Allegations of

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

in the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) have been made since

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom), Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the pol ...

was elected as leader of the party in September 2015. After comments by

Naz Shah Naseem Shah (; born 13 November 1973) is a British Labour Party politician. She was elected at the 2015 general election as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West, winning the seat from George Galloway of the Respect Party. She has ser ...

in 2014 and

Ken Livingstone Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was Local Government Act 1985, abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the ...

in 2016 resulted in their suspension from membership pending investigation, Corbyn established the

Chakrabarti Inquiry The Chakrabarti Inquiry was a 2016 investigation into allegations of antisemitism and other forms of racism in the United Kingdom's Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. Chaired by barrister Shami Chakrabarti, the inquiry was launched following comme ...

, which concluded that the party was not "overrun by anti-Semitism or other forms of racism", although there was an "occasionally toxic atmosphere" and "clear evidence of ignorant attitudes". The

Home Affairs Select Committee The Home Affairs Select Committee is a Departmental Committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, le ...

of Parliament held an inquiry into antisemitism in the UK in the same year and found "no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party", though the leadership's lack of action "risks lending force to allegations that elements of the Labour movement are institutionally antisemitic". In 2017, Labour Party rules were changed to make hate speech, including antisemitism, a disciplinary matter. In 2018, Corbyn was challenged for, in 2012, in response to a Facebook post from the artist, asking why " Freedom for Humanity", an allegedly antisemitic mural, was going to be removed and for having been a member of Facebook groups, mainly pro-Palestinian, containing antisemitic posts. In July of that year, Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) adopted a definition of antisemitism, for disciplinary purposes, that included the

International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) (until January 2013 known as the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research or ITF) is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1998 which ...

(IHRA) Working Definition, with modified examples relating to how criticism of Israel could stray into antisemitism. In September of that year, the NEC added all 11 IHRA examples, unamended, to the definition of antisemitism, and included them in the Party's code of conduct. In February and July 2019, Labour issued information on investigations into complaints of antisemitism against individuals, with around 350 members resigning, being expelled or receiving formal warnings. Also in February 2019, nine MPs resigned from the party, citing Labour's leftward political direction and its handling of allegations of antisemitism and of

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAE ...

– most of them then formed

The Independent Group The Independent Group for Change, also known as Change UK, was a British centrist, pro-European Union political party, founded in February 2019 and dissolved ten months later, shortly after all its MPs lost their seats in the 2019 general ele ...

. In May 2019, the

Equality and Human Rights Commission The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is a non-departmental public body in Great Britain, established by the Equality Act 2006 with effect from 1 October 2007. The Commission has responsibility for the promotion and enforcement of eq ...

(EHRC) announced an inquiry into whether Labour had "unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish". In April 2020, a 860-page report by the party into its handling of antisemitism concluded that there was "no evidence" that antisemitism complaints were treated any differently than other forms of complaint, or of current or former staff being "motivated by antisemitic intent". In October 2020, the EHRC published its report, finding that the party was "responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination". The EHRC found that there were 23 instances of political interference by staff from the leader’s office and others and that Labour had breached the Equality Act in two cases. Corbyn was suspended from the Labour Party and had the party whip removed on 29 October 2020 "for a failure to retract" his assertion that the scale of antisemitism within Labour had been overstated by opponents.

20th century

Second Boer War and "Jewish finance"

In the late 19th century,

was common throughout British society. This intensified during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...

(1899–1902) and came to include the

labour movement The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement ...

, causing much dismay among socialist Jews.

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

John Burns John Elliot Burns (20 October 1858 – 24 January 1943) was an English trade unionist and politician, particularly associated with London politics and Battersea. He was a socialist and then a Liberal Member of Parliament and Minister. He was ...

' views on the war were prone to antisemitic outbursts, and labour movement figures opposed to the war, such as

Henry Hyndman Henry Mayers Hyndman (; 7 March 1842 – 20 November 1921) was an English writer, politician and socialist. Originally a conservative, he was converted to socialism by Karl Marx's ''Communist Manifesto'' and launched Britain's first left-wing p ...

, blamed "Jewish capitalists" for starting the war, which angered other members of the

Social Democratic Federation The Social Democratic Federation (SDF) was established as Britain's first organised socialist political party by H. M. Hyndman, and had its first meeting on 7 June 1881. Those joining the SDF included William Morris, George Lansbury, Jame ...

. Liberal journalist

J. A. Hobson John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940) was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin, and his theory of underconsumption. His principal and ea ...

wrote that the gold mines in South Africa "are almost entirely in their ews'hands", and Labour Party founder

Keir Hardie James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908. Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. ...

stated that Jewish financial houses were part of a secretive imperialist cabal that promoted war. According to Denis Judd and Keith Surridge in ''The Boer War: A History'', the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse worki ...

, the

Trade Union Congress The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances O ...

, and

Robert Blatchford Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford (17 March 1851 – 17 December 1943) was an English socialist campaigner, journalist, and author in the United Kingdom. He was also noted as a prominent atheist, nationalist and opponent of eugenics. In the early ...

's '' The Clarion'' blamed "Jewish capitalists" as "being behind the war and imperialism in general."

Jewish immigration and the Balfour Declaration

From 1880 to 1921, Britain's Anglo-Jewish community grew fourfold from 80,000 to 317,000 due to immigration from

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, wh ...

and the high birth rate of the arriving population. British Jews during the 20th century generally supported the

. The UK arm of

Poale Zion Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century afte ...

