Diane Abbott and Lloyd Russell-Moyle gave parliamentary launch to report by conspiracy theorist David Miller whose website claims CAA is part of “Israel lobby”
On Tuesday 26th March, the Shadow Home Secretary, Diane Abbott, alongside fellow Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle reportedly hosted the launch of a new report by the founder of “Spinwatch”, Professor David Miller.
Prof. Miller has long used his various platforms to attack and smear Jewish community organisations. In November he is reported to have defended Ken Livingstone and portrayed the security concerns of Jewish university students as “propaganda which they have been schooled with.” He has himself been suspended by the Labour Party in the past over his claims that the creation of Israel was a “racist endeavour” and that “most of the allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party have been false”. He was later reinstated.
According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, “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 antisemitic.
A website founded by Prof. Miller, PowerBase, even categorises Campaign Against Antisemitism as in fact being part of the “Israel lobby”. Powerbase is linked to another of Prof. Miller’s websites, Spinwatch, which is funded by various Islamist-linked organisations.
Another brainchild of Prof. Miller’s, a website called NeoCon Europe, has also previously published work by Kevin MacDonald, a supporter and public defender of notorious Holocaust denier David Irving. Mr MacDonald has said that “there are clear apologetic tendencies — tendencies to view the Jewish ‘in group’ in a favourable manner and to pathologise antisemitism as irrational and completely unrelated to the actual behaviour of Jews.” NeoCon Europe eventually pulled the article, which included MacDonald’s suggestion that Jewish characteristics included “Access to prestigious and mainstream media sources, partly as a result of Jewish influence on the media.”
Mrs Abbott has form on the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party. In an appearance on BBC Question Time, when challenged on the issue she said that “When Gerard [another panellist] says that the Labour Party has an institutional problem with racism, or institutional antisemitism, because they’re one and the same, when you say that the Labour Party has a problem with institutional antisemitism and racism, I’m sorry you feel the need to attack your Party. I’m proud of the Labour Party’s record on fighting racism and antisemitism.”
Diane Abbott also told a television audience that allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party were a politically-motivated smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn. Were the Labour Party to win a general election, Abbott would assume responsibility for tackling hate crime as Home Secretary.
It is therefore unsurprising but no less sickening that the Shadow Home Secretary has chosen to share a platform with a conspiracy theorist like Prof. Miller who is so appallingly dismissive of antisemitism in Britain.
