Major Jewish donors reveal that they have quit the Labour Party that they helped to build, since Corbyn came to power
Major Jewish donors have been revealing that they have abandoned the Labour Party that they helped to build over decades, ending their memberships.
In a statement filled with anger and despair, Sir David Garrard, who has donated about £1.5m since 2003, was quoted on the front page of the Labour-leaning Observer as saying: “I have watched with dismay and foreboding the manner in which the leadership has, in my view, over the last two years, conducted itself. I consider that it has supported and endorsed the most blatant acts of antisemitism. And yet it has failed to expel many of those who have engaged in the grossest derogatory fantasies about Jewish/Zionist conspiracies – and Jewish characterisations and accusations which conjure up the very kind of antisemitic attacks that led to such unbearable consequences for innocent millions in the past. So there no longer exists a party which even pretends to maintain and promote the principles and the integrity of what always was, to me, the Labour Party. On the contrary, I have been witnessing, since Mr Corbyn became leader, a philosophical and a political policy which espouses, in nearly every respect, the very antithesis of the great party under whose reputation, and under whose flag, it now seeks to fly and where so many other Jews were once so proud to stand.”
As recently as during the leadership of Ed Miliband, Sir David was one of Labour’s largest donors, but upon the election of Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labour Party, he ceased to fund the Party and called in a £2m loan. Other Jewish donors joined him, with fellow Jewish donor Michael Foster, who had given £400,000, also ending his funding.
Another Labour Party donor, David Abrahams, who joined the Party as a 15-year-old, also said he had quit the Party, having previously donated £650,000. He told the JC: “I first spoke to Jeremy Corbyn last year and pleaded with him to do something about the growing problem of antisemitism in the party. I saw Jeremy repeatedly at functions thereafter and I once again asked him what he was doing about the issue. Jeremy promised me faithfully that he understood what antisemitism was, and that he would do something about it. The problem I think is that he is powerless to actually do anything himself – but he is reliant on the Momentum faction that got him into power in the first place. And within that faction is the real problem – a whole load of people who used to belong to political parties far to the left of the Labour Party, and who were full of people who believed in and who circulated classic antisemitic tropes.”
This Sunday, 8th April, at 2pm, Jews and non-Jews alike will converge in London from all over Britain to stand up for our Jewish community and drive home to Labour that they must deliver on their broken promise: zero tolerance for antisemitism. Please register for updates on the venue and speakers at antisemitism.org/