, a Jewish workers movement, called ''Poale Zion (Great Britain)'', later the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

, affiliated to the Labour Party in 1920. Many prominent Labour leaders had an affinity with the goals of

Labour Zionism Labor Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת סוֹצְיָאלִיסְטִית, ) or socialist Zionism ( he, תְּנוּעָת הָעַבוֹדָה, label=none, translit=Tnuʽat haʽavoda) refers to the left-wing, socialist variation of Zionism. ...

but were initially reluctant to press for parliamentary support for relieving obstacles to Jewish immigration to

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...

, given the party's commitment to an

anti-imperialist Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...

policy. In 1920, they gave unqualified support to both the

Balfour Declaration The Balfour Declaration was a public statement issued by the British government in 1917 during the First World War announcing its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman regio ...

and the British

Mandate for Palestine The Mandate for Palestine was a League of Nations mandate for British administration of the territories of Palestine and Transjordan, both of which had been conceded by the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I in 1918. The mandat ...

. The basic principles that evolved stressed (a) gradual growth of a Jewish homeland through selective immigration; (b) the formation of a binational society and (c) criticism of Zionism's

separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...

agenda.

Support for Israel

Generally, Labour support for Israel continued, in the expectancy that the Labour Zionist strand in Jewish state-building would lead to socialism and development in the Middle East generally.

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–19 ...

, Britain's

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

from 1945 to 1951, was critical of Zionist goals; he argued that Jews should be convinced to resettle in Europe, and said that Americans supported Jewish immigration to Palestine because "they did not want too many Jews in New York". Bevin also voiced antisemitic canards between Jews and finance, as well as communism. There is no evidence that this affected his political decisions.

Growing sympathy for Palestine

Aberystwyth University Aberystwyth University ( cy, Prifysgol Aberystwyth) is a Public university, public Research university, research university in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding member institution of the former federal University of Wales. The universi ...

's James R. Vaughn says the rise of a radical

anti-Zionism Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palest ...

in the Labour Party started with the creation of the Labour Middle East Council in 1969 by

Christopher Mayhew Christopher Paget Mayhew, Baron Mayhew (12 June 1915 – 7 January 1997) was a British politician who was a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) from 1945 to 1950 and from 1951 to 1974, when he left the Labour Party to join the Liberals. In 1981 ...

Dave Rich Dave Rich is Head of Policy at the Community Security Trust and is a leading expert on left-wing antisemitism, according to ''The Jewish Chronicle''.Young Liberals. By the 1980s, with the election of

Menachem Begin Menachem Begin ( ''Menaḥem Begin'' (); pl, Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); ''Menakhem Volfovich Begin''; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. ...

Likud Likud ( he, הַלִּיכּוּד, HaLikud, The Consolidation), officially known as Likud – National Liberal Movement, is a major centre-right to right-wing political party in Israel. It was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin and Ariel Shar ...

party, the emergence of messianic nationalism, neo-liberal economic reforms, the occupation of the West Bank and of the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza. ...

, and the decline of the

Israeli Labor Party The Israeli Labor Party ( he, מִפְלֶגֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִית, ), commonly known as HaAvoda ( he, הָעֲבוֹדָה, , The Labor), is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The ...

, socialism declined in Israel. These factors contributed to falling Labour support for Israel, at the same time as there was growing sympathy for Palestinian aspirations for statehood. According to June Edmunds, Lecturer in Sociology of the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

, the party's leadership was initially supportive of Israel but shifted to support Palestine in the early 1980s, although the membership did not; later challenges to this shift eventually resulted in a more balanced view of both sides and broad support for a

two-state solution The two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict envisions an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, west of the Jordan River. The boundary between the two states is still subject to dispute and negotiatio ...

. Edmunds credits the shift towards Palestine aspirations to more moderate appeals by Palestinians, a sharp shift to the right in Israeli politics and an increase in anti-colonial politics among the left.

Richard Seymour Richard Vershaun Seymour (born October 6, 1979) is an American professional poker player and former professional American football, football player who was a defensive end in the National Football League (NFL) . He played college football fo ...

wrote in 2018 that "Palestinian rights have been a growing concern in the British Left since the 1982

Sabra and Shatila massacre The Sabra and Shatila massacre (also known as the Sabra and Chatila massacre) was the killing of between 460 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by the militia of the Lebanese Forces, a Maronite Christian Lebanese ...

" when "the British trade union movement and the Labour Party began to break with Israel in response". The Labour Committee on Palestine was formed in June 1982 to challenge the Labour Middle East Council, which supported a two-state solution, and to oppose the "Zionist state as racist, exclusivist, expansionist and a direct agency of imperialism". Labour politicians

of the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

and

Ted Knight Ted Knight (born Tadeusz Wladyslaw Konopka; December 7, 1923August 26, 1986) was an American actor well known for playing the comedic roles of Ted Baxter in ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'', Henry Rush in ''Too Close for Comfort'', and Judge Elihu ...

of the

Lambeth London Borough Council Lambeth London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Lambeth in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, and one of the 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council meets at Lambeth Town Hall ...

were early supporters; the chair was former British Anti-Zionist Organization (BAZO) activist

Tony Greenstein Tony Greenstein is a British left-wing activist and writer. An anti-fascist and former squatter, he was a founder member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and stood for parliament as a representative of the Alliance for Green Socialism. In 201 ...

. The new Committee backed a resolution at the 1982

Labour Party Conference The Labour Party Conference is the annual conference of the British Labour Party. It is formally the supreme decision-making body of the party and is traditionally held in the final week of September, during the party conference season when th ...

to recognise the

Palestine Liberation Organization The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and st ...

(PLO) as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people", which passed at the Conference, "embarrassing" the Party leadership. Antisemitic attitudes are said to have been rare in the Labour Party in the 1980s. In his 2012 book, ''The British Left and Zionism: History of a Divorce'',

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Unive ...

