BY JOHN ISMAEL
Over 200 people rallied outside parliament yesterday evening to label Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party “institutionally anti-Semitic”. The protest was called by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA). It came a day after Labour MP Margaret Hodge – smeared as right wing by Corbynites – called Corbyn “A fucking anti-Semite and a racist.”
Speakers attacked Corbyn in front of two banners emblazoned with Hodge’s words. The crowd waved British and Israeli flags. Euan Phillips spoke from a group called Labour Against Antisemitism.
“People like Jeremy Corbyn are only interested in demonising Israel,” he said.
CAA director Stephen Silverman said that, “In the Labour Party the right to be anti-Semitic is now protected and even encouraged.”
Others implied that Corbyn’s long-standing support for Palestinians had caused antisemitism to grow inside Labour.
Tory Lord Stuart Polack said, “When Jeremy Corbyn got elected as leader of the Labour Party some people in my party said that’s good news. I said that’s not good news because his views are going to be brought into the centre of the Labour Party.”
CAA chair Gideon Falter said, “The Labour Party is a racist party. An institutionally anti-Semitic party in the grip of racists. It has become something which I believe no decent person should have anything to do with.”
Others went further and claimed Corbyn encouraged violence against Jewish people – and even compared him to Nazis.
Silverman said, “When this translates into physical attacks on Jews in this country, the finger will be pointed at Jeremy Corbyn.”
Philips described Corbyn’s position as “the politics of the 1930s”—a reference to fascism.
And Mark Lewis—a defamation lawyer—made the accusation that Corbyn “is a racist and he leads a racist party. Anyone who supports it is supporting racism.”
He also said allowing Corbyn to define antisemitism was “like asking Nick Griffin to define racism so that the BNP is not racist”.
And he finished his speech with an imagined story that ended with the former mayor of London Ken Livingstone shouting “Sieg Heil” and performing a Nazi salute.
The rally showed the depths of despair and anger amidst Britain’s Jewish community, who simply cannot trust Labour and fear for their lives should a Corbyn Government ever materialise.
What is Labour’s position?
Labour demand an inquiry into the Conservatives’ “Islamophobia”.
Dearie me.
Time the Tories voted in a one-faced, straight talking leader and drop-kicked this rabble into history. Labour has become an embarrassing shambles – better to be riven apart by thoughts on Europe than by something as neanderthal as antisemitism.