Jewish MP calls on Corbyn to resign after fleeing antisemitism press conference in tears
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJfBZy4BPBA
Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth has broken her silence and called on Jeremy Corbyn to resign after he failed to intervene in what she said was an antisemitic incident during the press conference to launch the Chakrabarti Inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour Party.
After a Labour activist accused Smeeth during the question and answer session of participating in a media conspiracy, Smeeth left in tears and issued the following statement calling on Jeremy Corbyn to resign:
“This morning, at the launch of the Chakrabarti Inquiry into antisemitism, I was verbally attacked by a Momentum activist and Jeremy Corbyn supporter who used traditional antisemitic slurs to attack me for being part of a ‘media conspiracy’. It is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on antisemitism in the Labour Party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people, which were ironically highlighted as such in Ms Chakrabarti’s report, while the leader of my own party stood by and did absolutely nothing.
“People like this have no place in our party or our movement and must be opposed. Until today I had made no public comment about Jeremy’s ability to lead our party, but the fact that he failed to intervene is final proof for me that he is unfit to lead, and that a Labour Party under his stewardship cannot be a safe space for British Jews. I have written to the General Secretary of the Labour Party and the Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party to formally complain about this morning’s events.
“No-one from the Leader’s office has contacted me since the event, which is itself a catastrophic failure of leadership. I call on Jeremy Corbyn to resign immediately and make way for someone with the backbone to confront racism and antisemitism in our party and in the country.”
At the beginning of the event, Jeremy Corbyn to compared Israel to ISIS, showing just how little grasp he has of this pressing problem for his party.
Campaign Against Antisemitism has condemned the report as “a vague, meaningless whitewash that will do nothing to rid Labour of antisemitism or address the total absence of leadership it has shown on this issue.” The report is 41 pages long, but Campaign Against Antisemitism has produced a version with key phrases relating to antisemitism highlighted in yellow.