's Paul Kelemen ascribed the shift in Labour's views to Israel's increasingly right-leaning politics and to the left's opposition to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He found no evidence that antisemitism played a role in the left's changing perceptions of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in that period. Daniel L. Staetsky, a senior research fellow for the

Institute for Jewish Policy Research The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), founded as the Institute of Jewish Affairs, is a London-based research institute and think tank. It specializes in contemporary Jewish affairs. JPR also runs a public education programme, and has hos ...

, stated in his 2017 study ''Antisemitism in Contemporary Great Britain: A Study of Attitudes Towards Jews and Israel'' that, in the 1980s, parts of the political left assumed strong pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel positions, and faced accusations of antisemitism within the Labour Party. He found that anti-Israeli positions did not correlate generally with antisemitism, since the majority of those surveyed who were critical of Israel did not espouse an antisemitic attitude and that antisemitism on the left was no higher than that of the general population.

Jewish voting intentions

In the 1980s, much of the Jewish population supported

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

, especially in her own seat of Finchley.

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of the ...

and

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chance ...

were both patrons of the Jewish National Fund and members of

Labour Friends of Israel Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) is a group in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that promotes support for a strong bilateral relationship between Britain and Israel, and seeks to strengthen ties between the British Labour Party and the Isra ...

and many Jewish voters returned to Labour in the late 1990s under

New Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...

, with polling generally showing Jews as evenly split between Labour and

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

, which remained the case in 2010, when Labour elected its first Jewish leader,

Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliban ...

, who narrowly defeated his brother,

David Miliband David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member of Pa ...

2000–2015

Tested election posters

In the run-up to the 2005 United Kingdom general election, the Labour Party, under

, tested posters which

TBWA TBWA Worldwide is an international advertising agency whose main headquarters are in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. Since 1993, the agency has been a unit of Omnicom Group, the world's second largest advertising agency holdi ...

, Labour's advertising agency, later said originated from Campaign Director

Alastair Campbell Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...

. One depicted the faces of Conservative Party leader

Michael Howard Michael Howard, Baron Howard of Lympne (born Michael Hecht; 7 July 1941) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from November 2003 to December 2005. He previously held cabinet posit ...

and Shadow Chancellor

Oliver Letwin Sir Oliver Letwin (born 19 May 1956) is a British politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for West Dorset from 1997 to 2019. Letwin was elected as a member of the Conservative Party, but sat as an independent after having the whip removed in Se ...

, who are Jewish, superimposed upon flying pigs. The slogan was "The Day Tory Sums Add Up" and the poster illustrated the

adynaton Adynaton (; plural adynata) is a figure of speech in the form of hyperbole taken to such extreme lengths as to insinuate a complete impossibility: I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek. The wor ...

when pigs fly The phrase "when pigs fly" (alternatively, "pigs might fly") is an adynaton—a figure of speech so hyperbole, hyperbolic that it describes an impossibility. The implication of such a phrase is that the circumstances in question (the adynaton, an ...

, used for something that will never happen. A second poster was of Howard swinging a pocket watch on its chain with the slogan "I can spend the same money twice!" somewhat suggestive of stage

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...

, where the subject is persuaded to accept false

suggestion Suggestion is the psychological process by which a person guides their own or another person's desired thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by presenting stimuli that may elicit them as reflexes instead of relying on conscious effort. Nineteenth-ce ...

s as true. Conservative backbencher

Ann Widdecombe Ann Noreen Widdecombe (born 4 October 1947) is a British politician, author and television personality. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, and the former Maidstone constituency, from 1987 to 2010 and Member of t ...

had suggested Howard, whose father was born in Romania, had an image problem in that he had "something of the night about him". Labour strategists leapt at this by then depicting Howard as a

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taki ...

figure swinging a hypnotic watch. The pose was said by ''

The Jewish Chronicle ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in ...

'' to be reminiscent of fictional Jewish, criminal, characters, such as the moneylender, Shylock, from Shakespeare's ''

The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Although classified as ...

'' and the master pickpocket,

Fagin Fagin is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel ''Oliver Twist''. In the preface to the novel, he is described as a "receiver of stolen goods". He is the leader of a group of children (the Artful D ...

, from Dickens' ''

Oliver Twist ''Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress'', Charles Dickens's second novel, was published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and as a three-volume book in 1838. Born in a workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist is bound into apprenticeship with ...

''. The posters were not used and Labour denied any antisemitic intent. They prompted protests from some Jewish groups but the

Board of Deputies of British Jews The Board of Deputies of British Jews, commonly referred to as the Board of Deputies, is the largest and second oldest Jewish communal organisation in the United Kingdom, after only the Initiation Society which was founded in 1745. Established ...

declined to raise the issue.

Concern over Israel lobby

In 2003, Labour MP

Tam Dalyell Sir Thomas Dalyell, 11th Baronet, , ( ; 9 August 1932 – 26 January 2017), known as Tam Dalyell, was a Scottish Labour Party politician who was a member of the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005. He represented West Lothian from 1962 to 1983, ...

claimed, referring to the

Israel lobby in the United States The Israel lobby (at times called the Zionist lobby) are individuals and groups seeking to influence the United States government to better serve Israel's interests. The largest pro-Israel lobbying group is Christians United for Israel with ov ...

, that "there is far too much Jewish influence in the United States" and that "a cabal of Jewish advisers" was directing American and British policy on Iraq, stating that six of seven hawkish advisers to President George Bush were Jewish, close to

Ariel Sharon Ariel Sharon (; ; ; also known by his diminutive Arik, , born Ariel Scheinermann, ; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006. S ...

, and also singling out Michael Levy, chief fundraiser for Tony Blair and his Middle East envoy for nine years.

