Mike Cushman, a member of antisemitism denial groups Jewish Voice for Labour and Labour Against The Witchhunt, has claimed that he has never observed antisemitism in the Labour Party and that the evidence on which antisemitism allegations are based emanates either from the Israeli Mossad or British security services, which he insists oppose the election of a Labour government.
The claims were made at a 19th September screening in Brixton of the film, Witchhunt, which disputes the degree of antisemitism in the Labour Party, hosted by expelled Labour member and former Vice-Chair of the pro-Corbyn group Momentum, Jackie Walker.
In his remarks, Mr Cushman said: “I’m not saying that antisemitism doesn’t exist in the Labour Party, but I’ve never seen it — I’ve never experienced it. I’ve seen anti-black racism; I’ve seen islamophobia; I’ve seen misogyny; I’ve seen homophobia; I’ve seen many awful things, but personally I’ve never observed antisemitism.”
He went on to explain that “when the allegations of people like Louise Ellman [a Jewish Labour MP] and Luciana Berger [a Jewish MP who resigned from the Labour Party] are examined properly, they fall apart as a tissue of lies. I cannot emphasise enough just how much lying and falsehood is going on in making these allegations.”
Complaining that criticism of Israel and talking about Zionism are interpreted as antisemitism, and that even telling an MP “they’re just no bloody use as an MP” is also interpreted as antisemitism, Mr Cushman concluded that the twin motivations behind those exposing antisemitism in the Labour Party are “to stop us talking about Palestine” and “to stop us getting a socialist Labour government elected.”
Turning to the evidence for the antisemitism allegations, he explained that “you do not find this stuff by human trawling of the internet — you need high grade artificial intelligence services to get this. Now, I have always assumed that this was being done from Tel Aviv by Mossad and other security services. I am not saying they are not doing it, but I’ve seen some suggestion — and I think they’re very compelling suggestions — that a lot of this is actually coming from the British Security Services.”
Mr Cushman’s wilful blindness to antisemitism in the Labour Party and his conspiratorial ramblings are sadly what we have come to expect from a member of Jewish Voice for Labour, which is a sham organisation which, by the admission of its chair, was founded in order “to tackle allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party”, and of Labour Against The Witchhunt, which is a group that was set up to protest the expulsion of Labour members for alleged antisemitism and that opposes “the false antisemitism smear”.
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.”
