancestors”.

Bob James, a Labour member from Wales, was suspended in March 2019 in connection with tweets about Ms Riley, including that “Judaism is a religion but what Israel does in the name of God is pure Satanic”; “I think Riley is using her influence as a popular celebrity to undermine the Labour party. Her method, though, using her Jewish heritage to promote self-interest, is appalling”; and “Riley has been open about her dislike of Corbyn… You have to hand it to the Tory party for getting her to risk her career for 30 pieces of silver.”

Ms Riley reportedly responded to ask: “Are you an official Labour spokesperson… or just a big cheerleader?”

Following the suspension, Labour’s National Constitutional Committee reportedly found him guilty of the charges and the Party has now expelled him.

Apparently, Mr James had also been subject to an earlier complaint over a social media post in which he claimed that “Israel is using the Holocaust as an excuse for murder,” but the Party reportedly concluded at the time that it was unable to identify Mr James as a member and therefore could not take further action.

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.

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Man who broke into synagogue, leaving blood everywhere and threatening to blow it up, spared jail

A man who broke into a synagogue, leaving blood everywhere and threatening to blow up the building, has been spared jail.

Andrew Prendergast, 47, broke into Blackpool Reform Synagogue on 19th November 2019, leaving his blood strewn across walls, offices and the prayer hall. He had also damaged the alarm in a bid to destroy it.

He told police officers: “synagogue, synagogue, f***ing blow them up. We don’t want them f***ers over here. I’m f***ing English and f***ing proud,” reportedly admitting to them that burglary was religiously motivated.

Mr Prendergast pleaded guilty to burglary and racially aggravated criminal damage and appeared at Preston Crown Court to be sentenced. According to the defence, he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and a breakdown and was on drugs at the time.

Despite his reported admissions, Judge Beverley Lunt determined that the offence was not a hate crime and declined to imprison him so that he could seek help with his mental health problems.

Mr Prendergast was sentenced to eight months consecutively for burglary and racially aggravated criminal damage suspended for two years, and was ordered to carry out 50 rehabilitation days and a nine-month drug rehabilitation requirement.

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CAA writes to John Bercow about his experiences of antisemitism in the Conservative Party

Campaign Against Antisemitism has written to John Bercow seeking further information about his account of antisemitism in the Conservative Party.

Mr Bercow, a longtime MP who left the Conservative Party when he became Speaker of the House of Commons in 2009, revealed in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine in the course of promoting his new memoirs, that he had been the target of antisemitism by fellow Conservatives.

He said that this took the form of mostly “subtle” digs at his Jewish heritage. He also provided an example, saying that “I remember a member saying, ‘If I had my way, Berkoff [sic], people like you wouldn’t be allowed in this place’, And I said, ‘Sorry, when you say people like me, do you mean lower-class or Jewish?’ To which he replied, ‘Both’.”

Mr Bercow added that “in 22 years, I never experienced antisemitism from a member of the Labour Party. But I did experience antisemitism from members of the Conservative Party.”

Mr Bercow also expressed remorse for his involvement with the controversial Monday Club, saying, “Here I was, a Jewish boy…sidling up to racists.”

However, Mr Bercow controversially intervened in Labour’s antisemitism scandal recently by defending the Party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, over charges of antisemitism. The Labour leader subsequently nominated Mr Bercow for a peerage which had not been granted to him by the Conservative Government. Mr Bercow’s nomination has raised concerns about Mr Bercow’s motives for defending Mr Corbyn.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has written to Mr Bercow for further details about his experiences.

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.

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Jeremy Corbyn’s Chief of Staff Karie Murphy deemed “completely unfit” for peerage, but over allegations of bullying rather than Labour antisemitism

Jeremy Corbyn’s Chief of Staff, Karie Murphy, has been deemed “completely unfit” for a peerage by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which considers appointments to the upper chamber, after Mr Corbyn nominated her. However, the Commission’s conclusion was reportedly based on accusations of bullying rather than Labour antisemitism.

Ms Murphy is accused by staff of presiding over “a divisive and toxic culture” in the Leader of the Opposition’s office, including allegedly “berating” staff.

The bullying accusations are serious, including claims of physical assault.

It is regrettable that Ms Murphy’s leadership role in an institutionally antisemitic party and its campaign to make an antisemite prime minister did not appear to also form a part of the rationale for the recommendation not to award Ms Murphy with a place in the House of Lords. Mr Corbyn’s nomination of Ms Murphy was another insult to the Jewish community.

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.

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CAA picket of venue forces antisemitic saxophonist Gilad Atzmon to withdraw from performance at 606 Club

The antisemitic saxophonist, Gilad Atzmon, has withdrawn from his scheduled gig at the 606 Club tomorrow evening. The club had flatly rejected significant opposition to his performance by the Jewish community, until Campaign Against Antisemitism said that we would picket the venue on multiple future dates if Mr Atzmon was allowed to perform. Mr Atzmon said: “This morning I decided that in the light of the CAA’s threats, I am withdrawing from the gig.”

Mr Atzmon, billed as a “wonderful sax and clarinet player with a powerful sound and unique approach,” albeit one with “well-documented views on the Middle East that may provoke and challenge the listener,” had been scheduled to perform with his band at the iconic jazz venue tomorrow night.

However Mr Atzmon is a notorious antisemite. He was reported to have blamed the Grenfell Tower tragedy on “Jerusalemites” as well as reportedly telling university students that “the Jews were expelled from Germany for misbehaving.” His antisemitism is so brazen that he told a Jewish Twitter user in 2014: “I am not a Jew any more. I indeed despise the Jew in me (whatever is left). I absolutely detest the Jew in you.”

Initially, 606 Club doubled down on its invitation to Mr Atzmon, despite his record. Its owner defended Mr Atzmon, reportedly saying that although Mr Atzmon “sailed way too close to the wind sometimes”, nevertheless “having just spoken to Gilad he insisted he’s not racist and went to great pains to say that he does not have an issue with Jews, of which he is obviously one, the religion or the culture.” The owner added that he had never heard Mr Atzmon speak pejoratively of Jews.

However, after Campaign Against Antisemitism warned 606 Club that it would picket future events there in order to publicise to its patrons the venue’s tolerance of anti-Jewish prejudice, Mr Atzmon has apparently decided to back out of the performance, stating that it was because of “CAA’s threats”.

606 Club announced that Mr Atzmon had “decided to stand down” in order to “protect the venue’s reputation”, adding that the club would “liaise with concerned parties while it investigates allegations” against Mr Atzmon, which it claims are “so far unsupported”. The club’s owner reportedly said that he was doing “more due diligence on the matter”.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “It is appalling that 606 Club invited Gilad Atzmon to play yet again and then defended the decision even when confronted with his record of antisemitism which is well documented and well known. At a time when antisemitism in public life and on our streets is surging, it is disgraceful that the club resisted disinviting Mr Atzmon and apparently left it to him to do so under pressure from Campaign Against Antisemitism.”

This incident is not the first time that Campaign Against Antisemitism has succeeded in preventing Mr Atzmon from being given a platform.

Following efforts by Campaign Against Antisemitism to have Mr Atzmon banned from various musical venues, he penned an article in which he claimed that the then-Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism “fabricated” antisemitic incidents as part of a “business plan” to defraud the British taxpayer and earn money for himself. After being sued for libel, Mr Atzmon attempted to crowdfund “tens of thousands of pounds”, telling his supporters: “I have made the decision to fight this crucial battle for freedom of expression even though this fight poses a real risk of bankrupting me and my family.”

Faced with the impossible task of substantiating these libels, Mr Atzmon instead capitulated and agreed to settle the case, admitting that all of the claims were false and agreeing to pay substantial damages and costs. Mr Atzmon did not show his face in court, instead sending his solicitor to read an apology on his behalf.

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Labour suspends councillor who said “Jewish leaders are worse than Nazis” and referenced “Zionists’ attempts to influence our political processes”

The Labour Party has suspended a councillor who said that “Jewish leaders are worse than Nazis” and referenced “Zionists’ attempts to influence our political processes”, adding for good measure that those supposed efforts were “racist”.

Andy Kay, who had been serving as a cabinet member for finance and governance on Darwen Council in Lancashire, has been suspended pending an investigation following revelations by the JC of his social media history.

Cllr Kay also wrote that “Jewish leaders are worse than Nazis” in 2014 in a post on Facebook that was reportedly ‘liked’ by Kate Hollern MP, who went on to become a Labour MP and Private Parliamentary Secretary to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. She subsequently apologised.

In 2018, Cllr Kay also shared an article on social media describing Labour’s antisemitism crisis as a “blatant attempt to undermine Corbyn’s leadership”, adding the remark about Zionists. In the comments section of that post in a discussion about the International Definition of Antisemitism, Cllr Kay also said: “I was taught that Judaism was/is a religion, not a nation. In fact one of the tenets of Judaism prohibits the nation state… but I suppose that also depends on which wing of the fantasy you believe.”

Three days later, Cllr Kay reportedly shared an article that claimed that the Definition was “designed by Israeli propagandists to aid their many mass lobby attempts” and referenced the “largely-mythical antisemitism ‘crisis’ in the Labour Party,” which was described as “one of the few tools left to ailing and desperate establishment hacks wanting to smear Corbyn and maintain UK support for Israel.”

In 2019, Cllr Kay shared yet another article, which he described as “food for thought….. real thought!”, that portrayed Labour’s antisemitism crisis as part of a “disgraceful environment” of “disinformation and downright lies cooked up by those with vested interests and promoted by the billionaire offshore owners of the press and fellow travellers such as [the Jewish Labour then-MP] Ruth Smeeth.”

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.

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Conservative general election candidate who was suspended over antisemitism is still a councillor for the party in Aberdeen

A general election candidate suspended by the Scottish Conservative Party is still a councillor for the Party on Aberdeen City Council.

Ryan Houghton, had been the Conservatives’ candidate for Aberdeen North until it was discovered that he had written on a martial arts forum seven years ago, under the psedonym Razgriz, that although there was “no credible evidence to suggest the Holocaust did not happen” nevertheless “I do find some of the events fabricated, and exegarated [sic] in some cases.”

He continued: “As history is written by the victors there is always going to be a bit of re-writing.” He also praised the “interesting” research of the antisemitic Holocaust-denier, David Irving. However, in a later post he said that he was “not defending David’s Irving’s views” and that he does not agree with “some of the stuff he says.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)” is an example of antisemitism.

Mr Houghton was suspended as a candidate by the Party, albeit that he remained on the ballot because his nomination papers were already submitted, but he no longer represented the Conservative Party, which withdrew support for him.

However, Mr Houghton still serves on the council as business manager and vice-convener of the staff governance committee. An attempt to remove him from the position reportedly failed when Conservative and Labour councillors joined forces to vote it down.

The Conservative group leader and co-leader of the council, Douglas Lumsden said that Mr Houghton was “innocent until proven guilty,” adding: “I think it would be wrong for us to remove someone from their role when these are just accusations at present and they’re being investigated by the party. The Conservative Party takes things very seriously and there is a full investigation taking place.”

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Labour’s Afzal Khan claimed he was “mortified” for “accidentally” sharing antisemitic social media post but didn’t remove it for six months after apologising

The Labour MP, Afzal Khan, who claimed that he was “mortified” for “accidentally” sharing an antisemitic social media post, nonetheless did not remove the post for six months after apologising.