Eric Moonman Eric Moonman (29 April 1929 – 22 December 2017) was a British Labour politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Billericay (1966–70) and Basildon (1974–79). Moonman was educated at Liverpool and Manchester Universities and became a ...

stated he did not think Dalyell, a close associate of

Richard Crossman Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (15 December 1907 – 5 April 1974) was a British Labour Party politician. A university classics lecturer by profession, he was elected a Member of Parliament in 1945 and became a significant figure among the p ...

, antisemitic, but that his language could be taken as supportive of that outlook. In 2010, Labour MP

Martin Linton John Martin Linton (born 11 August 1944) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Battersea from 1997 to 2010. Early life Linton attended Limpsfield Primary School in Limpsfield, Surrey; Christ's Hospital scho ...

said, in reference to the

Israel lobby in the UK ''The Israel lobby in the United Kingdom'' is a term sometimes used to describe individuals and groups which seek to influence the foreign policy of the United Kingdom in favour of bilateral ties with Israel, Zionism, Israel, or the policies of ...

, "There are long tentacles of Israel in this country who are funding election campaigns and putting money into the British political system for their own ends," while his Jewish fellow Labour MP

Gerald Kaufman Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (21 June 1930 – 26 February 2017) was a British politician and author who served as a minister throughout the Labour government of 1974 to 1979. Elected as a member of parliament (MP) at the 1970 general election, h ...

said that right-wing Jewish millionaires had large stakes in the Conservative Party.

Community Security Trust The Community Security Trust (CST) is a British charity whose purpose is to provide safety, security, and advice to the Jewish community in the UK. It provides advice, training, representation and research. Founding and mission The Community Sec ...

spokesman Mark Gardner responded: "Anybody who understands antisemitism will recognise just how ugly and objectionable these quotes are, with their imagery of Jewish control and money power." In 2015, Kaufman said that "Jewish money, Jewish donations to the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

... ndsupport from the ''

Jewish Chronicle Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

''" had led to "a big group of Conservative MPs who are pro-Israel whatever (its) government does", referring to the

Conservative Friends of Israel Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) is a British parliamentary group affiliated to the Conservative Party, which is dedicated to strengthening business, cultural and political ties between the United Kingdom and Israel, as well as between the B ...

; Corbyn condemned Kaufman's remarks at the time as "completely unacceptable". In 2010,

became Labour's first ever Jewish leader. In August 2014, Miliband was criticised by Jewish donors and supporters for describing Israel's ground incursion into Gaza in summer 2014 as "wrong and unjustifiable". Jewish support for Labour fell to 15% in the May 2015 general election, compared to 64% for the Conservatives.

Livingstone's comments

In 2005, Livingstone was accused of antisemitism after he asked ''

Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...

'' reporter Oliver Finegold if he had been "a German war criminal". When the reporter said he was Jewish, Livingstone said he was "just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?" and asserted that he (Finegold) worked for the "reactionary bigots... who supported fascism" at the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...

''. The ''Evening Standard'' was then a sister paper of the ''Mail'', which had been supportive of fascism in the 1930s.

Corbyn's backbench record

is a patron of the

Palestinian Solidarity Campaign The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is an activist organisation in England and Wales. It was incorporated in the UK in 2004 as Palestine Solidarity Campaign Ltd. They officially support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement ...

and had campaigned extensively for Palestinian rights during his 32 years as a backbencher. In August 2015, as Corbyn emerged as a front-runner in the Labour Party leadership election, ''

'' devoted its front page to seven questions regarding Corbyn's associations with those it described as "Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright antisemites", although Corbyn said he met with them in his search for peace in the Middle East. These included his relationship with Islamist militant organisations

Hezbollah Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's paramil ...

and

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...

, organisations that Corbyn called "friends" (although he has stated he disagrees with their views); and his failure to object to what ''The Jewish Chronicle'' described as antisemitic banners and posters that "dominate" the London

Quds Day Quds Day (), officially known as International Quds Day ( fa, روز جهانی قدس, Ruz Jahâni Quds), is an annual pro-Palestinian event held on the last Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to express support for Palestinians and ...

rallies supported by the organisation,

Stop the War Coalition The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), informally known simply as Stop the War, is a British group established on 21 September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, to campaign against what it believes are unjust wars. The Coalition has c ...

, of which Corbyn was national chair from 2011 to 2015. Two of the questions related to "

Deir Yassin Deir Yassin ( ar, دير ياسين, Dayr Yāsīn) was a Palestinian Arab village of around 600 inhabitants about west of Jerusalem. Deir Yassin declared its neutrality during the 1948 Palestine war between Arabs and Jews. The village was razed ...

Remembered", an organisation commemorating the massacre of over 100 Palestinian villagers in 1948 and founded by

Holocaust denier Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

Paul Eisen Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

. Up to 2013,

and Jewish Labour MP

attended "two or three" of the group's annual events. Corbyn has said that this had taken place before Eisen had made his views known publicly, and that he would not have associated with him had he known. It was reported that Eisen's views were known in 2005 and that he had written an essay on his website in 2008 entitled "My life as a Holocaust denier". Labour MP

Diane Abbott Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. A member of the Labour Party, she served in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn as ...

defended Corbyn by calling his critics part of a "Westminster elite" afraid of Corbyn's

anti-austerity The anti-austerity movement refers to the mobilisation of street protests and grassroots campaigns that has happened across various countries, especially in Europe, since the onset of the worldwide Great Recession. Anti-austerity actions are var ...

agenda. 47 prominent Jewish activists, including

Laurence Dreyfus Laurence Dreyfus, FBA (born 1952) is an American musicologist and player of the viola da gamba who was University Lecturer and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Early life Dreyfus was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and lived in Che ...

