Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party

BBC Report – as of Feb 2019

 673 complaints of anti-Semitism by Labour Party members were received - a

Labour spokesman said this represented about 0.1% of the membership (540,000
total = 540. A statistically significant sample is 30+<)
 96 members were immediately suspended after complaints were made and a
further 211 were told they would be investigated
 146 members received a first warning, and 220 cases did not have sufficient
evidence of a breach of party rules for an investigation
 Of the 307 who were suspended or notified of an investigation, 44 members left
the party
 Another 96 were referred to the party's anti-Semitism Disputes Panel
 Of the 96, 16 members were issued with a formal warning from the National
Executive Committee, six members' cases were referred for further investigation,
25 members were issued with reminder of conduct (a first written warning), and
seven members' cases were closed as the full evidence suggested no further
action should be taken
 The panel decided to refer the other 42 members to Labour's National
Constitutional Committee (NCC), with five members leaving before their cases
were reviewed
 Of the 37 cases referred to the NCC, 12 members were expelled and six received
sanctions, while the rest await their outcome
 The other members who were suspended or notified of an investigation are either
still under investigation or are cases where the investigation revealed evidence
that meant the case could not be pursued further
 The party received a further 433 complaints which were not about Labour party
members

Luciana Berger specific (Saturday Times Berger article, Times of Israel and the
Jewish Chronicle)

Hard Right threats

In 2014, for instance, a member of the neo-Nazi National Action organization —

which was banned after the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016 — was jailed for
sending Berger an anti-Semitic tweet. Following the verdict, she swiftly became a
target for anti-Semitic trolls, with the police telling her that she had received 2,500
“hate messages” in just three days at the height of the attacks.

More abuse and more convictions followed over the next three years. One far-right
activist received a two-year prison sentence following what was described as a
“vitriolic” campaign of anti-Semitic abuse against Berger in which she was branded
“evil” and a “filthy Jew bitch” and compared to a rat.

Berger told the trial she had feared for her safety and “felt sick” when she read the
series of articles about her posted on a neo-Nazi website. Another anti-Semitic troll
was jailed for sending Berger death threats in which he said she would meet the
same fate as Cox.
Hard Left threats

She was the first of Corbyn’s MPs to demand an explanation as to why he

had defended a 2012 anti-Semitic mural in London’s East End. Within days, Berger
was forced to call the police after receiving what she described as “a torrent of abuse
from people purporting to be of the left.”

Threats that she would be deselected, warnings that the pro-Corbyn Momentum
group would be “watching” her, and accusations that she was a “paid-up Israeli lobby
operative” engaging in “faux anti-Semite outrage” were at the gentler end of the
scale. Other messages suggested she kill herself so that “an actual Labour MP can
take your place.”

Police protection was provided for her to attend Labour Party Conference. Corbyn
supporters blamed threats from far right and then accused her of ‘disgracefully
smearing’ Corbyn and claimed that, despite photographic evidence, reports of her
having Police protection was a lie. It was later revealed that Labour had failed for six
months to inform Berger or the police about threats against her which were
contained in an 80 page dossier of 45 cases of anti-Semitic abuse by party members
which had been compiled by officials. The existence of the dossier was only made
public the day after a whistle-blower handed it to a London radio station. The
police considered the threats — such as one member posting on Facebook to 7,000
followers “Zionist Extremist MP Luciana Berger, who hates civilised people, about
[to] get a good kicking!” — serious enough to open a criminal investigation. Another
member wrote: “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all.” Another report in
the dossier related to a party member accused of putting a child through “ten years
of hell” and referring to him as “Jew boy”. A Labour member from Yorkshire
suggested that Labour MP Yvette Cooper should be invited to a charity abseil,
adding: “Then we can throw her off the top — no ropes.”

Sources close to Ms Berger say the conduct of the Labour leadership over this
matter has left her dismayed, with a Labour spokesperson saying, “if someone feels
they have been a victim of crime they should report it to the police in the usual way”.
But a Labour MP told the JC that this was impossible: Ms Berger could not have
reported the threat to the police because the Labour Party had refused to make her
aware of it. There is a legal duty of care to inform her of the threats which is doubly
important given what happened to Jo Cox.

Accompanying a photo shopped picture of her with a yellow start pasted to her head
Æthelwulf tweeted:

Communist Jewess Luciana Berger Liverpool Labour Party MP… “Labour never
failed on immigration” You can always count on Jew to show their true colours
eventually #Labour #Live #Hitlerwasright

In December, the MP came under fire from Corbyn-backing activists when she
reiterated her support for a second referendum on Brexit (a position that the anti-
European Labour leader opposes). Their tweets referred to her as “the member for
Liverpool Haifa,” an “Israeli shill” and “an absolute traitor to the Labour Party and to
the work[ing] class.”

Saturday Times article about Luciana Berger 2 March 2019

Hard left

“arrogant yid whore”

“go and live in Israel you fucking piece of shit”
“we fucked and killed your ilk out of here almost 100 years ago”

Nonspecific, far right and possibly far left

Six people have already been convicted of hate crimes against her – four of them
were sent to prison and two received non-custodial sentences. “One person posted
some extreme anti-Semitic blogs that were also pornographic and violent with my
image. Another imposed a Star of David on my forehead and said. “Hitler was right”.
That prompted an International Far Right response using the hashtag FilthyJewBitch,
which the Police said over a couple of days was circulated 2,500 times.