Mr Khan, who serves as the Shadow Immigration Minister, said that he was “sincerely sorry about this genuine accident” when it was revealed last year that he had shared a post referencing an “Israel-British-Swiss-Rothschilds crime syndicate” and “mass murdering Rothschilds Israeli mafia criminal liars” on Facebook in 2015. But only after being asked by The Telegraph in the past few days as to why it remained on his Facebook page was it removed.

Mr Khan was recently confronted by Gideon Falter of Campaign Against Antisemitism at a Chanukah party over his record, eventually leading to Mr Khan’s exit from the party.

During the 2017 general election, Mr Khan was criticised for sharing a comment on Twitter stating that “The Israeli government are acting like Nazi’s [sic] in Gaza.” The common breached the International Definition of Antisemitism, which lists “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism.

The words apparently derived from the headline of a blog post that Mr Khan was sharing. Of that incident, he said: “I did not then — nor do I now — endorse the content of the article I tweeted. I have a long track record of fighting racism, including antisemitism. I was new to Twitter and made a mistake, which I apologised for.”

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.

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“F*** Jews, I will kill all Jews”, shouts woman at Jewish pedestrians in Stamford Hill

Jewish pedestrians were abused by a woman screaming ““F*** Jews, I will kill all Jews.”

The incident occurred at 14:30 on 30th January in Stamford Hill, and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

The suspect then reportedly entered number 31 Stamford Hill. Police are investigating.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD3619 30/01/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Unite’s Len McCluskey continues to claim that Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents used antisemitism to undermine him

Len McCluskey, the head of the powerful Unite union, has claimed that antisemitism allegations were used to “undermine” the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, Mr McCluskey, who is a major backer of Mr Corbyn, called Mr Corbyn’s critics who supposedly exploited antisemitism to undermine the Labour leader “despicable”. 

He said: “I’m absolutely convinced that there were those individuals who opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s election right from the beginning [and] used the antisemitism issue to undermine him – there is no doubt about that.”

Although he observed that “lots of people were genuinely concerned” and graciously added that “I have no problem with that,” he nevertheless insisted that “there were others who were disingenuous.”

This is not the first time Mr McCluskey has tried to minimise the antisemitism scandal that has engulfed the Labour Party. He has previously claimed that the Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis is only a problem due to “right-wing media” supposedly exaggerating the issue; he has accused Jewish organisations of plotting to ensure that the Labour Party’s antisemitism crisis is “prolonged and intensified”; and he attacked the Chief Rabbi for calling out Labour antisemitism and the unfitness of its leader for public office.

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.

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Iconic jazz venue 606 Club doubles down on disgraceful decision to host antisemitic saxophonist Gilad Atzmon

The iconic Chelsea jazz venue, 606 Club, has doubled down on its disgraceful invitation to the antisemitic saxophonist, Gilad Atzmon, to perform there with his band.

Mr Atzmon, billed as a “wonderful sax and clarinet player with a powerful sound and unique approach,” albeit one with “well-documented views on the Middle East that may provoke and challenge the listener,” will be performing at the club with his band on 1st February.

606 Club reportedly received a complaint from a regular patron regarding his views on the Holocaust. The saxophonist has previously denounced what he called the “Holocaust religion”.

But the club’s owner, Steve Rubie, defended Mr Atzmon, reportedly saying that although Mr Atzmon “sailed way too close to the wind sometimes”, nevertheless “having just spoken to Gilad he insisted he’s not racist and went to great pains to say that he does not have an issue with Jews, of which he is obviously one, the religion or the culture.” Mr Richie added that he had never heard Mr Atzmon speak pejoratively of Jews.

Mr Atzmon is reported to have blamed the Grenfell Tower tragedy on “Jerusalemites” as well as reportedly telling university students that “the Jews were expelled from Germany for misbehaving.” He is not shy about his antisemitism, telling a Jewish Twitter user in 2014: “I am not a Jew any more. I indeed despise the Jew in me (whatever is left). I absolutely detest the Jew in you.”

Following efforts by Campaign Against Antisemitism to have him banned from various musical venues, he penned an article in which he claimed that the then-Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism “fabricated” antisemitic incidents as part of a “business plan” to defraud the British taxpayer and earn money for himself. After being sued for libel, Mr Atzmon attempted to crowdfund “tens of thousands of pounds”, telling his supporters: “I have made the decision to fight this crucial battle for freedom of expression even though this fight poses a real risk of bankrupting me and my family.”

Faced with the impossible task of substantiating these libels, Mr Atzmon instead capitulated and agreed to settle the case, admitting that all of the claims were false and agreeing to pay substantial damages and costs. Mr Atzmon did not show his face in court, instead sending his solicitor to read an apology on his behalf.

Campaign Against Antisemitism will be writing to the venue.

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Local Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch sends Holocaust denial tweet on eve of Holocaust Memorial Day

A local branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) shared an article on Twitter on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day that denied the extent of the Holocaust and breached the International Definition of Antisemitism in multiple ways.

The article, shared by the PSC’s Brixton chapter, claimed that “accounts vary regarding the number of Jewish victims who were killed as a result of the Nazi crimes during WWII. While some historians say the number reaches six million, others reduce it to hundreds of thousands.” The article went on to say that “it seems that the debate over the number of the victims of the Holocaust has nothing to do wtih logic or morality.” According to the Definition, “Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust)” is an example of antisemitism.

The article also stated that the “Zionist settler-colonial state of Israel…is a state based on racist ideology that despises human life”. According to the Definition, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour)” is an example of antisemitism.

Further, the article also claims that “the ideology [of Zionism] that led to the Nakba practically aligns with the ideology that led to the Holocaust…[and] the pains of the victims are similar, whether in Auschwitz or in Deir Yassin.” According to the Definition, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

This is not the first time the PSC has been embroiled in a controversy over antisemitism. In 2019, an investigation by the Evening Standard found the organisation awash with antisemitic tropes, while a month-long investigation by Campaign Against Antisemitism in 2017 exposed extensive antisemitic bigotry amongst PSC supporters on social media.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, is facing calls again to stand down as a patron of PSC.

https://twitter.com/ToubeDavid/status/1221045870248058880
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University of Warwick condemned in House of Commons for refusing to adopt International Definition of Antisemitism, as all universities called on to do so

The University of Warwick has been condemned by Andrew Percy MP in the House of Commons for refusing to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Mr Percy, who co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, urged public bodies to adopt the Definition in comments in Parliament last week, saying that “this applies to universities as well where we have a big problem with antisemitism on campuses”. In particular, he singled out “universities like Warwick, whose Vice-Chancellor is refusing to sign up” to the Definition.

The Vice-Chancellor declined to adopt the Definition because it did not offer “any added value,” declaring that the university would not “formally adopt individual definitions of specific forms of discriminatory behaviour.” The Vice-Chancellor explained that “to adopt one would inevitably lead to the adoption of a whole series of such definitions.” The university, however, would be “mindful” of the Definition.

The decision was criticised by the Warwick Jewish Israeli Society, which, following Mr Percy’s comments, reiterated its call on the university to adopt the Definition. The president of the Society said that the reference to the university’s refusal to adopt the Definition in the House of Commons “is a damning indictment of our university”, adding: “Enough is enough. The university should finally listen to Jewish students and adopt the Definition without delay.”

The university’s Students’ Union also criticised the Vice-Chancellor’s decision, noting that the university has adopted a “revamped Sexual Misconduct policy” because “it was widely agreed that a specific definition of sexual misconduct was a given for an effective process to be formulated.” It concluded that “we cannot therefore place our trust in the university to take racism seriously – particularly in the area of discipline – without an equally specific definition of what racial discrimination actually entails. It is unacceptable for victims of racism to constantly have to explain and unpack their experiences in order to be taken seriously.”

It is understood that negotiations on the matter at the University of Warwick will continue.

Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, has made several calls on universities, as well as local councils, to adopt the Definition, warning that those that do not may be named and shamed and have their funding cut.The Universities Minister, Chris Sikdmore, has also called on universities to adopt the Definition.

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Baroness Deech warns against “passive acts of commemoration” on Holocaust Memorial Day, urging political leaders to “commit to protecting” Jews

Baroness Deech has warned political leaders against “passive acts of commemoration” on Holocaust Memorial Day, calling instead for them “to commit to protecting Jewish communities from violence and hatred.”

Writing in The House magazine, Baroness Deech noted that “the Holocaust is a collective trauma for the Jewish people. The unbearable knowledge of what occurred has affected, informed and inspired Jews and the State of Israel.” However, she warned that Holocaust Memorial Day “must be about more than remembrance: it must be about action.”

Baroness Deech, who is an honorary patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism, observed the appalling rise in antisemitic crime. Indeed Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

She also noted the full statutory investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into antisemitism in the Labour Party, which is the largest political party in Europe. The EHRC launched its investigation on 28th May 2019 following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

While recognising the importance of commemorating the crimes of the past, Baroness Deech stipulated that world leaders much also “commit to concrete action to fight antisemitism and redouble their efforts to stem the resurgence of race hatred in Western countries.”

“Substantive steps,” she suggested, might include wider adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism, including at universities, more funding and training to secure Jewish communal institutions, and more resources for education “about the Jewish story in order to inoculate against antisemitism before it starts.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism joins Baroness Deech in calling for #ActionNotWords in the commemoration of antisemitism in the past and the fight against its resurgence today.

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Sheffield branch of University and College Union under fire from Holocaust survivor for inappropriate Holocaust Memorial Day event

The Sheffield branch of the University and College Union (UCU) has been criticised for holding an event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day featuring a controversial Jewish academic who holds unrepresentative views regarding the International Definition of Antisemitism.

The event was in fact billed as an evaluation of the Definition. The speaker was Brian Klug, a Senior Research Fellow at St Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford, who defended the Labour Party’s unacceptable substitute for the Definition.

Among the critics was Holocaust survivor and founder trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Agnes Grunwald-Spier MBE, who insisted that she was “not raising the issue…because I object to controversial views being expressed in a university – on the contrary,” but rather because Dr Klug is reportedly opposed to the adoption of the Definition by universities – “a very useful tool in controlling hate speech against Jews” – his opinions will not be balanced at the event and it is inappropriate to use Holocaust Memorial Day to promote divisive views. “I also object,” she said, “to a day which is supposed to reflect on the lessons of the Holocaust and to remember the many victims of the Nazis and subsequent genocides being hijacked in this manner.”

UCU has a very negative reputation in the Jewish community, resulting from a poor record when it comes to fighting antisemitism, including refusing to adopt the Definition, repeatedly endorsing the antisemitism-riddled Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish State (the tactics of which an overwhelming majority of British Jews find intimidating) and fighting a legal battle against a Jewish academic who unsuccessfully sued UCU for breach of the Equality Act 2010.

Most recently, in October, the union sent an e-mail to secretaries of local branches encouraging them to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January and providing a near-exhaustive list of minority groups persecuted by the Nazis — but failing to include the Jews.