Selma James Selma James (born Selma Deitch; formerly Weinstein; August 15, 1930) is an American writer, and feminist and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book ''The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community'' (with Mariaros ...

Miriam Margolyes Miriam ( he, מִרְיָם ''Mīryām'', lit. 'Rebellion') is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The To ...

Ilan Pappé Ilan Pappé ( he, אילן פפה, ; born 1954) is an expatriate Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, direc ...

Michael Rosen Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is a British children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster and activist who has written 140 books. He served as Children's Laureate from 2007 to 2009. Early life Michael Wayne Ro ...

and

Avi Shlaim Avraham "Avi" Shlaim (born 31 October 1945) is an Israeli- British historian, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and fellow of the British Academy. He is one of Israel's New Historians, a group of Israel ...

were signatories to a letter criticising ''The Jewish Chronicle''s reporting of Corbyn's association with alleged antisemites.

2016

Shah, Livingstone and Walker's comments

In April 2016, after it was revealed that Labour MP

had, during the

2014 Israel–Gaza conflict The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge ( he, מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, translit=Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, ), was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that ha ...

and before she became an MP, shared a graphic of Israel superimposed on the U.S. with the caption "Solution for Israel-Palestine conflict – relocate Israel into United States", adding the comment, "Problem solved". She was suspended pending investigation, but reinstated after agreeing to apologise for bringing the party into disrepute. By May 2016, the Labour Party had suspended 56 members for statements alleged to be antisemitic, pending investigation; these comprised 0.4% of the parliamentary group, 0.07% of Labour councillors, and 0.012% of the Party membership. The graphic that Shah shared was created by American political scientist

Norman Finkelstein Norman Gary Finkelstein (; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a gr ...

, who described the controversy as "obscene". Referring to those on the right of the Labour Party allegedly using the scandal to undermine Corbyn, Finkelstein asked "What are they doing? Don't they have any respect for the dead? ... All these desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position. Have they no shame?" Former London Mayor

defended Shah and said he had never heard antisemitic comments from Labour members. Livingstone added: "When Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews." After being suspended for a year, a hearing in April 2017 by the National Constitutional Committee determined he was guilty of prejudicial and detrimental conduct and suspended him from standing for office or representing the party at any level for a further year. In May 2018, he resigned from the party, saying the issues surrounding his suspension had become a distraction. In a statement Livingstone said, "I do not accept the allegation that I have brought the Labour Party into disrepute – nor that I am in any way guilty of antisemitism. I abhor antisemitism, I have fought it all my life and will continue to do so." In May 2016, the vice-chair of

Momentum In Newtonian mechanics, momentum (more specifically linear momentum or translational momentum) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. If is an object's mass ...

, Jackie Walker, was investigated by the party over private comments she made on Facebook exaggerating the role of Jews in the Atlantic slave trade. Walker said her words had been taken out of context and no further action was taken following the investigation.

Jon Lansman Jonathan Lansman (born 9 July 1957) is a British political activist. He is best known for having worked on Jeremy Corbyn's successful 2015 campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party and subsequently founded the pro-Corbyn organisation Mom ...

, the chair of Momentum, defended her, describing the media as "a 'lynch mob' whose interest in combating racism is highly selective". Following that year's Party Conference, at which Walker asked in a training session why Holocaust Memorial Day did not include pre-1940 genocides such as the

Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...

, she was removed from her Momentum position, while remaining on its steering committee, after

Manuel Cortes Manuel Cortes (born 2 May 1967) is a British trade unionist who served as the General Secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) between 2011 and 2022. Early life Cortes was born and raised in Gibraltar; while growing up, ...

, the general secretary of the

TSSA TSSA may refer to: * Transport Salaried Staffs' Association * Technical Standards and Safety Authority The Technical Standards and Safety Authority (TSSA) is a regulatory authority that administers and enforces technical standards in the province ...

union, said their funding would be reconsidered otherwise. Lansman called Walker's comments "ill-informed, ill-judged and offensive", but not antisemitic. The party suspended her from membership, pending investigation. Walker said that she "utterly condemn antisemitism", that her words were taken out of context, and that "I would never play down the significance of the

Shoah The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

. Working with many Jewish comrades, I continue to seek to bring greater awareness of other genocides, which are too often forgotten or minimised. If offence has been caused, it is the last thing I would want to do and I apologise." She was expelled from the party for misconduct in March 2019.

Inquiries into antisemitism

Following the suspensions, Corbyn commissioned an inquiry into antisemitism and other forms of racism in April 2016, led by

Shami Chakrabarti Sharmishta "Shami" Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti, (born 16 June 1969) is a British politician, barrister, and human rights activist. A member of the Labour Party, she served as the director of Liberty, a major advocacy group which promote ...

, a barrister and the former head of the human rights advocacy group

Liberty Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...

. She joined the Labour Party when appointed to, she said, show that she had members' interests and values at heart. The inquiry had two deputy chairs:

Jan Royall Jan, JaN or JAN may refer to: Acronyms * Jackson, Mississippi (Amtrak station), US, Amtrak station code JAN * Jackson-Evers International Airport, Mississippi, US, IATA code * Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), a Syrian militant group * Japanese Article Numb ...

, who was also investigating allegations of antisemitism at

Oxford University Labour Club Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) was founded in 1919 to promote democratic socialism and is today the home of the Labour Party and of social democracy at Oxford University. OULC is the largest and oldest university Labour club in the coun ...

, and David Feldman, Director of the

Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism was launched in 2010, as a centre for research, teaching, and public policy formation relating to antisemitism and racial intolerance. The Institute is based at Birkbeck, University of London, and ...

