Labour’s Chanukah message greeted with reams of antisemitic messages
The Labour Party’s Chanukah message on Facebook has been greeted with reams of antisemitic messages from the Party’s social media following.
The graphic read: “Happy Chanukah from all of us at the Labour Party”. The accompanying message was: “As Jewish communities across Britain light the first candle of the menorah this evening, the Labour Party would like to wish you a very happy Chanukah. Chanukah Sameach!”
The antisemitic messages in response to the greeting included: “66,5 million Brits ruled over by 245,000.”; “Unless you’re a left leaning Jewish person…then we’ll suspend you from the party. I think you missed that bit…”; “…Shouldn’t the party be above all devise [sic] things like race and religion, it just looks so pro Jewish it is becoming embarrassing.”; “but only the right kind of Jews”; “I think you mean: Happy Chanukah, from Labour, to everyone in the Jewish community that agrees with the land grab”; “The electorate has spent the last ten years telling the Labour Party that they don’t represent working class people any more — The Labour Party responds by making more of a hue and cry about circa 360,000 people than any other minority group…”; “We might as well say Happy whatever it is… Otherwise we are expelled….”; “Better watch out, Starmer’s Stasi will be looking to find socialists to expel. Don’t mention Apartheid Israel’s war crimes.”; and “Starmer is rebranding Labour. It will now be known as the Likud party.”
Among the 2,000 comments, there was also plenty of pushback against these and other racist remarks.
Campaign Against Antisemitism recently lodged a complaint against Jeremy Corbyn, holding him responsible for conduct that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Labour Party, as the Leader during the period of the EHRC’s shameful findings. Given the serious detriment that this conduct has caused, we are seeking Mr Corbyn’s immediate resuspension and, if the complaint is upheld, we will be requesting his expulsion. On the day the publication of the EHRC’s report, we also submitted a major complaint against Mr Corbyn and other sitting MPs. These complaints are yet to be acknowledged by the Party, and they must be investigated by an independent disciplinary process that the EHRC has demanded and Sir Keir has promised but has yet to introduce.
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.
In the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that Labour Party candidates for Parliament in the 2019 general election accounted for 82 percent of all incidents of antisemitic discourse by parliamentary candidates.
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.