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Emily Thornberry tells Holocaust Memorial Day audience that Jeremy Corbyn “will always call out” racism, after Labour leader appears to back Rebecca Long-Bailey as successor

Labour leadership hopeful Emily Thornberry has praised Jeremy Corbyn for “always calling out those people who play the race card” at a Holocaust Memorial Day event.

Speaking at an event at Islington Assembly Hall to an audience that included fellow local MP Mr Corbyn, Ms Thornberry advised that it was not just the pupils present who needed to learn the lessons of history, but also the “adults, especially the politicians amongst us.”

Mr Corbyn also addressed the ceremony, describing how “the Nazi Party rose to power and how they murdered six million Jewish people along with all the travellers and gypsies they could, along with lesbian and gay people.”

A Holocaust survivor, Hana Kleiner, lamented in Mr Corbyn’s presence “the current rise of antisemitism” and blasted Holocaust denial “in the face of all the documented evidence”.

The Mayor of Islington, Cllr Rakhia Ismail, mentioned the “need to hold politicians to account” over genocides around the world, but suggested that it was “Number 10 (Downing Street) and America or other parts of the world” who were guilty of “supporting blindly” contemporary genocides.

Other politicians were unimpressed with the political speeches. Dame Margaret Hodge MP, said: “If it wasn’t so serious, this would be a joke. I think Emily Thornberry needs to reflect on the reality before she makes statements like that.”

Ian Austin, the former Labour MP who resigned from Labour over antisemitism and is an honorary patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “It’s easy to speak about racism at a Holocaust commemoration.  But their words would have much more weight if the Labour Party had not been poisoned by racism against Jewish people under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. He could start to make amends by booting out the racists and apologising for his responsibility for this scandal before he stands down.”

The event comes after Mr Corbyn appeared to back Rebecca Long-Bailey, long viewed as the “continuity candidate”, for the leadership, describing her as “our candidate for leader” at a political event. Mr Corbyn’s aides suggested that the Party leader had not intended to formally endorse Ms Long-Bailey.

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 Jeremy Corbyn is personally responsible for 24 incidents of antisemitic discourse, which was equal to fifteen percent of all recorded incidents involving parliamentary candidates and party leaders in the 2019 general election. Overall, Labour Party candidates for Parliament accounted for 82 percent of all incidents.

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The Holocaust “makes us see how quickly political rhetoric and posturing can become murder,” says independent London Mayoral candidate Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart has described the significance of Holocaust Memorial Day as “eternal”, and that the Holocaust “shines a light on how even in perceived metropolis liberal cities…scapegoating, racism and prejudice can result in the greatest of human horrors. It makes us see how seemingly ordinary people can evolve into an evil kind. It makes us see how quickly political rhetoric and posturing can become murder.”

The former Conservative MP turned independent candidate for the London mayoralty, also described the Shoah as “the darkest period in the history of mankind.”

Writing in the JC, Mr Stewart insisted that “the threat of antisemitism remains live and real. It is seen now in Britain not only among the far-left and the far-right.”

He said that “Holocaust Memorial Day must forever remain an essential part of this country’s educational calendar.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

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All MPs sign up to International Definition of Antisemitism, except Labour’s Graham Stringer, Tahir Ali, Andy McDonald and Grahame Morris

All Members of Parliament have reportedly signed up to the International Definition of Antisemitism, with the exception of Labour’s Graham Stringer, Tahir Ali, Andy McDonald and Grahame Morris, apparently “despite repeated attempts to contact them,” according to the All Party Group Against Antisemitism, which organised the campaign.

Sinn Fein’s seven MPs, who do not take their seats in Parliament, have also not signed up.

The welcome near-unanimity of the House of Commons on how to define and identify antisemitism is a turnaround from the summer of 2018, when Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, including at least one current leadership contender, opposed the Party’s adoption of the Definition.

Signing up to the Definition is an important first step in tackling antisemitism, however the Definition must now be used and appropriate policies adopted and implemented by all public bodies, local authorities and universities in order to combat anti-Jewish hatred.

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 42% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics, and close to two thirds of British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

UPDATE (28.01.2020): Andy McDonald MP has now reportedly signed up to the Definition.

UPDATE (03.02.2020): It is understood that Graham Stringer has also now signed up to the Definition.

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Duchess of Cambridge’s exhibition photographs of Holocaust survivors pre-released for Holocaust Memorial Day

Photographs taken by the Duchess of Cambridge of Holocaust survivors with their descendants have been pre-released to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

The photographs, taken at Kensington Palace earlier this month, will feature in an exhibition of powerful images to open later this year. The Duchess is known to be a keen photographer.

Each portrait depicts the relationship between a survivor and younger generations of their family.

The Duchess reportedly spent time with the two survivors she photographed, saying that despite “unbelievable trauma at the start of their lives” they were “two of the most life-affirming people” she had met, and that “they look back on their experiences with sadness but also with gratitude that they were some of the lucky few to make it through.”

She added that “their stories will stay with me forever,” and that “it is vital that their memories are preserved and passed on to future generations, so that what they went through will never be forgotten.”

She wanted the “deeply personal” portraits to be a “celebration” of family and the life that they have built since immigrating to Britain in the 1940s.

The Duchess credited Anne Frank as one of the “underlying inspirations” behind the photographs, saying that she was particularly drawn by the young victim’s “sensitive and intimate” interpretation of the Holocaust.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge participated, along with other prominent figures, in a national commemorative event in Westminster yesterday. HRH Prince Charles joined world leaders in Jerusalem last week, while the Duchess of Cornwall and Lord Pickles represented the UK at Auschwitz.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson remembers the Holocaust: “The darkest of nights is never again allowed to fall upon the Jews of the world”

Boris Johnson has written, to mark the Holocaust, of how “it is so important that those of us who remain continue to remember.”

Writing in the Jewish News, the Prime Minister warned against Holocaust denial: “Because even though the Shoah was a crime so unprecedented it required the creation of a new word – genocide – simply to describe it, its perpetrators wished for it to be left unnoticed by the history books. Despite their enthusiastic participation in the slaughter, they didn’t want the world to know what they had done. They wanted us to forget.

“Today, a growing number of antisemites seek to continue that dismal work. They downplay the scale of the killing, draw false equivalence with the contemporary world, even outright deny that what happened, happened. We cannot let them gain a foothold. Because if we allow the likes of Buchenwald, Belsen and Babi Yar to become simply obscure names on a map, we not only betray the memory of those who died there.”

Mr Johnson reassured readers that “as long as I am prime minister, I will never allow this country to forget what happened 75 years ago. I will do all I can to see that we continue to learn the lessons of the past.”

He also declared that “the government I lead will stand with you and fight alongside you so that the darkest of nights is never again allowed to fall upon the Jews of the world.

“We owe those incredible survivors nothing less.”

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“I am going to cut your Jewish head off!” screams a woman at Jewish girls on Holocaust Memorial Day

An eleven-year-old Jewish girl, along with a four-year-old Jewish girl, were abused on Holocaust Memorial Day by a woman in the street who shouted at them: “I am going to cut your Jewish head off!”

The incident took place at 16:15 on 27th January on Moundfield Road in Stamford Hill and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD5856 27/01/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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CAA hosts sold-out screening of Quezon’s Game on little-known story of Filipino president who saved Jews during the Holocaust, including Q & A with the director and cast

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Campaign Against Antisemitism held an exclusive screening of Quezon’s Game, before its UK release date, with the director and leading cast members.

The award-winning film tells how Filipino President Manuel L. Quezon risked his career, his health and his country’s relationship with the United States in order to rescue more than 1,200 imperilled Jews from Nazi persecution at a time when most countries were turning Jewish refugees away.

The screening, at an Everyman cinema in London, was followed by an intimate discussion with the director, Matthew Rosen, and two leading cast members, about how the film was conceived and produced, as well as the reception of the film in the Phillipines and elsewere, and Filipino awareness of the Holocaust and other matters of Jewish and humanitarian interest.

To hear more about Campaign Against Antisemitism’s educational events, please subscribe to our mailing list at antisemitism.org/act.

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Andrew Percy, leader of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism, faults both major parties for “disgusting rise in antisemitic tropes”

Andrew Percy, the MP who leads the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism, has criticised both major parties for tolerating a “disgusting rise in antisemitism tropes”.

Speaking last week during the Holocaust Memorial Day debate in the House of Commons, Mr Percy warned the Conservatives, of which he is a member, against engaging in conspiracies involving the wealthy Jewish activist financier, George Soros, explaining that “the Nazis treated Jews as vermin but also alleged that they had a plan for world domination. Sadly, the Soros conspiracy theories we see, which are prevalent on the far-right of politics, are simply an updated version of that disgusting ideology. Using George Soros’s Jewish heritage and puppet-master imagery is antisemitic.”

During the general election, the Conservatives suspended one parliamentary candidate and investigated at least three others over allegations of antisemitism.

Turning to Labour, Mr Percy noted, “sadly, that on the Labour benches – some 30 of the Party’s candidates at the recent election were accused of antisemitism – there is more work to be done to counter anti-Jewish racism.”

He continued: “As I have said previously, it brings shame on this country’s whole body politic that, sadly, this disgusting ideology has been at the heart of British politics and mainstreamed in recent years,” adding: “l am sad in one way, but proud in another, that when I knocked on the doors of working-class communities in my area at the election, people referenced the current rise in antisemitism as a concern. 

“We do not have a big Jewish community. I think that I am one of three Jewish constituents. We may be heading for a minyan [ten Jewish men], but there are certainly not many of us. It was sad but also reassuring to hear people in my area reference the need to do more on this at the recent election. I am very proud of the people in my area for standing as resolutely as they have.”

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, and showed that 42% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics, and close to two thirds of British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

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Holocaust survivor shares her story and says “antisemitism is very bad now – we didn’t expect it to happen again”

Renee Salt, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz as a young teenager, remained silent about her experiences for 50 years, but is speaking out now as she says “antisemitism is very bad now”.

“For fifty years I couldn’t talk about it,” she says, but “the nightmares only stopped once we started talking about it.”

Ms Salt says that she was urged to talk about her experiences because she was advised that “if you won’t people won’t know what happened,” and she felt that “it should never happen again.”

When asked whether she thinks the sort of antisemitism she witnessed in her younger years is possible again, she replied: “Absolutely the antisemitism is very bad now. We didn’t expect it to happen again. But there you are.”

As for Holocaust deniers, “I would like to take them to Auschwitz and show them what happened…but I think they know what happened – it is too big to hide away.”

The interview can be watched here.

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Funding may be cut to universities and councils that refuse to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism, Robert Jenrick announces on Holocaust Memorial Day

Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, has revealed that, further to his calls on them to do so, only 136 of the 343 local authorities in England had agreed to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Mr Jenrick has also announced that those councils expressly refusing to adopt the Definition would be named in the coming weeks and that they can expect to lose public funding if they failed to tackle antisemitism.

He said that he has “been clear that all universities and local councils…must adopt” the Definition, adding that “it is shocking that some still haven’t, demonstrating a serious lack of respect for this issue.”

“I will shortly publish the list of those councils that have told my department that they will adopt the Definition and those who have explicitly refused to do so. Organisations like these should not expect to receive public money if they cannot demonstrate that they are fighting antisemitism.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism praises Mr Jenrick’s announcement and his recognition that remembrance of the Holocaust must be acommpanied by action against antisemitism today.