. In 2007, Feldman was a signatory to

Independent Jewish Voices Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is an organization launched on 5 February 2007 by 150 prominent British Jews such as Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, historian Eric Hobsbawm, lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Lady Ellen Dahrendorf, film director Mik ...

, which in May 2016 described some allegations of antisemitism within Labour as "baseless and disingenuous", and Chakrabarti said he distanced himself from this comment. In June, the inquiry reported that it had found "no evidence" of systemic antisemitism in Labour, though there was an "occasionally toxic atmosphere", and made 20 recommendations, including outlawing offensive terms and improving disciplinary procedures. Responses comprised both acceptance and criticism. Jeremy Newmark, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, said: "It's a strong platform for the party to ... set a gold standard in tackling racism and anti-Semitism." John Mann MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism, called it "hugely significant". The Jewish Leadership Council and

jointly welcomed aspects of it. The

said: "We hope that the implementation of this report will be rigorous and swift."

Chief Rabbi Chief Rabbi ( he, רב ראשי ''Rav Rashi'') is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. Since 1911, through a ...

Ephraim Mirvis Rabbi Sir Ephraim Yitzchak Mirvis (born 7 September 1956) is an Orthodox rabbi who serves as the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. He served as the Chief Rabbi of Ireland between 1985 and 1992. Early life a ...

also called for a "full and unhesitating implementation of the report's findings". Chakrabarti was Labour's sole nomination to the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster ...

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

's August 2016 Resignation Honours. She became a peer in September and the following month was appointed Shadow Attorney General. Commentators were immediately more critical, with the report being described as a "whitewash for peerage scandal" by the

while British author

Howard Jacobson Howard Eric Jacobson (born 25 August 1942) is a British novelist and journalist. He is known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters.Ragi, K. R., "Howard Jacobson's ''The Finkler Question'' a ...

called the inquiry "a brief and shoddy shuffling of superficies" that "spoke to very few of the people charging the party with anti-Semitism and understood even fewer of their arguments", and suggested that the peerage was showing contempt for those who had raised issues over antisemitism in the party. In April 2018, Chakrabarti accepted that some recommendations had not been implemented and said that the new Labour Party General Secretary, Jennie Formby, would make this a priority. Following allegations of antisemitism within the Oxford University Labour Club, an inquiry was launched by

Labour Students Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of e ...

, chaired by Jan Royall. The party's National Executive Committee accepted the report in May 2016. The report found that there was "no evidence the club is itself institutionally anti-Semitic", though there was a "cultural problem" in which (antisemitic) "behaviour and language that would once have been intolerable is now tolerated". In October, the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

held an inquiry into

antisemitism in the United Kingdom Antisemitism in the United Kingdom signifies hatred of and discrimination against Jews in Britain. Discrimination and hostility against the community since its establishment in 1070 resulted in a series of massacres on several occasions and th ...

. The committee found "no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other party." It was critical of Corbyn's response to antisemitic incidents against Labour MPs and described the Chakrabarti inquiry as "ultimately compromised". The report also found that "the failure of the Labour Party to deal consistently and effectively with anti-Semitic incidents in recent years risks lending force to allegations that elements of the Labour movement are institutionally anti-Semitic".

Muslim prejudice

In May 2016,

Baroness Ruth Deech Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

said that "Too many Labour politicians cravenly adopted the anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Israel demonization they think will get them

British Muslim Islam is the second largest religion in the United Kingdom, with results from the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census giving the total population as 2,786,635, or 4.4% of the total UK population,Manfred Gerstenfeld Manfred Gerstenfeld ( he, מנפרד גרסטנפלד; 1937 – 25 February 2021) was an Austrian-born Israeli author and chairman of the steering committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He founded and directed the center's post-Holo ...

said that, while not all of the most extreme antisemitic slurs were made by Muslim representatives of Labour, they represent a disproportionately large proportion of antisemitic perpetrators. According to Gerstenfeld, Labour's issue with antisemitism "demonstrate what happens when a party bends over backward to attract Muslim voters".

2017

Jewish constituencies in the general election

During the

2017 general election This national electoral calendar for 2017 lists the national/ federal elections held in 2017 in all sovereign states and their dependent territories. By-elections are excluded, though national referendums are included. January *5 November ...

campaign, Jeremy Newmark, the chairman of the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

, said that "Jeremy Corbyn appears to have failed to understand the nature of contemporary anti-Semitism in the same way that it's understood by most of its target group". Labour MP

Wes Streeting Wesley Paul William Streeting (; born 21 January 1983) is a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who has been the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 2021, and Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of ...

criticised the party's record on antisemitism, saying "I don't think many Jewish voters in my constituency have been very impressed with the way the Labour Party as a whole have responded", but denied that Corbyn was antisemitic. According to polling in 2015, politicians' attitudes towards Israel influence the vote of three out of four British Jews. It is estimated that 26% of Jewish voters voted for Labour. Analysis by election analysts Prof Stephen Fisher, Prof Rob Ford, Prof Sir

John Curtice Sir John Kevin Curtice (born 10 December 1953) is a British political scientist who is currently professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research. He is particularly in ...

and Patrick English based on ''The British General Election'' of 2017 by

Philip Cowley Philip Cowley is a British political scientist and an academic at Queen Mary University of London in the School of Politics and International Relations. He previously held the same title at the University of Nottingham. Within academia he is parti ...

and

Dennis Kavanagh Dennis Kavanagh (born 27 March 1941) is a British political analyst and since 1996 has been Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, and now Emeritus Professor. He has written extensively on post- war British politics. With David Bu ...

suggests that, in the five UK constituencies where, according to the 2011 Census, more than 10% of the population identify as Jewish:

Finchley and Golders Green Finchley and Golders Green is a constituency created in 1997 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. The current MP is Mike Freer of the Conservative Party, who has held the seat since 2010. Boundaries 1997–2010: The L ...

