Labour’s John McDonnell insists “we’re doing everything we can” on antisemitism

John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has insisted that Labour is doing “everything we can” to eradicate antisemitism from the Labour Party.

Appearing on yesterday’s The Andrew Marr Show, Mr McDonnell was confronted with three Jewish headlines expressing horror at the prospect of Mr Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.

He responded by saying: “I’m so sad…I’m so saddened by this. I just want to reassure them we’re doing everything we can. Everything I said we would do we are doing in terms of the Labour Party, eradicating antisemitism from the Party. We’re also doing everything we can to educate our own members, we’re doing education courses. All the things that they’ve asked us to do, we’re doing. And that will enable us then to reassure the Jewish community that actually the Labour Party will ensure our society will create a safe and also a decent environment for them and for everybody else.”

Mr McDonnell was somewhat contradicted by the Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle on today’s Politics Live. Mr Russell-Moyle conceded that in fact “Labour has to do more”, although he went on to insist that more resources had been put into dealing with the matter and that there was a backlog of cases. He denied that the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was the problem, and claimed that there is as much antisemitism and racism in other parties as in Labour.

Mr McDonnell is the honorary president of the Labour Representation Committee, a pro-Corbyn pressure group which has a long history of belittling claims of antisemitism and publishing extremely disturbing articles and has hosted an event with disgraced MP Chris Williamson and Jackie Walker, an antisemite who was expelled from the Labour Party. Ms Walker reportedly sits on the board of the organisation.

Campaign Against Antisemitism rejects the breathtaking lie that the Labour Party is “doing everything we can” and that “all the things that they’ve asked us to do, we’re doing.” Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite who is unfit to hold any public office and under his leadership the Labour Party has become institutionally antisemitic, rewarding Jew-baiters and hounding those who stand up to antisemitism. Mr McDonnell is taking the British public for fools, but after four years of determined refusal to address antisemitism properly we are not so easily deceived.

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 57,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”