Mr Jenrick’s announcement comes as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick is under fire for refusing to adopt the Definition.

Meanwhile, the Government is providing a fund of £500,000 to pay for 150 student leaders to hear from Holocaust survivors and visit Auschwitz every year, with a view to sharing their experiences with 24,000 other students over the next three years. The fund will reportedly expand a scheme that identified 30 English universities reporting a high level of antisemitism or racism.

The Government is also providing £1 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation to mark 75 years since the liberation of the camps, in addition to £300,000 pledged by the Mayor of London.

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BBC defends Orla Guerin’s desecration of the Holocaust as former executives call it “unjustifiably offensive” and CAA awaits response from the BBC to its complaint

The BBC stands by the desecration of the Holocaust by its International Correspondent, Orla Guerin, as former Corporation executives describe it as “unjustifiably offensive”.

Ms Guerin appallingly used a primetime segment on the BBC’s flagship News at Ten programme to link the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, adopted by the British Government, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

However, a spokesman for the BBC has retorted: “The brief reference in our Holocaust report to Israel’s position today did not imply any comparison between the two and nor would we want one to be drawn from our coverage.” That inference, however, is precisely what viewers would make from the segment.

Danny Cohen, the former Director of Television at the BBC, slammed the BBC for its refusal to apologise, calling it a “deeply offensive lapse in judgment.”

Mr Cohen described the segment as “unnecessary, insensitive and particularly ugly in the days before Holocaust Memorial Day. Adding insult to injury, the report uses pictures of Holocaust victims in Yad Veshem during the sequence in which this link is made. This is inexplicably and unjustifiably offensive.” He also rubbished the BBC’s defence that there was no comparison between Israel and the Nazis in the report: “This is a difficult argument to sustain,” he said, “when the two elements appear in the very same sentence in the report.”

The former chairman of the BBC, Michael Grade, also expressed outrage at the statement from the BBC. “I think it was shocking,” he said. “When the BBC are under criticism they hide behind anodyne, anonymous quotes from a spokesman. Where is the senior editorial figure coming out to speak and face up to this? The BBC is operating under a complete double standard.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has made an official complaint to the BBC, which is a necessary precursor to making a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator. We are waiting for a response.

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Antisemitic graffiti sprayed in South-East London just prior to Holocaust Memorial Day

Antisemitic graffiti was found spray-painted in South-East London just prior to Holocaust Memorial Day.

The graffiti, featuring a swastika and the sun cross symbol used by white supremacists, were daubed on a Caribbean takeaway in Greenwich, while Stars of David and the word “Jews” were sprayed on a Barclays Bank half a mile away in Blackheath.

The graffiti is believed to have been painted between 22:00 and 23:00 on Saturday 25th January, and has now been removed.

The Greenwich Council leader described the vandalism as “totally appalling and horrific” and reported that local residents were “worried and upset by what had happened”.

A police spokesperson said: “Officers are investigating a report of antisemitic and racist graffiti…Enquiries are ongoing and if you have any information that could help the investigation please call 101 and quote CAD340/26Jan.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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“Hitler was the best, he was right, we hate Jews”: eleven-year-old girls subjected to antisemitic abuse on eve of Holocaust Memorial Day

Two eleven-year-old girls were subjected to antisemitic abuse on the eve of Holocaust Memorail Day, when a man shouted at them: “Hitler was the best, he was right, we hate Jews.”

The girls ran home in terror.

The incident took place yesterday, on 26th January, in Stamford Hill, and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD2465 26/01/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Government to investigate educational material for children comparing Gaza to Holocaust, in breach of International Definition of Antisemitism

The Government has said that it will investigate educational material for children comparing Gaza to Holocaust, in breach of International Definition of Antisemitism.

The material – a course titled ‘Genocide Memorial Day’ – is recommended for children aged twelve and over, and was reportedly designed and circulated by a controversial pro-Iranian charity known as the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC). The material was reportedly uploaded to the respected TES digital educational service, an open resource platform for teachers formerly known as the Times Educational Supplement, and also emailed to educators across the country in January.

The material makes repeated equations between the Nazi treatment of the Jews and Israeli Government policy. It also describes the “Israeli assault on Gaza” in 2009 as a genocide and includes images of Hamas flags. Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation and seeks the genocide of all Jews worldwide.

A one-minute video produced by the IHRC promoting ‘Genocide Memorial Day’ also minimises the Jewish element of the Holocaust, such as by referring to the “eleven million victims of the Nazi Holocaust.” Alongside the Holocaust it also lists what it describes as genocides in Gaza.

The Definition says that “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism.

The IHRC’s ‘Genocide Memorial Day’ is to be marked on the third Sunday in January in a brazen attempt to conflate it with and undermine Holocaust Memorial Day. This is not the first attempt to do so. Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, also tried to convert Holocaust Memorial Day into ‘Genocide Memorial Day’ in 2011 when they were both backbenchers.

One leading Holocaust educational campaigner accused the IHRC, through its material, of “using false equivocations of the Holocaust and deliberately conflating, downgrading and revising the Holocaust.”

Brandon Lewis, the Immigration Minister, called the revelation “stark and concerning” and promised to ‘follow up directly” on the matter with a parliamentary colleague in order to ensure that it “gets the proper attention”.

The IHRC is also behind the Al Quds Day marches in London, where Hizballah flags have been displayed and antisemitic statements have been made, such as blaming “Zionists” for the Grenfell fire disaster. Hizballah is an antisemitic genocidal terrorist organisation that has been proscribed and recently had its assets frozen by the British Government.

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“As Holocaust survivors pass the baton to us to continue their work, we accept our solemn responsibility,” writes CAA chief executive Gideon Falter

Last week, world leaders gathered in Jerusalem for an event entitled “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism.” Organised by the World Holocaust Forum Foundation with Yad Vashem, under the auspices of the President of Israel, the gathering was arranged to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day today, which is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

The purpose of the event, President Rivlin explained, was to “think about how to pass on Holocaust remembrance to generations who will live in a world without survivors, and what steps we must take to ensure the safety and security of Jews — all around the world.”

President Rivlin is right to link Holocaust remembrance with the security of Jews today — there is no point commemorating the Jews of the past while tolerating hatred against the Jews of the present.

Thanks to years of hard work by the Jewish community, successive British Governments have taken Holocaust education very seriously, and indeed our country sends more visitors to Auschwitz than any other.

But Holocaust education must be rigorous, and that means resisting the growing attempts to attribute it to abstract ills such as “prejudice” and “discrimination”. Antisemitism in the Holocaust was not a footnote: it was its core.

Holocaust denial must also be fought vigorously. This is particularly true in anticipation of a world without survivors. That’s why we at Campaign Against Antisemitism brought a private prosecution against the notorious Holocaust denier and antisemite, Alison Chabloz, when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) refused to act.

Ms Chabloz wrote, recorded and publicised online songs denying the Holocaust and mocking its victims. Our action resulted in a landmark legal precedent, whereby Holocaust denial was deemed by the courts for the first time to be “grossly offensive” and therefore illegal when used as a means by which to hound Jews online. This groundbreaking ruling means that Holocaust denial, in certain circumstances, has become a crime in England for the first time.

Following our prosecution, Ms Chabloz was given a suspended sentence, the conditions of which she has since breached. She may therefore be sent to prison next month, pending an appeal.

This was not the only time we have been forced to act when the CPS would not. In July 2015, neo-Nazis sought to march through Golders Green. Due to our intervention, they were forced to gather in Westminster instead. At their rally, Jeremy Bedford-Turner claimed that Jews controlled the West, drank the blood of non-Jewish children and perpetrated the French Revolution and both World Wars, before demanding: “Let’s free England from Jewish control.”

For two years, the CPS blocked our efforts to have Mr Bedford-Turner prosecuted, insisting that no crime had been committed. We understand that the then-Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Alison Saunders, personally interceded to overrule a senior prosecutor who had advised that the CPS should initiate a prosecution.

We took the CPS to court to subject its decision to judicial review and won, forcing the CPS to prosecute. In a victory for the Jewish community and a deserved humiliation for the DPP and CPS, a jury unanimously found Mr Bedford-Turner guilty of incitement and he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.

These are not isolated occurrences. Our analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group. Yet prosecution rates against antisemitic criminals remain low.

We, along with the radio station LBC, referred a secret Labour dossier of antisemitic incidents among Party activists to the Metropolitan Police back in September 2018. The Met’s Commissioner, Cressida Dick, revealed earlier this month that six arrests were made in early 2019 — the only arrests made in connection with Labour antisemitism — and that five case files were passed to the CPS in September 2019.

Despite the passage of several months, the CPS has yet to make a decision on whether to charge the activists, despite a former DPP declaring that he believes that the criminal threshold was met. We will continue pursuing these cases to ensure that the CPS does not run down the clock until it is too late for charges to be brought.

The problems in the Labour Party are well known. But as some leading figures in the Party now fall over themselves to say all the right things (others are less repentant), we will continue to hold them to account, including through our work as complainant in the ongoing investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into Labour antisemitism.

Many Holocaust survivors have dedicated their lives to education by retelling their experiences. Others sought to ensure that antisemites suffered the consequences of their actions. Education and deterrence go hand in hand; without one, the other is doomed to failure. We must educate against antisemitism and we must ensure there are ruinous consequences for those who seek to do us harm.

As Holocaust survivors pass the baton to us to continue their work, we accept our solemn responsibility.

(This article was first published, in a slightly adapted form, in the Jewish Telegraph this weekend.)

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“Hitler did a great job in Auschwitz by killing all the Jews”: Jewish pedestrians subjected to antisemitic abuse as world commemorates Holocaust

A man screamed “Hitler did a great job in Auschwitz by killing all the Jews” at several Jewish pedestrians on Cazenove Road in Stamford Hill.

As the world spends the week commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz and preparing to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, antisemitism expressed with reference to the Holocaust endures.

The incident took place at 12:15 on 23rd January and was reported by Stamford Hill Shomrim, the Jewish volunteer neighbourhood watch patrol.

If you have any more information, please contact the police on 101 or Stamford Hill Shomrim on 0300 999 0123, quoting reference number: CAD3104 23/01/2020.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

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Jeremy Corbyn audaciously refers to “horrors of the past” in hollow comments in Parliament on the Holocaust

Jeremy Corbyn has audaciously referenced the “horrors of the past” in comments in Parliament on the Holocaust that are insulting to the Jewish community.

The Labour leader told MPs: “Next Monday we will be commemorating National Holocaust [Memorial] Day. It’s a time for us all to reflect on the horrors of the past and remind us of the evils of Nazism, genocide, antisemitism and indeed all forms of racism which we must always all be implacably determined to root out wherever it appears.”

The remarks were particularly audacious, given that Mr Corbyn has spent his time in office cultivating antisemitism in the Labour Party — quite the opposite of working to “root it out wherever it appears”.

Moreover, on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2010, Mr Corbyn hosted and chaired an antisemitic event that compared Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, in contravention of the International Definition of Antisemitism.

A year later, on Holocaust Memorial Day 2011, John McDonnell, a fellow beckbench MP who would go on to serve as Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr Corbyn himself respectively proposed and seconded an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling for the word “Holocaust” in the name of the day to be replaced with “Genocide”, thereby removing its particular signifiance for Jews.

