Claudia Webbe, who defended Ken Livingstone after he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, reportedly selected as Labour’s candidate in safe seat

Claudia Webbe, who defended Ken Livingstone after he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, has reportedly been selected as the Labour Party candidate for the safe Labour seat of Leicester East.

Ms Webbe was appointed as the candidate by a selection panel that included two representatives of the party’s governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC).

According to Labour List, Ms Webbe is a local party representative on the NEC and the council cabinet member for the environment and transport in Islington. She is also on the executive of the left-wing group, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD).

In 2018, when Ms Webbe was the Chair of the Labour Party’s Disciplinary Panel, she tweeted a claim that the “combined machinery of state, political and mainstream elite” are conspiring to smear Jeremy Corbyn with “false allegations.”

Ms Webbe, who previously defended Ken Livingstone after he compared a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, took to Twitter to claim that Mr Corbyn is entirely innocent, and that a sinister and powerful conspiracy is working to attack him.

As Chair of the Labour Party’s Disciplinary Panel, Ms Webbe must have known that this kind of language is common in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

On 28th May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.

In recent months, thirteen MPs and three peers have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism, along with a large number of MEPs, councillors and members.

Over 57,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”