Labour candidate tells Jewish audience her Party has failed on antisemitism and doesn’t deserve their vote

A Labour Party general election candidate has told a Jewish audience that her Party does not deserve their vote because it had “totally failed” to tackle antisemitism.

Carolann Davidson made the admission at the Jewish hustings in Glasgow’s East Renfrewshire, which is the constituency with the highest proportion of Jewish voters in Scotland.

Ms Davidson said that the party had “failed from the leadership down” and declared: “I can’t stand here and ask for your vote.” Saying she was “embarrassed by the way Labour is handling antisemitism”, she said that given she is “not here asking for your vote”, the reason she had attended was because “I want to reassure you as a community that there are still people within the Labour party who are not willing to surrender the party that was once the strongest ally of the Jewish community to racists and conspiracy theorists,” and to tell the community that “I [am] on your side,” adding: “I can’t defend the indefensible. What I can do is tell you who I am and what I stand for.”

In the past week, Scottish Labour dropped one of its candidates, Safia Ali, over allegations of antisemitism.

Meanwhile, in Ilford South in London, the Labour candidate, Sam Tarry, suggested that the antisemitism crisis was being exploited by those who disagreed with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on foreign policy.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right, and that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is the party leader of choice for those who hold multiple antisemitic views.

On 8th December, regardless of religion, race or politics, Jews and non-Jews alike will gather in Parliament Square to declare that they stand together against antisemitism in the face of Jew-hatred in politics and mounting anti-Jewish hate crime.

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, thirteen MPs and three peers have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism, along with a large number of MEPs, councillors and members.

Over 58,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”