Given Mr Corbyn’s record and his consistent refusal to address the institutional antisemitism in his Party, much less learn the lessons of the Holocaust more generally, his remarks on “the horrors of the past” is empty and hollow.

In the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that Jeremy Corbyn is personally responsible for 24 incidents of antisemitic discourse, which was equal to fifteen percent of all recorded incidents involving parliamentary candidates and party leaders in the 2019 general election. Overall, Labour Party candidates for Parliament accounted for 82 percent of all incidents.

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.

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CAA congratulates Ian Austin on winning “Backbencher of the Year” award

The former Labour MP Ian Austin, who resigned from the Party over antisemitism, has won a “Backbencher of the Year award” at The Spectator’s annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards last night.

As the son of a Holocaust refugee whose entire family was slaughtered by the Nazis in the Treblinka extermination camp, Mr Austin’s upbringing instilled in him a firm sense of justice and the determination to fight bigotry wherever he saw it. As an MP, he led a successful campaign to drive the far-right British National Party out of his Dudley North constituency, and then served as a leading figure in the fight against antisemitism that has taken hold in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn, ultimately resigning from the Party in disgust earlier this year.

During this year, Mr Austin also helped found a new campaign called Mainstream, which is “designed to encourage a return to respectable and responsible politics, and to banish extremism from British politics once and for all.”

CAA congratulates Mr Austin, whom we are proud to have as one of our honorary patrons, on this highly deserved accolade.

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.

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Magnitude of the Holocaust “defies comprehension” and we must “heed its lessons” says HRH Prince Charles as he joins world leaders in Jerusalem for Holocaust commemoration

HRH Prince Charles has said today that the “magnitude of the genocide that was visited upon the Jewish people defies comprehension” as he joins world leaders in Jerusalem to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Prince Charles elaborated, saying: “The scale of the evil was so great, the impact so profound, that it threatens to obscure the countless individual, human stories of tragedy, loss and suffering of which it was comprised. That is why places like [Yad Vashem] and events like this are so vitally important.”

The Prince of Wales revealed that it has been a “singular privilege” for him to have met so many Holocaust survivors who came to the UK and made immeasureable contributions, noting that, as fewer and fewer of them are among us, “we must commit ourselves to ensuring that their stories live on.” He also noted the propriety of holding the commemorative event in Israel, where so many survivors made their home.

He also reflected on his “immense pride” in his grandmother, Princess Alice of Greece, who saved a Jewish family in 1943 by hiding them in her home. She is buried on the Mount of Olives, has a tree in her name at Yad Vashem and is counted among the Righteous of the Nations, “a fact,” he said, “that gives me and my family immense pride.”

We “compound” the “tragedy” of the Holocaust, the Prince explained, “if we do not heed its lessons.” He therefore urged: “On this day, in this place, and in memory of the millions who perished in the Shoah [the Holocaust], let us recommit ourselves to tolerance and respect, and to ensuring that those who lived through this darkness will forever, as in the words of the prophet Isiah, ‘be a light unto the nations’ to guide the generations that follow.

The full speech can be watched below.

The speech, which incorporated numerous references to biblical and rabbinic writings, was part of an event titled “Remembering the Holocaust, Fighting Antisemitism,” was organised by the World Holocaust Forum Foundation and Yad Vashem, Israel’s National Holocaust Memorial, under the auspices of the President of Israel. Also in attendance were the President and Prime Minister of Israel, the Presidents of Germany, Russia and France, and the Vice-President of the United States, among others, making it the largest diplomatic gathering in Israel’s history.

The purpose of the event, President Rivlin explained, was to “think about how to pass on Holocaust remembrance to generations who will live in a world without survivors, and what steps we must take to ensure the safety and security of Jews — all around the world.”

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CAA complains to BBC and will go to Ofcom over Orla Guerin’s desecration of the Holocaust on BBC primetime news

Orla Guerin, the BBC’s International Correspondent, has appallingly used a primetime segment on the BBC’s flagship News at Ten programme to link the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

In a story ahead of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, directly after interviewing a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was murdered by Nazi Germany, Ms Guerin showed images of young Israelis who were performing their military service entering Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Ms Guerin narrated in the background, saying: “The State of Israel is now a regional power. For decades it has occupied Palestinian territories. But some here will always see their nation through the prism of persecution and survival.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, adopted by the British Government, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemitic.

Campaign Against Antisemitism will now make an official complaint to the BBC, which is a necessary precursor to making a complaint to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “The BBC is supposed to inform the British public, not feed them propaganda. Few could imagine perverting what is supposed to be an educational piece about the Holocaust to instead fuel the very antisemitism that such education is supposed to prevent, but that is what the BBC has done. It was utterly appalling to watch Orla Guerin hijack a segment dedicated to remembering six million murdered Jews, and instead use it as a vehicle to desecrate the memory of the Holocaust with her hatred of the Jewish state. Ms Guerin and the BBC editors who allowed this to be aired must be made to face the consequences of this sick act, which is why we are now making an official complaint and will take the matter to Ofcom if necessary.”

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Warwick Students’ Union makes impassioned plea for university to think again after Vice-Chancellor refuses to adopt International Definition of Antisemitism

The University of Warwick Students’ Union has released a passionate statement calling on the university to think again after Vice-Chancellor Professor Stuart Croft refused to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism because it does not offer “any added value.”

In its statement, the Warwick Students’ Union regretted that the university would not be adopting the Definition and would rely instead on the “framework of the values and principles developed over the past year to determine its response to allegations of racial discrimination and hate crime,” which the SU itself was “heavily involved” in producing.

However, the Students’ Union went on to note that “blanket terms like ‘values’ and ‘respect’ have always been subject to ambiguity and debate…[and do] not take into account the severity and nuance that often accompanies racial discrimination.” The SU further noted that “when working on the revamped Sexual Misconduct policy and procedures, it was widely agreed that a specific definition of sexual misconduct was a given for an effective process to be formulated.”

Similarly, the Students’ Union argued, “we cannot therefore place our trust in the University to take racism seriously – particularly in the area of discipline – without an equally specific definition of what racial discrimination actually entails. It is unacceptable for victims of racism to constantly have to explain and unpack their experiences in order to be taken seriously.”

The statement went on to observe that the Universities Minister wrote to all UK universities calling on them to implement the Definition in full, that the SU itself adopted it following a student vote in 2016, that the SU has lobbied the university to follow suit, that the National Union of Students and the Union of Jewish Students have also recommended its adoption, and that Universities UK, which represents institutions of higher education, has also called on universities to consider adopting the Definition. The SU therefore called again for “specific definitions of racial discrimination” to be adopted by the university.

In December, the University of Bristol adopted the Definition, after a controversial debate. University College London has also adopted the Definition, following a call on universities to adopt the Definition by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick.

Antisemitism at universities has long been a major focus for Campaign Against Antisemitism, however this year we will elevate it to one of our three major national strategic priorities. This will include working with university administrations to persuade them to formally adopt the Definition.

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Scandal erupts at pro-Corbyn MP Sam Tarry’s local branch, where senior JVL members who originally nominated him as Labour candidate submit an antisemitic motion which he fails to condemn

A scandal has erupted at the Party branch of the new pro-Corbyn MP, Sam Tarry.

Last week, at the Cranbrook and Valentines branch of the Labour Party in Mr Tarry’s Ilford South constituency, a motion was carried declaring that there was “no antisemitism in the Labour Party” and attacking the Board of Deputies of British Jews as being “consistent in its support for the Conservative Party”, accusing it of “illegally interfering in the Labour leadership contest.”

Alex Holmes, the vice-chairman of the Ilford South Labour constituency who spoke against the motion, reported that he was labelled an “agent of a foreign power” for doing so and described the gathering as “the worst Labour meeting I have ever attended.”

Three councillors condemned the motion and the atmosphere, saying: “Last night Cranbrook and Valentines Branch Labour Party passed a motion that minimised the scourge of antisemitism in the Labour Party…There are reports that members who spoke against the motion were bullied and antisemitic tropes were used at the meeting. Let us be clear: we utterly condemn this motion and believe that all accusations of abuse and antisemitism should be investigated. There is no place for antisemitism in the Labour Party and we expect swift action to be taken against anyone responsible.”

Mr Tarry said that there were “conflicting accounts of what happened and what was said” and described the allegations as “very serious”, but did not go further. His failure to condemn the motion elicited significant criticism, with another Labour MP reportedly saying that this was Mr Tarry’s “first test since being elected on stamping out antisemitism in his local party” and concluded: “so far he is failing badly”.

Mr Tarry then clarified that, having seen the motion and spoken to members in attendance, he requested that “any complaints go through the Party’s formal channels to ensure that this matter is dealt with thoroughly and impartially.”

Local councillors in Redbridge Labour voted overwhelmingly for an investigation. 

It subsequently emerged that the authors of the motion were senior figures in Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), a pro-Corbyn antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation: Diana Neslen, a member of JVL’s steering group, and Murray Glickman, a JVL founder.

Ms Nelsen apparently once defended the use of the word “Zio” to attack Jews, claiming that there were “connections between Zionists and antisemites throughout history,” and on another occasion wrote that “the lessons of the Holocaust is [sic] that all lives are worthy and since the Israelis learnt the wrong lesson their baubles no longer have any currency.” Mr Glickman, meanwhile, has authored an essay titled: “Is Right To Exist Denial Really Antisemitic?”

It then transpired that Ms Nelsen and Mr Glickman had originally nominated Mr Tarry to be the local parliamentary candidate in the first place. His selection as Labour’s candidate was also mired in controversy, as his main rival was reportedly suspended by Labour the night before voting was scheduled to take place in October, prompting his supporters to allege that the suspension was politically motivated in order to clear the path for Mr Tarry. The rival is now apparently taking legal action against the Labour Party.

Mr Tarry went on to win the seat in the general election and succeed Mike Gapes as the local MP for the area. Mr Gapes was a principled MP who resigned from the Labour Party over 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.

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.

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Mayor Sadiq Khan pledges £300,000 from London to help preserve Auschwitz camp, though concerns remain over his role campaigning for antisemitic Labour Party leader

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has committed £300,000 from London to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which manages the site, in order “to help ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust are never forgotten.”

The grant will reportedly support the preservation of the gas chambers, crematoria, barracks and other exhibits. The UK sends the most international visitors to Auschwitz-Birkenau, with some 300,000 people, including schoolchildren, visiting each year.

The Mayor also confirmed that he would join commemorations at Auschwitz later this month marking the 75th anniversary of its liberation.

Mr Kahn observed that “the Holocaust was one of the darkest times in human history and we must never forget the atrocities committed,” adding: “These lessons are all the more significant as we see antisemitism and hate crime on the rise.”

However, Mr Khan also faces criticism for campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister, despite Mr Corbyn’s antisemitism. Mr Khan is the most senior elected Labour official in the country and remains in Labour despite its degeneration into institutional 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.

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.

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Teenager who pleaded guilty to setting Jewish man’s hair on fire in antisemitic attack on local bus has been sentenced

A teenager who set a Jewish passenger’s hair on fire while using racist epithets has been sentenced by Highbury Corner Youth Court.