(21.1%),

Hendon Hendon is an urban area in the Borough of Barnet, North-West London northwest of Charing Cross. Hendon was an ancient manor and parish in the county of Middlesex and a former borough, the Municipal Borough of Hendon; it has been part of Great ...

(17.0%),

Hertsmere Hertsmere is a local government district and borough in Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Borehamwood. Other settlements in the borough include Bushey, Elstree, Radlett and Potters Bar. The borough borders the three north L ...

(14.3%),

Hackney North and Stoke Newington Hackney North and Stoke Newington is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom since 1987 by Diane Abbott of the Labour Party, who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 6 October 2016 to 5 April 2020. Abbott was ...

(11.3%) and

Bury South Bury South is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. At the 2019 General Election it was the 10th most marginal seat in the country, with a majority of 402 for the Conservative Part ...

(10.2%), Labour's vote share at the 2017 general election increased by seven share points on average, almost three points less than the national average. This includes an above-average swing to Labour in Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

Hate speech made a disciplinary offence

During the 2017 Labour Party Conference, new rules proposed by the Jewish Labour Movement and supported by Jeremy Corbyn were adopted on hate speech. Previously, party members could not be disciplined for "the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions". Under the new rules, those who express antisemitic or other forms of hate speech, including racism, Islamophobia, sexism and homophobia, or other "conduct prejudicial to the Party", can be disciplined.

Authors' public letter

In November 2017, Jewish authors

Simon Schama Sir Simon Michael Schama (; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian specialising in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University. He fi ...

, and

Simon Sebag Montefiore Simon Jonathan Sebag Montefiore (; born 27 June 1965) is a British historian, television presenter and author of popular history books and novels, including ''Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar' (2003), Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and ...

in a letter to ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'', said "We are alarmed that during the past few years, constructive criticism of Israeli governments has morphed into something closer to antisemitism under the cloak of so-called anti-Zionism", further stating "Although anti-Zionists claim innocence of any antisemitic intent, anti-Zionism frequently borrows the libels of classical Jew-hating," and adding "Accusations of international Jewish conspiracy and control of the media have resurfaced to support false equations of Zionism with colonialism and imperialism, and the promotion of vicious, fictitious parallels with genocide and Nazism".

2018

Corbyn's backbench record

Jeremy Corbyn's defenders have cited his record of opposing and campaigning against racism and antisemitism, and supporting Jewish communal initiatives. He organised a demonstration against a 1970s National Front march through

Wood Green Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a m ...

; spoke on the 80th anniversary of the

Battle of Cable Street The Battle of Cable Street was a series of clashes that took place at several locations in the inner East End, most notably Cable Street, on Sunday 4 October 1936. It was a clash between the Metropolitan Police, sent to protect a march by me ...

, noting that his mother was a protester; signed numerous

Early Day Motions In the Westminster parliamentary system, an early day motion (EDM) is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by members of Parliament that formally calls for debate "on an early day". In practice, they are rarely debated in the House ...

condemning antisemitism; in 1987, campaigned to reverse Islington Council's decision to grant the planning application to destroy a Jewish cemetery; and in 2010, called on the UK government to facilitate the settlement of

Yemeni Jews Yemenite Jews or Yemeni Jews or Teimanim (from ''Yehudei Teman''; ar, اليهود اليمنيون) are those Jews who live, or once lived, in Yemen, and their descendants maintaining their customs. Between June 1949 and September 1950, the ...

in Britain. He also took part in a ceremony in his Islington constituency to commemorate the original site of the North London Synagogue and visited the

Theresienstadt Ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ...

, calling it a reminder of the dangers of far-right politics, antisemitism and racism. His defenders have criticised the tactics of opponents and the role of the media. The following actions by Corbyn when he was a backbencher were the subject of criticism.

Talk by Hajo Meyer

In January 2010, during the UK's Holocaust Memorial week, Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn co-chaired a meeting in the House of Commons, with the main talk by anti-Zionist Auschwitz survivor

Hajo Meyer Hajo Meyer (born Hans Joachim Gustav Meyer; 12 August 1924 – 23 August 2014) was a German-born Dutch physicist, Holocaust survivor and political activist. While primarily known for his public commentaries in terms of the European Jewish communi ...

entitled, "The Misuse of the Holocaust for Political Purposes", where Israel was compared to the Nazis. Meyer said "Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust religion, whose high priest is

Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel (, born Eliezer Wiesel ''Eliezer Vizel''; September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in Fr ...

." In August 2018,

Louise Ellman Dame Louise Joyce Ellman ( Rosenberg; born 14 November 1945) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Liverpool Riverside from 1997 to 2019. She is a member of the Labour Party. Ellman was elected as a councillor o ...

MP told the BBC that she was "absolutely appalled" at Corbyn for chairing Meyer's talk. When asked about his involvement with the meeting, Corbyn said that "Views were expressed at the meeting which I do not accept or condone. In the past, in pursuit of justice for the Palestinian people and peace in Israel/Palestine, I have on occasion appeared on platforms with people whose views I completely reject. I apologise for the concerns and anxiety that this has caused".

Renaming of Holocaust Memorial Day

In January 2011, a motion was submitted to rename Holocaust Memorial Day to "Genocide Memorial Day", supported by 23 MPs, mainly from the Labour Party and including Corbyn. Karen Pollock, chief executive of the

Holocaust Educational Trust The Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) is a British charity, based in London, whose aim is to "educate young people of every background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today." One of the Trust's main achievements ...

said in 2018 that "Holocaust Memorial Day already rightly includes all victims of the Nazis and subsequent genocides, but the Holocaust was a specific crime, with anti-Semitism at its core. Any attempt to remove that specificity is a form of denial and distortion." Labour responded by saying that "this was a cross-party initiative, jointly sponsored by a senior Conservative MP, to emphasize the already broader character of Holocaust Memorial Day. It is not our policy to seek a name change for this important commemoration".

