The leading representative body of British Jewry has called for the sacking of a senior Labour leader after he dismissed the community’s concerns over the handling of anti-Semitism within the party.
During an interview with The Guardian on Monday, MP Chris Williamson said that complaints over party chief Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership regarding the issue were “proxy wars and bull***t.”
“I’m not saying it never ever happens but it is a really dirty, lowdown trick, particularly the antisemitism smears. Many people in the Jewish community are appalled by what they see as the weaponisation of antisemitism for political ends,” he alleged. “It is pretty repellent to use that to attack somebody like Jeremy Corbyn, who has spent his whole life fighting for social justice and standing up for the underdog."
Board of Deputies of British Jews Vice President Marie van der Zyl issued a statement on Wednesday saying that the Jewish community would have expected a legislator like Williamson, who is close to Corbyn, "to show solidarity with those suffering racism within his own party rather than blaming the victims.”
"After a second failure on equalities issues in a week, the Labour leadership should consider whether Williamson is a suitable person to serve as a front-bench spokesperson,” she wrote.
Responding to the Board, Williamson issued a statement of his own, asserting that he "absolutely did not and never would blame the victims of anti-semitism or any form or racism and bigotry.”
"Anti-semitism is utterly repugnant and a scourge on society, which is why I stand in absolute solidarity with anyone who is subjected to anti-semitic abuse. The point I was trying to make is that accusations have on occasions been used for factional or party political ends.”
A Jewish Labour Movement spokesman issued a scathing denunciation of Williamson.
"“In the past two years there have been three inquiries into antisemitism in the Labour Party, one commissioned by the leader of the Labour Party,” the spokesman said, according to the Jewish Chronicle. "For a member of the frontbench to claim there is no issue belittles the Jewish community and the Labour Party. The Jewish Labour Movement calls on Mr Williamson to reconsider his ill-judged comments.”
Just over a week ago the Jewish Labour Movement announced that it would hold a symposium on anti-Semitism n response to a number of anti-Semitism scandals within the party following the ascension of Jeremy Corbyn to its leadership in 2015.
More than 80 percent of British Jews see Labour as overly tolerant of anti-Semitism, according to a new YouGov poll commissioned by the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
The party has been wracked with anti-Semitic scandals over the past two years and is in the midst of conducting an internal investigation into anti-Semitic comments made by former London Mayor Ken Livingstone.
According to the Jewish Chronicle, Labour sources have confirmed that another probe “is under way” due to the former London mayor's lack of remorse for his comments. Livingstone was suspended from the party last April after stating that "when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.”
Jeremy Newmark, the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, has described the party’s relationship with the Jewish community as being in “crisis” while Jonathan Arkush, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has previously gone on the record saying that "most people in the Jewish community can’t trust Labour.”
A number of party members have been banned or suspended for anti-Semitic remarks, including one senior official who tweeted that Jews have “big noses” and that Hitler is the “Zionist God.”
A high-profile report on anti-Semitism within the party by MP Baroness Shami Chakrabarti released last year was derided by many within the Jewish community and described as incomplete and lacking by the Board of Deputies, which expressed disappointment.
Following the report, Chakrabarti was granted a peerage, leading to the Jewish representative body to allege that the new title was a reward for "her so-called ‘independent’ inquiry” which was "was weak in several areas.”
Last June, MP Ruth Smeeth, who is Jewish, walked out during an event marking the report’s unveiling, after a party activist accused her of collusion with conservative media.