The incident took place shortly before 19:00 on 26th March 2018 on the number 210 bus, when the teenager and another male sat in front of and behind the victim, who was working no a laptop.

The teenager, who was fourteen at the time and cannot be named for legal reasons, asked the victim: “are you a P**i or a Jew?” He then proceeded to singe the victim’s hair and, when confronted by the victim, said: “Are you Jewish? You can’t be Jewish because you don’t have horns. Do Jews keep money under their caps?”

The teenager also threatened to beat up the victim and smash his computer.

Appearing at Highbury Corner Youth Court on 16th January 2020 after pleading guilty to racially and religiously aggravated common assault, the teenager was sentenced to a four-month youth rehabilitation order and ordered to write a letter of apology to the victim and pay him £100 in compensation. The fourth month of rehabilitation was due to the racist nature of the attack.

The teenager was given an activity requirement of eight hours and one-to-one behavioural sessions with educational staff to combat racial discrimination.

Speaking in the court, the teenager reportedly expressed remorse for the attack, saying he had changed and grown as a person since the incident. He noted that he had now moved house and made new friends, and that he was focused on his GCSEs with a view to going on to higher education.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crime than any other faith group.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives impassioned condemnation of the endurance of antisemitism in our time

The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has given an impassioned condemnation of antisemitism in comments to Parliament.

Responding to a question in the House of Commons about marking Holocaust Memorial Day with action rather than mere signatures in books, Mr Johnson expressed his desire to do “absolutely everything we can to stamp out the resurgence of antisemitism.”

The Prime Minister proceeded to observe that, “as someone who is now 55 years old, I find it absolutely incredible that in the 21st century we have antisemitism rising again in this country. It is a disgrace and we must stamp it out.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that 42% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics, and close to two thirds of British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crime than any other faith group.

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Controversial new Labour MP Zarah Sultana embroiled in yet another scandal about Jews

A controversial new Labour MP with a history of unseemly comments, including about Jews, is embroiled in yet another such scandal.

Zarah Sultana, newly elected to represent Coventry South (albeit with a drastically reduced majority), reportedly told a Jewish student that it was “privilege” that allowed them to argue for peace in the Middle East, saying: “it is your privilege that lets you speak on stage and call for peace.”

In social media posts dating back to her (recent) student days and since deleted, Ms Sultana said that students who “go to Zionist conferences and trips should be ashamed of themselves” because they were advocating a “racist ideology”, and described Israel as a “state created through ethnic cleansing”.

She also said that “those who lobby for Israel” would “in the near future feel the same shame and regret as South African Apartheid supporters.”

One Jewish student who studied at Birmingham University at the same time as Ms Sultana said: “Her whole raison d’etre was that Jewish students were basically privileged white people who had no right to speak out on racism or injustices” and that she and her peers “completely overstepped the mark” when they “routinely targeted Jewish students who objected to their way of thinking.”

Ms Sultana has already been caught in controversy over her adoption of the language of antisemitic genocidal terrorist groups in advocating for “violent resistance” against Israelis; saying that she would celebrate the deaths of Tony Blair and other past and present world leaders (for which she was forced to apologise and was defended by Labour frontbencher John McDonnell); writing that “the Labour Right are scum and genuinely make me sick. Is there any form of discrimination that they won’t weaponise to politically point score like they’ve done in the past with antisemitism and now with homophobia?”; and accusing Jewish students on social media of being on the payroll of Israel’s Prime Minister.

Ms Sultana is a supporter of Rebecca Long-Bailey’s candidacy for the leadership of the Labour Party, and spoke at Ms Long-Bailey’s campaign launch.

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.

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Jeremy Corbyn’s nomination of his chief of staff Karie Murphy for a peerage is another insult to the Jewish community

Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to include his controversial chief of staff, Karie Murphy, in his list of nominations for peerages is another insult to the Jewish community by the leader of the Labour Party.

Ms Murphy has been a central figure in the Labour leader’s office, which has presided over the descent of the Party into institutional antisemitism and undermined the Party’s disciplinary processes and investigations into antisemitism. Ms Murphy was instrumental in advocating for a Corbyn-led government, which would pose an existential threat to British Jewry.

Even Labour figures are sceptical of the propriety of appointing such a senior Party figure to the House of Lords while Labour is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) over antisemitism. On 28th May 2019, the EHRC 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.

Rewarding Ms Murphy and elevating her to a life peerage, thereby guaranteeing her presence on the front line of British politics for years to come, is a malicious act.

It has also been reported that Ms Murphy is to be given additional responsibilities within the Party.

Mr Corbyn has a history of questionable nominations to the House of Lords, including Shami Chakrabarti, who authored a report into antisemitism in the Party that was widely panned as a ‘whitewash’. Mr Corbyn nominated her for a peerage and then appointed her as his Shadow Justice Secretary.

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.

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Lord Mann urges football clubs to act against antisemitism among their fans

Lord Mann, the Government’s independent advisor on antisemitism, has told football clubs to enhance their efforts to tackle antisemitism and racism in stadiums, warning that “I have a voice and it will get more brutal if they don’t.”

He made the remarks at the unveiling of a mural at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge honouring three footballers imprisoned by the Nazis. The mural was designed by a British-Israeli artist as part of Chelsea’s ‘Say No To Antisemitism’ campaign.

Lord Mann told attendees: “If I thought doing this was a PR stunt I wouldn’t be here. It could have huge ramifications in the fight against hate. I want other premier league clubs to follow Chelsea’s lead and speak out. I have a voice and it will get more brutal if they don’t.”

Bruce Buck, the club’s chairman, said the club’s commitment to fighting anti-Jewish racism was “never ending” and had “no time frame”, adding: “Maybe if antisemitism stops we’ll stop – but that’s not likely in our lifetime. It’s a very important project for Roman [Abramovich, the club’s owner].”

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Labour leadership candidate Lisa Nandy pledges to implement all EHRC recommendations and calls for suspension of activist Rachael Cousins

Lisa Nandy, a candidate for the Labour leadership, has pledged to implement any and all recommendations made in due course by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) in its full statutory investigation into the antisemitism in the Labour Party. The EHRC launched the investigation on 28th May 2019, following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

Ms Nandy made the pledge to the BBC’s Andrew Neil in a television appearance.

She was also asked about tweets by Rachael Cousins, a prominent Labour activist who goes by “Rachael Swindon” on Twitter. Ms Cousins has reportedly accused the Board of Deputies of British Jews of being “Conservative backers” and called on it to “condemn all atrocities by the israeli military in the West Bank”. Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the State of Israel is an example of antisemitism under the International Definition of Antisemitism.

Ms Nandy labelled the comments “antisemitic” and called for Ms Cousins to be suspended by the Party and investigated.

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.

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Further to CAA’s previous efforts to have Hizballah entirely proscribed as a terrorist group, HM Treasury to freeze all of its assets under terrorist financing rules

HM Treasury has today announced that it is designating the entirety of Hizballah as a terrorist organisation under the UK’s terrorism and terrorist financing rules.

Last year, following a gruelling effort over several years by Campaign Against Antisemitism and our allies, Hizballah was finally proscribed completely by the then-Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, with the support of the then-Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Ensuring that the Government completely proscribes Hizballah has been an important objective for Campaign Against Antisemitism since our charity was established.

Previously, the British Government distinguished between Hizballah’s “military wing” and “political wing”, even though Hizballah mocked the Government and said that no such distinction exists. The loophole enabled brazen shows of support for Hizballah, including pro-Hizballah parades through central London which were organised by a registered charity, and fundraising and even recruitment for any supposedly non-military activities conducted by Hizballah were permitted in Britain. It was extremely likely that such funds were used to finance terrorist activity, and could even have been used to target British subjects.

We even launched a private prosecution against the leader of the parades who in 2017 claimed that “Zionists” had paid the Government to burn down tower blocks, days after the horrifying Grenfell Tower inferno, but our private prosecution was successfully taken over and shut down by the Crown Prosecution Service, despite the best efforts of our lawyers.

Now, with Mr Javid as Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury has today announced that the financing of any Hizballah activity will be proscribed under terrorist financing rules.

During our campaigning work against Hizballah, we gained the support of figures from the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, a former Downing Street Chief of Staff to a prominent Muslim leader. Their voices were strengthened by calls from the Mayor of London and others, but the Government repeatedly proved unyielding.

Whilst the British Government has acted to end a long and shameful betrayal of British Jews, some have called for even greater leniency. Jeremy Corbyn, who famously called Hizballah his “friends”, even argued for the lifting of any restrictions on the group in the UK and spoke at numerous pro-Hizballah parades. One branch of the Labour Party even debated whether members of Hizballah should be allowed to join the Party.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We are delighted that our ongoing efforts to ensure the full proscription of all antisemitic genocidal terrorist groups, including Hizballah, continue to bear fruit. Hizballah’s allies in the UK will now find it even harder to help finance the illegal operations of the group. We now call on the Government to keep up the momentum and ban the terrorist group Hamas in its entirety as well.”

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Calls for school governor to be removed over “inflammatory” poem

There are calls for the chair of the governors of a school in Canning Town to be fired over an “inflammatory” poem.

Dante Micheaux became chair of the governors of the Eastlea Community School, which is run by Newham Council, in 2016.

One of his poems, titled “Siding with the Israelis” and published in 2010, has caused controversy.

Among the concerning lines are “I will become a conqueror of refugees exiled in their own home, an exploder of babies in bassinets, a barbed-wire fence dissecting families, so we can lie in the dust & watch snails race up Golgotha,” which appears to contest the right of Jews to self-determination and justifies terrorist violence against Jews. In another line, the narrator pledges to “piss on the pilgrims that have come to pray [in Jerusalem] – show you what a Zionist can be.”

Newham Council is reportedly investigating the matter.

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White supremacist sticker appears on Sunderland bus stop after multiple stickers removed in Edinburgh

A white supermacist sticker has been found at a bus stop in Sunderland just days after similar stickers were found and removed in Edinburgh.

The sticker was reported by a group called Sunderland Unites and removed by Sunderland Lads & Lasses Against Fascism. The sticker is thought to be connected to an online group known as the Hundred Handers that encourages users to print and distribute the stickers.

The Hundred Handers are also believed to be behind the Edinburgh stickers as well.

Campaign Against Antisemitism thanks the activists involved and calls on the authorities to investigate who is responsible. Residents are also urged to remain vigilant.

Photo credit: @SunderlandUnite/Twitter

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Labour withdraws Ofcom complaint about Panorama expose of Party’s antisemitism

The Labour Party has apparently withdrawn its complaint to Ofcom over the Panorama investigation into antisemitism in the Party, which Labour had claimed was a “one-sided authored polemic”. Ofcom has also dismissed all other bias complaints made over the programme.

In the episode, which was titled “Is Labour Antisemitic?” and televised in July, former Labour Party employees spoke out publicly to reveal Jeremy Corbyn’s personal meddling in disciplinary cases relating to antisemitism. The programme explained how senior Labour Party staffers, some of whom Campaign Against Antisemitism has known for years, used to run Labour’s disciplinary process independently, but soon after Mr Corbyn’s election as Party leader found themselves contending with his most senior aides, who were brazen in their efforts to subvert due process.

