Corbyn shares platform with Labour candidates with troubling records on anti-Jewish racism as Labour launches race manifesto
The launch of Labour’s controversial Race and Faith manifesto today was mired with controversy, as Mr Corbyn shared a platform with Labour candidates with troubling records on anti-Jewish racism.
The event was delayed and already overshadowed by the Chief Rabbi’s unprecedented intervention criticising the Labour Party over its institutional antisemitism and the manifesto’s sinister pledge to reform the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is currently investigating the Labour Party following a complaint from Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Those sharing the platform with Mr Corbyn today included Afzal Khan, an MP who reportedly compared Israeli policy to that of the Nazis; candidate Apsana Begum, who accused Tony Blair of spreading ‘Zionist propaganda’ and who claimed that the leaders of Saudia Arabia were ‘inspired by Zionist masters’; and Claudia Webbe, who defended Ken Livingstone’s comparison of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard and who also heads up Labour’s disputes panel, which decides how to deal with members embroiled in antisemitic controversy.
Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Another day, another example of the institutional antisemitism of the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn today announced his Party’s race relations manifesto, which makes a sinister call for reforming the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the very body that is investigating the Labour Party over antisemitic racism following a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism.
“Meanwhile, those sharing the platform with Mr Corbyn are hardly paragons of anti-racism. Instead, their views are what the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn stands for. Jeremy Corbyn has now again assured the country that he does not tolerate antisemitism ‘whatsoever’, but he surrounds himself with it, and in the past has even perpetrated it himself. Jeremy Corbyn is gaslighting Britain’s Jews.”
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 58,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”
On 8th December, regardless of religion, race or politics, Jews and non-Jews alike will gather in Parliament Square to declare that they stand together against antisemitism in the face of Jew-hatred in politics and mounting anti-Jewish hate crime.
