JVL’s Leah Levane and Jackie Walker’s partner Graham Bash threatened with automatic expulsion from Labour Party
Leah Levane and Graham Bash have both reportedly received Notices of Possible Auto-exclusion from the Labour Party.
Ms Levane is a co-Chair of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), an antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation. She is also a councillor at Hastings Borough Council, where she was reportedly the only councillor present at a vote to adopt the International Definition of Antisemitism to abstain. In 2017, Ms Levane reportedly commented on Facebook on an item titled “Austria’s neo-Nazis find friends in Israel”, writing that it was “not surprising”. She also claimed online: “Jews are often agents rather than instigators of exploitation.”
Among the questions asked of Ms Levane in the Notice were for her explanation for having signed an open letter from Labour Against the Witchhunt to Rebecca Long-Bailey in January 2020. Last month, Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) resolved to proscribe Labour Against the Witchhunt and earlier this month its members began receiving letters of automatic expulsion.
Ms Levane was also asked about her attendance and speaking at a Labour In Exile Network virtual conference in February 2021. Labour In Exile Network was another of the four factions proscribed by the NEC.
Ms Levane has defended herself by claiming that “in any normal setting, speaking at an event, signing a petition or signing an open letter, are not indicators of support for an organisation,” and that the Party’s request is “logically impossible” because “you are asking me to prove a negative, that I am not a supporter”.
Recently, it was reported that Labour Against the Witchhunt suggested to its members that they may lie about their political affiliation to avoid being kicked out of the Labour Party, although there is no evidence to indicate that Ms Levane is availing herself of this advice.
Graham Bash is JVL’s political officer and the partner of the antisemite Jackie Walker, and has been accused in his Notice of membership of Labour Against the Witchhunt.
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.