The Party submitted a 28-page complaint to the BBC, claiming that the programme failed to meet the BBC’s standards, but the BBC decided to back the makers of the episode and rejected the complaint. Labour was then able to make the complaint to Ofcom, which it did, but which it has now allegedly withdrawn.

Additionally, Ofcom has confirmed that it has dismissed all of the other bias complaints it has received over the programme. An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We assessed complaints from viewers who felt that this programme was factually inaccurate and biased. In our view, the programme was duly impartial. As well as highly critical personal testimonies, it included the Labour Party’s response prominently throughout, including in an interview with the Shadow Communities Secretary.”

The programme was shortlisted for two British Journalism Awards.

During the programme Labour’s press team made claims that the staffers featured had political axes to grind and lacked credibility, and it is understood that they and Mr Ware have now commenced libel proceedings against the Labour Party. The libel cases are being brought by Mark Lewis, a highly esteemed media lawyer who is also an honorary patron of Campaign Against 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.

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.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

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Pressure builds on CPS to decide whether to charge arrested Labour activists following referral of case to the Met by CAA and LBC

Pressure is building on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to come to a charging decision in the cases of the Labour activists arrested by police in connection with antisemitism in the Party.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, recently revealed that six arrests were made in connection with a secret dossier compiled by the Labour Party and subsequently leaked and referred to the Met by Campaign Against Antisemitism and the radio channel LBC, and that five of the cases were passed to the CPS in September 2019. Commissioner Dick explained that the cases represented a “complex crime type” and that the CPS would have to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to bring charges and a public interest in prosecuting.

Following Commissioner Dick’s revelation, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord MacDonald QC, intervened in the matter to say that he believes not only that the CPS has had sufficient time to review the cases of the arrested Labour members and should announce its conclusions, but that the evidence suggests that crimes have indeed been committed.

Now, the Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, has been asked on LBC for his position, replying: ”Obviously the CPS is the independent prosecutor. I am not going to comment about an individual case. But what I would say is the very fact we are talking about it on national radio, and the importance of this issue – antisemitism as you know is a serious issue not just because of itself but because it is a gateway to other types of prejudice in my view – I very much hope that everybody involved in the investigation will do it thoroughly. Obviously, it has to be looked at properly, but that it can be expedited.”

When asked about whether the CPS might be delaying in order to allow the issue to fade away, Mr Buckland said: “It [the time delay] can go on for as long as is deemed necessary. We’ve got to remember of course that if the case is what we call ‘summary only’ and can only be dealt with in the magistrates’ courts…there is a six month limit. Everyone needs to remember that. If it is going to the crown court, then there is no time limit.

“If everyone has that in mind as to the type of charge they might bring, then they should consider the matter carefully but obviously, like anything, delay is not the most desirable outcome. We need to get on with justice and deal with it as swiftly as possible.”

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.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

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Are they fit to lead? CAA compares Labour Party leadership contenders’ records on antisemitism

Nominations for the position of leader of the Labour Party have closed, with five candidates securing sufficient support from fellow MPs to qualify for the race, which is expected to last three months.

The winner of the contest, who, as head of the largest opposition party, will also take the post of Leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, will become the head of an institutionally antisemitic party that is being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), following a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism has analysed the records of the five leadership hopefuls in order to inform the public, which can determine whether any of the candidates are fit to lead.

The deepest stain on the records of each of the candidates is the fact that they stood by the Labour Party during the years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership despite its descent into racism. They were bystanders when several Jewish colleagues were hounded out of the Party, and they stood by too when principled colleagues made the difficult decision to leave the Party because they could not countenance campaigning for the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister, which all of the five candidates themselves did last month. Whether these candidates can ever reclaim any authority to speak out against antisemitism — or indeed any form of prejudice — is therefore doubtful.

The three candidates who served as senior figures in Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet and most actively campaigned to make him Prime Minister, in the face of polls that showed almost half of the Jewish community were considering leaving the country if they were successful in their campaign, are particularly unlikely ever to be able to provide a satisfactory justification for their collaboration.

Rebecca Long-Bailey

Rebecca Long-Bailey was one of those members of the Shadow Cabinet, serving as Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. She supported Mr Corbyn’s ideology and leadership — which she recently rated “ten out of ten” — throughout the past several years, to the point of being widely viewed today as the continuity candidate.

Despite representing a constituency — Salford and Eccles — with a Jewish population, Ms Long-Bailey reportedly showed little awareness of issues important to the community in her first few months in office.

This lack of awareness apparently spread to the media as well, as Ms Long-Bailey gave an interview to the controversial far-left website, The Canary, subsequently explaining that she was “not aware of concerns about The Canary at the time” of the interview. Lord Mann, the Government’s independent advisor on antisemitism, has announced that he will be investigating The Canary and other far-left websites in relation to the rise in antisemitism.

When it was revealed that Mr Corbyn had written a gushing foreword to a reissue of J.A. Hobson’s 1902 work, Imperialism: A Study, in which the author cast the blame for great wars on the Rothschilds and their control of the media — Mr Corbyn described the book as “correct and prescient” — Ms Long-Bailey defended him.

Ms Long-Bailey was also said to have opposed the adoption by the Labour Party of the International Definition of Antisemitism, opting instead to back the infamous “code” that was floated by Party insiders as an alternative to the Definition in order to dilute it.

She recently claimed that she spoke out on antisemitism in internal Labour meetings over the past few years and that if she were elected leader she would work “very hard and very robustly” to tackle antisemitism in the Party. She added that “I wasn’t happy with the way our process was being run.” Such comments echo those of her most prominent backer, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, whose persistent references to “process” during the election campaign represented an effort to deflect attention from the reality that the Party was home to legions of antisemites and an antisemitic leadership. In any event, Ms Long-Bailey’s claim to have spoken out on antisemitism behind the scenes has been disputed.

Given this record, it is unsurprising that Ms Long-Bailey has been endorsed by Pete Willsman, a pro-Corbyn member of Labour’s National Executive Committee who has been suspended from the Party twice. It is equally reasonable that she was accused, just a few days ago, by a fellow MP of being “partly responsible for the failure of Labour to stem the tide of antisemitism within its ranks.” The MP went on to say: “How she can now claim to be concerned about an issue that cost us the election — it’s staggering hypocrisy.”

Lisa Nandy

Lisa Nandy has consistently spoken out against anti-Jewish racism in the Labour Party and has acknowledged that a “particular sort of antisemitism has found its home on the far-left throughout history.” She added: “I have been a member of this party for twenty years, and what angers me most is the assertion that a person cannot be left wing and stand up to antisemitism — standing up to antisemitism is a core part of my values.”

Ms Nandy also criticised the handling of the revelations of historic antisemitic statements by Naz Shah in 2016 and opposed the readmission of the disgraced then-MP, Chris Williamson, in 2019, observing that “we have no right to pick and choose the type of racism we confront.” Although she sat in Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet in its first few months, she, along with numerous colleagues, quit, helping to prompt the 2016 leadership contest.

Ms Nandy participated in an event at the Labour Party conference in 2019 that featured Omar Barghouti (appearing via video link), who rejects Israel as a Jewish State and is a prominent figure in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the tactics of which an overwhelming majority of Jews find intimidating. However, Ms Nandy left the room before Mr Barghouti spoke.

Like her colleagues, Ms Nandy too is guilty of having stood by Labour even as it degenerated into an institutionally antisemitic party and campaigned for a government that would have been led by Jeremy Corbyn, despite the unprecedented fears of the Jewish community.

Jess Phillips

Jess Phillips, like Ms Nandy, has a far cleaner record than those candidates who served on Mr Corbyn’s front bench, albeit that she too campaigned to put Mr Corbyn into Downing Street notwithstanding that “Jewish people were afraid of us governing,” as she recently acknowledged.

It is notable that Ms Phillips raged in Parliament over the expulsion and deselection of Conservative MPs by their leader over Brexit, but when it came to the hounding of Jewish colleagues from her own Party — not over political differences but due to abject racism (combined, in several cases, with appalling misogyny) — she was not only less vocal but, like her peers, did nothing about it.

Ms Phillips is understood to have quit the Labour Party during the Blair years over the Iraq War, but chose not to do so in recent years when the Party became a cesspit of antisemitism, though she was only a student at the time and not a sitting MP. That being said, she recently revealed that she had been “quite tempted” to quit the Party over antisemitism, particularly after last year’s broadcast of the Panorama documentary into anti-Jewish hatred in the Party and the naked interference by Mr Corbyn’s office and allies in the disciplinary process. She said that it was after watching the programme that she “wobbled the most” in regard to her Labour membership. However, she apparently steadied herself with the solace that, given she “would have just been replaced by somebody who might not have spoken up” on the issue of antisemitism, it was better that she stayed. But Ms Phillips has yet to demonstrate what her speaking up actually achieved; it appears that she, like her colleagues, attained only the ignominy of having been an MP representing the first political party since the BNP to be investigated by the EHRC for racism.

Ms Phillips has vowed to “implement fully every single recommendation” made by the EHRC when it issues its report on the Labour Party.

Sir Keir Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer has served on Mr Corbyn’s frontbench in the influential position of Shadow Brexit Secretary and has been a vocal advocate of Labour under Mr Corbyn’s leadership. A former Director of Public Prosecutions, he has insisted, contrary to all the evidence, that Labour is not institutionally antisemitic (in an interview, incidentally, in which he conceded that denying Labour antisemitism was itself part of the problem). He has also claimed that Mr Corbyn is not particularly to blame for the antisemitism crisis that has engulfed their Party, but rather that there is collective responsibility, thus by his own admission implicating himself.

When Mr Corbyn’s defence of the antisemitic mural in East London came to light, Sir Keir declined to condemn the Labour leader, advising instead that Mr Corbyn “had given his explanation”. In case there was any doubt as to Sir Keir’s commitment to Mr Corbyn’s leadership of Labour and his effort to become Prime Minister, during the election campaign, Sir Keir reiterated that he was “100% behind Jeremy Corbyn”.

Having now lost the election and apparently recognising the political advantage of disassociating himself from Mr Corbyn’s leadership, Sir Keir has announced that “the handling of antisemitism [in Labour] has been completely unacceptable. It has caused deep distress for the Jewish community, which we must all accept responsibility for and apologise.” Sir Keir is hardly the first politician to offer cheap words; one suspects that there would have been little in the way of apology or responsibility had his ambitions to make Labour the party of government been realised.

Emily Thornberry

Emily Thornberry appears to have scraped through the nominations process thanks, not reassuringly, to the support of those who had previously backed the abortive candidacy of the pro-Corbyn MP, Clive Lewis. Ms Thornberry served as Mr Corbyn’s Shadow Foreign Secretary and was at the forefront of the campaign to make him Prime Minister and bring their institutionally antisemitic party into government.

Ms Thornberry has claimed that she has made interventions in shadow cabinet meetings and other forums on the issue of antisemitism — and she supported the adoption of the International Definition of Antisemitism by the Labour Party while some of her colleagues did not — but evidently she was never sufficiently moved to take more concrete and public action, such as resigning from the front bench or the Party.

