Pete Willsman finally expelled from Labour Party
The veteran Labour Party activist, Pete Willsman, has finally been expelled from the Party in relation to antisemitism.
Mr Willsman was even a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Council (NEC) until he was suspended from the Party in May 2019 after a recording emerged of a conversation between him and the author Tuvia Tenenbom.
In the conversation, which was reportedly recorded without Mr Willsman’s knowledge, Mr Willsman allegedly claimed that Labour’s antisemitism crisis was “all lies” and that critics of Jeremy Corbyn were using claims of antisemitism to “whip people up”.
Mr Willsman allegedly said: “It’s almost certain who is behind all this antisemitism against Jeremy…Almost certainly it was the Israeli embassy. Because they caught somebody in the Labour Party – it turns out they were an agent in the embassy. The thing is that the people that are in the Labour Party doing it are people who are linked…one of them works indirectly for the Israeli embassy.”
Claiming that the Israeli Embassy was behind allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party is a popular antisemitic trope.
Mr Willsman also previously said that he had never seen antisemitism in Labour, blaming Jewish “Trump fanatics” for inventing the problem. When 68 rabbis wrote a joint open letter to the Party alleging “severe and widespread” antisemitism, he challenged them to show evidence.
Already two years ago, Sir Keir Starmer admitted that the investigation into Mr Willsman was taking too long.
Jewish Voice for Labour, an antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, defended Mr Willsman, telling the JC: “The expulsion of long-serving Labour Party NEC member Pete Willsman is the inevitable conclusion of a process which has seen hundreds of left wingers driven out on the basis of unfounded allegations of antisemitism. The current party leadership has been clear that it intends to eradicate all trace of the Corbyn era, waging a factional campaign that has nothing to do with protecting Jews from antisemitism.”
Also reportedly expelled from Labour was the former Unite delegate to Labour’s NEC, Martin Mayer, apparently in connection with his alleged support for the proscribed antisemitism-denial group, Labour Against Witchhunt.
Meanwhile, Ruth George, a former Labour MP who now sits as a local councillor, was reportedly joined by Shadow Equalities Secretary Anneliese Dodds for a campaigning event, in spite of Ms George’s troubling record.
Recently, Ms George declined to put herself forward to become Labour’s candidate once more in High Peak.
The Labour Party was found by the 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.
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.
