Labour MP Sam Tarry cites ‘floods’ in pulling out of PSC event with JVL activist as reports grow of Party’s financial woes due in part to antisemitism legal claims
Sam Tarry has reportedly cited flooding as a pretext for his withdrawal from an event with an activist from Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation.
The Labour Party MP for Ilford South announced that he was not attending Monday’s online launch of the Redbridge branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), due to recent flooding in his constituency. Research by Campaign Against Antisemitism has found the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to be riddled with bigotry.
Among the speakers at the launch event was Diana Neslen, a JVL activist with a history of inflammatory statements, including calling Israel a racist endeavour, in breach of the International Definition of Antisemitism.
Ms Neslen is also understood to have been one of a group of Labour activists – styled “Labour Activists For Justice” – who unsuccessfully sued the Party, arguing that Labour had broken its contractual agreement to treat the group fairly during disciplinary investigations. Not all members of the group of eight activists were investigated over antisemitism allegations.
Meanwhile, reports of Labour’s financial woes continue to grow, with The Times alleging that the Party has spent some £2 million on antisemitism-related cases, and an additional £1 million to address a backlog of complaints. A significant drop in membership numbers – reportedly from 550,000 when Sir Keir Starmer was elected leader to 430,000, at a rate of 250 a day – has also impacted finances.
Earlier this week, members of Labour Against the Witchhunt – an antisemitism-denial group that was proscribed by the Party last week – claimed that the “biggest party in Britain today is the ex-Labour Party. People who’ve been expelled, people who’ve been suspended.” The likely inaccurate observation was made in the context of a discussion about forming a new far-left 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.