Former Prime Minister Tony Blair calls Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has called Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite in an interview at a panel event at Bar Ilan University in Israel.
Mr Blair said: “To be frank, this antisemitism row, it’s a shameful thing.” When asked if he believed Corbyn himself was antisemitic, he said yes, explaining: “Some of the remarks are not explicable in any other way, I’m afraid, and that is sad.”
When the question was posed if Mr Corbyn thinks that he is an antisemite, he replied: “No, he doesn’t think he is at all.”
In May, Mr Blair said that the the “poison” of antisemitism has returned in a rebuke of Mr Corbyn and the Labour Party. In powerful comments in a video in support of the new National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, Mr Blair said that: “Antisemitism and hate did not end in 1945. Unfortunately today some of this poison is back from the political fringe to parts of the political mainstream.”
Last Tuesday, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched a full statutory investigation following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.
At the Bar Ilan University event, Mr Blair lamented that: “When I established [the EHRC], I never dreamed it would be investigating the Labour Party.”
In recent months, eleven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism, along with a large number of MEPs, councillors and members.
Over 55,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”