“Jew process” Councillor Jo Bird under investigation by Labour for third time after reportedly suggesting antisemitism is being privileged over other forms of racism
The controversial councillor, Jo Bird, is understood to be under investigation by the Labour Party for the third time in recent years after reportedly suggesting that antisemitism is being privileged over other forms of racism.
Last week, Cllr Bird reportedly told a meeting of the far-left faction ‘Don’t Leave, Organise’: “As a Jew, I worry about racism against Jewish people. I also worry about privileging the racism faced by Jewish communities in this country as more worthy of resources than other forms of discrimination such as against black people, Palestinians, Muslims and refugees. Abuses of power are measured in detentions, deportations and deaths. Privileging one group over another group is divisive. It’s bad for the many, as well as bad for the Jews.”
Cllr Bird represents the Bromborough Ward on Wirral Council and has a long history of controversy relating to Jews, including renaming ‘due process’ in the Labour Party as “Jew process”, for which she was suspended; supporting the expelled Labour activist and friend of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Marc Wadsworth, who was thrown out of the Party after a confrontation with Jewish then-MP Ruth Smeeth; and worrying about the “privileging of racism against Jews, over and above — as more worthy of resources than other forms of racism.”
Elected to Wirral Council in August 2018, Cllr Bird is a member of Jewish Voice for Labour, the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, and she has described Labour’s institutional antisemitism as based on mere “accusations, witch-huntery and allegations without evidence”. She recently failed in her bid for election to Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee.
Cllr Bird rejoined the Labour Party in 2015, when Jeremy Corbyn was running for the Party’s leadership, and last year she had previously been tipped to become a candidate to replace Dame Louise Ellman, a Jewish MP who quit Labour prior to the election due to antisemitism.
The Labour Party was found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to have engaged in unlawful discrimination and harassment of Jews. The report followed the EHRC’s investigation of the Labour Party in which Campaign Against Antisemitism was the complainant, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence and legal argument. Sir Keir Starmer called the publication of the report a “day of shame” for the Labour Party.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