She has also previously defended Mr Corbyn’s own record, insisting that “there isn’t a racist or antisemitic bone in Jeremy’s body”, ludicrously opining that the reason that he was failing to act on antisemitism was because he was so upset at being called an antisemite himself, and claiming that the Chief Rabbi was “wrong” to suggest that Mr Corbyn is an antisemite.

Although Ms Thornberry now describes tackling antisemitism in her Party as the “most urgent and immediate priority,” it apparently was not accorded such a lofty status when it was less politically convenient.

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.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

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Watch Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick announce all local councils will be required to adopt International Definition of Antisemitism

The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has announced that he will be requiring all local councils to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism “forthwith”.

Robert Jenrick made the comment in the House of Commons in an answer to the Conservative MP, Stephen Morgan, who asked about the Government’s plans to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps. Mr Jenrick noted that although the camps were liberated, this did not bring an end to the “cancer of antisemitism”, and he announced that in addition to the policy on local councils, the Government was providing funding for Holocaust education and visits to Bergen Belsen.

Mr Jenrick also revealed that he plans to participate in the British delegation to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, later this month to mark the occasion.

The announcement comes after it was reported that Mr Jenrick had written to all local authorities in the country urging adoption of the Definition.

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Jewish Voice for Labour activist who described Jewish organisations as being “in the gutter” to address Holocaust Memorial Day event organised by Socialist Workers Party

Glyn Secker, who said that Jewish organisations are “in the gutter” and “part of the problem”, will reportedly be addressing a Holocaust Memorial Day event organised by the Socialist Workers Party.

Mr Secker, who is the Secretary of the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, Jewish Voice for Labour, is one of three speakers who will participate in the event, titled “Never Again: Lessons of the Holocaust”, scheduled to take place on 27th January in East London. The event has been put together by the Tower Hamlets branch of the controversial organisation, Stand Up to Racism, which is linked to the Socialist Workers Party.

Although the event is intended to “remember the victims of the Holocaust and to commit ourselves to fight racism today,” Mr Secker has spent the last several years campaigning in support for the antisemitic leader of the institutionally antisemitic Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Secker also has a history of controversial remarks about Jews, including holding American rabbis responsible for fuelling the neo-Nazis behind recent antisemitic terrorism in the United States, including the fatal terrorist attack on a synagogue in Poway, California. Mr Secker claimed that they were “unleashing the extreme-right to win key votes in marginal states which determine the presidency”. He has also called Labour MPs who are “friends of Israel” a “fifth column in the Labour Party.”

“What on earth are Jews doing in the gutter with these rats?” Mr Secker has asked, after claiming that the “Zionist Federation embraces the [far-right] English Defence League”, which is a fabrication. He has also claimed: “Here’s a warning to the [British] Jewish leadership, while you foment your campaign of allegations of antisemitism against Corbyn and the left to silence Israel’s critics, while you cry wolf month after month, year after year in the Labour Party and remain blind to the explosion of the far-right and Islamophobia, you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem…You serve to protect the poison that would destroy both our freedom and yours. Well brothers and sisters, we are on the side of the Palestinians. We are on the side of the freedom marchers of ghetto Gaza.”

Mr Secker has also defended Ken Livingstone’s conspiratorial remarks about Adolf Hitler’s supposed support for Zionism, and told Labour activists at a Dulwich and West Norwood branch meeting in February 2019 that claims of antisemitism in the Party had been “made up in order to discredit the leadership.”

Mr Secker, who has reportedly admitted to having previously been a member of the Socialist Workers Party, was briefly suspended from the Labour Party, but it was revealed last March that Mr Corbyn’s key aide, Andrew Murray, intervened in the case, reportedly writing an e-mail saying that Mr Corbyn was “interested in this one”. Mr Secker’s suspension was lifted.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

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.

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CAA condemns appearance of white nationalist stickers in Edinburgh city centre

Stickers bearing the message “Antisemitism is caused by Semitism” have been plastered around the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

The phrase is commonly used by neo-Nazis and white nationalists online, and it is understood that the stickers were appended by a group calling itself the Hundred Handers.

Stickers were seen and removed by appalled locals on Jeffrey Street, St Mary’s Street, Jury’s Inn and La Garrigue, and one concerned resident warned others to take care in their removal in case razor blades or sharp objects had been hidden behind,

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The implication of this phrase is that Jews cause antisemitism. The accusation that antisemitism is the result of Jews’ own behaviour is a slur that has been used to persecute Jews for centuries, culminating in the Holocaust.

“This is offensive not just to Jews but all residents in Edinburgh and thousands of tourists. It is a terrible image for Edinburgh as the Royal Mile is such a popular and iconic tourist attraction. We expect that the authorities to remove the stickers immediately and investigate who is responsible.”

A spokesman for the local council advised that street cleaners have been alerted.

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Lord Mann praises British electorate for rejecting “the extremism of antisemitism” in debut speech in House of Lords

Lord Mann, the Government’s independent advisor on antisemitism, has praised the innate decency of the British people after they rejected “the extremism of antisemitism” in the general election.

He observed that the “true face of this country and the true story of the election is this: in Derby North, Christopher Williamson [the disgraced former Labour MP] got 635 votes and lost his deposit,” while “in West Bromwich East, George Galloway got 489 votes and lost his deposit. This is the innate decency of the British people yet again. Across the entirety of the country, people are saying, very vocally and unequivocally, ‘We reject the extremism of antisemitism.’”

The former Labour MP for Bassetlaw who resigned last year in protest at the Party’s institutional antisemitism and the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, made the remarks in his debut speech in the House of Lords.

On his new advisory role, Lord Mann said: “I am rightly independent and, as ever, I shall work cross-party, but I will be no bystander in driving out the stench of intolerance from the party that in 1906 my family helped to create in the city of Leeds, in the streets around Holbeck Moor.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.

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.

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Labour MP Bridget Phillipson says she felt “compromised” by staying in the party despite antisemitism, yet incidents of Jew-baiting among Labour activists continue

A Labour MP has described the Party’s antisemitism scandal as a “terrible stain” and admitted that it made her “feel compromised in staying at times”.

Bridget Phillipson, the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South, disclosed to the The House magazine that “it was very difficult and it’s a source of immense regret to me that people like Luciana [Berger] were effectively forced out of the Labour Party.”

However, she believed that “I needed along with many other people to be a part of making the change,” and indeed that “massive change” in the Party is needed.

Her comments come as incidents of Jew-baiting in the Party continue.

Labour International, a group comprising the Party’s overseas members, has published a report titled “General Election Part Two: Why didn’t we win?”, which revealed that “Many of us believe that the row about antisemitism has been stoked by the government of Israel and its helpers in the UK.” The report was drafted by the secretary of the 3,500-strong group, and it claimed that Israel sought to “prevent the election of a Labour government that will recognise a Palestinian state.” It also added that officials from leading Jewish organisations who met with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2018 “had links to the Conservative Party.”

A co-chair of Labour International was involved in a Facebook group reportedly set up in order to assist Party members subject to internal disciplinary investigations, including over antisemitism, and he has previously claimed that “Antisemitism accusations are a sideshow, a convenient weapon being used on behalf of the Right in British society to derail Corbyn and his supporters.”

Meanwhile, a rally in support of Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey saw a member of the Unite union  accuse the candidate of “cuddling up to…the Chief Rabbi, a well-known Tory.” In the audience were Gordon Nardell QC, a failed election candidate who previously served as Labour’s first general counsel, brought in to oversee its disciplinary procedures on antisemitism, a post which he left after a year; and Claudia Webb, who has defended Ken Livingstone and and was the Chair of the Labour Party’s Disciplinary Panel. RIchard Burgon, the pro-Corbyn MP who is running for the deputy leadership of the Party, had not yet arrived to the meeting.

The comment was greeted with applause from the audience, although two attendees stood up and called the speaker an antisemite, while the chair instructed an official to have his microphone removed.

Elsewhere, in Ilford South, a motion was reportedly carried declaring that there was “no antisemitism in the Labour Party” and attacking the Board of Deputies of British Jews as a “Tory organisation” that was “illegally interfering in the Labour leadership contest.” Activists who spoke against the motion were apparently labelled “agents of a foreign power”. Attacks on the Board of Deputies have gained steam on Twitter as well.

Campaign Against Antisemitism predicted that Labour’s election defeat would elicit anti-Jewish scapegoating by Party activists and has urged the Jewish community to remain vigilant.

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.

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Court hears how woman entered “Miss Hitler” pageant to attract new members to neo-Nazi group National Action

A woman entered a “Miss Hitler” beauty pageant described as a “publicity stunt” to attract new members to the neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action, a jury has heard. 

Alice Cutter, who is 23 years old, used the name “Buchenwald Princess” to enter the online ‘National Action Miss Hitler 2016’ contest, described as “sick”, in June 2016, weeks after her partner, Mark Jones, visited the execution room of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Jurors have been shown a picture of Mr Jones and another man posing at the Buchenwald camp holding a National Action flag.

Ms Cutter and Mr Jones are both on trial at Birmingham Crown Court, along with two other men, Garry Jack and Connor Scothern.

All stand accused of being members of a “fellowship of hate” comprising some 50 or 60 hardcore activist members of National Action. The group, according to the prosecution, has “a common admiration for Hitler and the architects of the Holocaust.”

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Labour leadership contender Jess Phillips suspends staffer accused of saying Israel “inflicting Holocaust conditions”

Labour leadership contender, Jess Phillips, has reportedly suspended her constituency office manager and key aide, Salma Hamid, for posting offensive tweets, including one accusing Israel of “inflicting Holocaust conditions on Palestinians.”

Problematic tweets have been uncovered which Ms Hamid reportedly posted 2014 and 2016, before she joined Ms Phillips’ office. In one exchange, Ms Hamid wrote: “We must show the world that ‘Israel’ is the murderer!” She also claimed that: “Israel IS inflicting Holocaust conditions on Palestinians! Oppressive, racist and violent!”

In another message, Ms Hamid appeared to equate Israel with the Islamic State: “Because Israel obeys human rights/law? Hilarious! Isis are terrible too. So really there is no difference.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the British Government, “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is antisemtic.

In a statement released on Twitter, Ms Phillips, who is the MP for Birmingham Yardley, said: “Yesterday evening I was shown some completely unacceptable messages posted by a member of my team prior to her employment with me. I have been clear from the outset that we need a zero tolerance approach to antisemitism in the party – and so the person involved was suspended with immediate effect.”

She added: “This is the right thing to do and the only way to start building a bridge again with the Jewish community. I’m unable to comment further now that a disciplinary process is underway.”

It has also emerged that St Paul’s Community Development Trust, a charity based in Balsall Heath of which Ms Hamid was chair of the board of trustees, has also suspended her following the revelations. Ms Hamid was appointed to the role in October of last year. The charity stated that it “aims to create a culture that respects and values people’s differences, that promotes dignity, equality and diversity and that encourages individuals to develop and maximise their true potential.”

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.

We are seeking to recruit a General Counsel a Creative Communications and Events Officer a Communications and Research Manager an Education and Outreach Intern to join our London office

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Campaign Against Antisemitism is a volunteer-led charity dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law. Everything that we do is done by people who volunteer their time, using donations contributed by members of the public. Join the fight against antisemitism by subscribing to our updates, volunteering, or donating.