John McDonnell says Labour is “on top of” the issue of antisemitism in the Party
The Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell, has conceded that he is not happy with the way antisemitism in the Labour Party has been handled, but asserted that “I think we are on top of that now”.
Mr McDonnell made the comments in an interview with former Labour spin-doctor Alastair Campbell in GQ magazine, admitting that the Party should have been “firmer, more ruthless and faster” in dealing with antisemitism, but that they are “learning lessons all the time”.
He agreed with Mr Campbell that the Labour antisemitism scandal has done a lot of damage to the Party, but quickly shifted the blame to the media, contrasting the way Labour antisemitism has been covered versus claims of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party, a point with which Mr Campbell concurred. “I’m just saying look at the operation of the media with regards to that,” Mr McDonnell elaborated. “We are an anti-racist party and we have always been a leading party in that respect, but it does demonstrate the role of the media itself. We’ve got to cut through that all the time.”
On 28th May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.
In recent months, twelve MPs and three peers 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.”