Jeremy Corbyn’s office is “glad” about the readmission of Moshe Machover, who defended Ken Livingstone and accused Jewish students of obeying Israeli Embassy

Moshe Machover, who had been expelled by the Labour Party, has now had that expulsion rescinded. A leaked e-mail from Jeremy Corbyn’s Stakeholder Manager, appears to confirm that this is the case, and moreover, it expresses pleasure in the outcome.

Professor Machover is a Holocaust revisionist, who, like Ken Livingstone (with whom he publicly sympathises), seeks to distort the history of the Jews under Hitler in order to characterise Zionists as cooperative partners of Nazism and imply that the Nazis were well disposed towards Zionists at the time. He did so at the recent Labour Party Conference, when a leaflet reprinting his article in Labour Party Marxists was circulated. He quotes none other than Reynhard Heydrich who said: “National socialism has no intention of attacking the Jewish people in any way” — as if, especially in retrospect, the lying promises of a genocidal Nazi are somehow to be taken in good faith. He imputes that Nazism only changed course and decided to kill Jews in 1942, despite the fact that at that time, Heydrich himself had been responsible for hundreds of thousands of Jewish deaths as Hitler’s armies marched through Eastern Europe in its war on Russia. His article also included the now standard claim that “the Jewish Labour Movement and the right wing media have been running a completely cynical campaign…with the help of the Israeli government and the far-right in the United States.”

However, the Labour Party has failed to reject those who twist the history and significance of the Holocaust. Ken Livingstone is still a member, albeit temporarily suspended from holding office, despite 107 MPs and 48 peers describing his as “insidious racism” that was “not done in our name and we will not allow it to go unchecked”. The Labour Party claims to have adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism which clearly states that “Denying the …intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices…” is antisemitic, and yet here is Professor Machover, not only re-admitted, but warmly welcomed back to the fold.

Not only is this sinister, but it reveals yet another failure in Labour’s battle with antisemitism. When Professor Machover was first expelled, he published the letter he received. In it, Labour Party Head Office made abundantly clear that Professor Machover’s article, circulated at the Labour Party Conference “appears to meet the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which has been adopted by the Labour Party”. However, having established his apparent guilt, the letter goes on to say that in fact, it is his membership of another party that is the reason for his expulsion.

This technicality having been apparently proven to be erroneous, Mr Machover has now been readmitted, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Stakeholder Manager, Laura Murray, says she is “glad that he is now a Labour Party member again”. Ms Murray has told us that the e-mail was leaked and that she had no authority to make “official public statements”, but she did not retract her statement.

Professor Machover has form. He has previously been exposed for suggesting that Hamas should adopt tactics more akin to those of Hizballah. Both are genocidal antisemitic terrorist organisations which are proscribed under the Terrorism Act. He also reportedly accused Jewish students at an event at Queen Mary, University of London, of being under the control of the Israeli Embassy.

Professor Machover has never made a secret of his views.

The Labour Party has an arsenal of weapons with which to fight the antisemitism in its midst. It has adopted the International Definition of Antisemitism, and at the Labour Party Conference, it voted to increase the severity of sanctions for indulging in antisemitic discourse, including expulsion from the Party.

However, it has demonstrated that all of that means precisely nothing, because the naked truth that Professor Machover’s case reveals is that the Labour Party simply does not want to expel antisemites.