There have also been horrific personal threats. “In the wake of the murder of Jo Cox,
someone sent a picture of a massive machete and said I was going to get it like Jo
Cox got it. A guy was arrested for making death threats and when they seized his
phones and so on, it transpired he’d downloaded terrorist material.” A letter was
delivered to her office. “It said I was going to have acid thrown on me and be
stabbed. That was signed off by people who said that they were supporters of
Jeremy Corbyn, but who knows? Sadly, the Police didn’t find them.”
Labour party members

Although she has not been physically harmed, on one occasion a man pursued her
at a music event in Liverpool screaming ant-Semitic abuse in her face. “It was lots of
different things at different moments during the evening saying, ‘I fucking hate
Jewish people’. I believe he was a Labour Party member at the time. One particularly
horrible tweet shortly before she resigned , from a former Labour Party member said,
“Lets all pray the same fate awaits @Lucianaberger’s baby that she wishes for all
Palestinian babies.” “It was so bad that for the first time the Labour Party emailed me
to ask me to report it to the Police.”

Jeremy Corbyn

…it was months before Corbyn accepted an international definition of antisemitism.

“There was a summer of antisemitism, when there almost wasn’t a day that went by
without an article that exposed Jeremy’s own involvement and actions.” What
caused most offence, she says, “was the video of him saying that British Jews ‘don’t
understand English irony’, that we were seen as the ‘other’.

Labour Party re-admission of Derek Hatton

On the day she resigned, the party re-admitted Derek Hatton, the former deputy
leader of Liverpool City Council who was expelled by Neil Kinnock along with the rest
of the Militant Tendency. He has since been suspended over a tweet about Jewish
people and Israel, but she cannot believe he was allowed back in the first place.

Sky 4th March 2019

The (Labour) Party has announced that a councillor from Wirral, Merseyside, Jo Bird,
has been suspended for joking about “Jew process” at a party meeting to defend an
activist expelled for comments about Ruth Smeeth (MP).

Liverpool Chronicle 4th March 2019

Both a recording of a speech leaked to the Jewish Chronicle from a meeting last
year and a blog written by Cllr Bird for Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) struck a similar
tone on the issue, mentioning Labour members such as Mr Wadsworth and former
London Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Mr Wadsworth was expelled after a confrontation with Labour MP Ruth Smeeth in

2016.

In the JVL blog, she called his expulsion "unfair", and said "due process" should be
known as "Jew process". It is understood Cllr Bird has been suspended by the
party, pending investigation.
(Independent 27 April 2018 - Mr Wadsworth, who runs Momentum Black
Connexions, had accused the MP of "working hand in hand" with The Daily
Telegraph during a tirade at the launch of the Chakrabarti report in 2016.

The Jewish Chronicle 27 April 2018 - At the June 2016 event, the Labour leader was
filmed laughing and joking with Mr Wadsworth after Ms Smeeth had fled the room
in tears.

Video footage taken at the event showed the two men together and appeared to
show Mr Wadsworth telling Mr Corbyn: “I outed Smeeth, bloody talking to the
Torygraph.”

Mr Corbyn did not respond but later appeared to say: “I sent you a text.”

Following the furore, Mr Wadsworth later said he had no idea Ms Smeeth was
Jewish. )

Guardian 9th March 2019 - Margaret Hodge

Disputes panel document – ‘People are finding out how much power the Jews have’.
One describes a jail term for a former Nazi guard as a disgrace and says the BBC is
“being overrun by Jews”. It adds: “Hatred of Jews is in my DNA.”

Times – 9th March 2019

Sean McAllum, selected candidate for Mayor of Mansfield. Suspended for remarking
that, “Nazism and Zionism are equally foul”. Also reposted content that suggested
that Israel be “relocated into the United States”.

Observer 10th March 2019

Mohhamed Joynal Uddin, a Labour Party member, claimed the Talmud said ‘Jesus
was boiling in semen in hell and the Virgin Mary was a whore’. Complaints were
lodged by Sarah Hayward, the then leader of Camden Council correspondence of
which she has records yet Labour say they never received the complaint and though
the issue was fairly well known about Barry Gardiner wrote Uddin a glowing
reference.

Sunday Times 10th March 2019 – Top Corbyn aides blocked anti-Semitism
suspensions

Jewish campaigner Glynn Secker against Israel joined Facebook page, Palestine
Live, where people were posting messages denying the Holocaust, conspiracy
theories about Israeli involvement in 9/11, posted content saying
“Jew=Zionist=Israel=Jew”, who also commented about whether Labour should adopt
an International measure of anti-Semitism and heckled a member of the Jewish
Labour Movement at the 2016 Labour Conference. Was suspended but after the
intervention of Seumas Milne and Andrew Murray stepped in to get him reinstated,
Milne after Andrew Murray, Unite’s chief of staff and aide to Corbyn stated that the
leader himself was “interested in this one”. Murray denounced those in the Labour
Party campaigning against Anti-Semitism “I don’t know if this came from ‘Labour
Against Anti-Semitism’ but they are well dodgy.”

Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt candidate for South Thanet was dropped because of her
comments about the “Zionist sympathies” of a Jewish MP. Controversial tape
recording of John McDonnell admitting he is supporting Rebecca.