John A. Hobson's foreword

In 2011, Corbyn wrote the foreword for a republication of the 1902 book '' Imperialism: A Study'', by

John A. Hobson John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940) was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin, and his theory of underconsumption. His principal and ea ...

, which contains the assertion that finance was controlled "by men of a single and peculiar race, who have behind them many centuries of financial experience" who "are in a unique position to control the policy of nations". In his foreword, Corbyn called the book a "great tome" and "brilliant, and very controversial at the time". Corbyn was criticised for his words in 2019, after his foreword was reported by Conservative peer

Daniel Finkelstein Daniel William Finkelstein, Baron Finkelstein, (born 30 August 1962) is a British journalist and politician. He is a former executive editor of ''The Times'' and remains a weekly political columnist. He is a former chairman of Policy Exchange ...

in ''

''.Jewish leaders demand explanation over Corbyn book foreword
''The Guardian'', Heather Stewart and Sarah Marsh, 1 May 2019 Corbyn responded that the language used to describe minorities in Hobson's work is "absolutely deplorable", but asserted that his foreword analysed "the process which led to the

first world war World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fig ...

" which he saw as the subject of the book and not Hobson's language. Hobson was also cited and praised by previous Labour leaders. In 2005,

said in a

Chatham House Chatham House, also known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is an independent policy institute headquartered in London. Its stated mission is to provide commentary on world events and offer solutions to global challenges. It is ...

speech: "This idea of liberty as empowerment is not a new idea, J. A. Hobson asked, 'is a man free who has not equal opportunity with his fellows of such access to all material and moral means of personal development and work as shall contribute to his own welfare and that of his society?'"

described Hobson as "probably the most famous Liberal convert to what was then literally '

new Labour New Labour was a period in the history of the British Labour Party from the mid to late 1990s until 2010 under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The name dates from a conference slogan first used by the party in 1994, later seen ...

'."

Response to mural

The 2012 ''Freedom for Humanity'' was a street mural painted in east London by American artist

Mear One Mear One (born 1971 as Kalen Ockerman) is an American artist based in Los Angeles, known for his often-political street graffiti art. Mear One is associated with CBS (Can't Be Stopped – City Bomb Squad) and WCA (West Coast Artist) crews. As a g ...

. The artwork depicted what Mear One described as an "elite banker cartel" of the

Rothschilds The Rothschild family ( , ) is a wealthy Ashkenazi Jewish family originally from Frankfurt that rose to prominence with Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812), a court factor to the German Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel in the Free City of F ...

, the

Rockefellers The Rockefeller family () is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by broth ...

, the Morgans and others sitting around a

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

-style board game on the backs of men with dark complexions. The temporary mural was later removed prematurely by

Tower Hamlets council Tower Hamlets London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Greater London, England. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, cur ...

following complaints by residents. Lutfur Rahman, then Mayor of Tower Hamlets, said "the images of the bankers perpetuate antisemitic propaganda about conspiratorial Jewish domination of financial and political institutions". In response, Mear One denied that the mural was antisemitic; he said that the mural was about "class and privilege", and pointed out that the figures depicted included both "Jewish and white Anglos". Corbyn, responding to a Facebook post from the artist, which contained an image of the mural and was written before it had been criticised in the media, saying, "Tomorrow they want to buff my mural Freedom of Expression," had written: "Why? You are in good company. Rockerfeller(sic) destroyed

Diego Viera Diego Viera (born April 10, 1972 in Montevideo, Uruguay) is a Uruguayan football (soccer) forward who played professionally in Uruguay and Major League Soccer. Viera began playing for C.A. Cerro in the Primera Division Uruguaya in 1990. On Fe ...

's icmural because it includes a picture of

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

," an apparent reference to

Nelson Rockefeller Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...

's destruction of

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

's ''

Man at the Crossroads ''Man at the Crossroads'' (1934) was a fresco by Diego Rivera in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It was originally slated to be installed in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the main building of the center. ''Man at the Crossroads'' showe ...

'' fresco in 1934. In March 2018, Labour MP

Luciana Berger Luciana Clare Berger (; born 13 May 1981) is a British former Member of Parliament who was MP for Liverpool Wavertree from 2010 to 2019. Initially a member of Labour Co-op, in 2019 she left and co-founded The Independent Group, later Change UK, ...

asked Corbyn why he had questioned the removal of a mural showing a member of the Rothschild family as it did. Corbyn's spokesman issued a statement later in the day: "Jeremy was responding to concerns about the removal of public art on grounds of freedom of speech. The mural was offensive, used antisemitic imagery, which has no place in our society, and it is right that it was removed". Berger said the response was "wholly inadequate". In his own statement, Corbyn said: "I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image I was commenting on, the contents of which are deeply disturbing and antisemitic," he said. "The defence of free speech cannot be used as a justification for the promotion of antisemitism in any form. That is a view I've always held." Karen Pollock of the

said that the mural was "indefensible" as it "was blatantly anti-Semitic, using images commonly found in anti-Semitic propaganda – it is impossible not to notice". Jeremy Gilbert, professor of cultural and political theory at the

University of East London , mottoeng = Knowledge and the fulfilment of vows , established = 1898 – West Ham Technical Institute1952 – West Ham College of Technology1970 – North East London Polytechnic1989 – Polytechnic of East London ...

argued that this accusation is based on a

logical fallacy In philosophy, a formal fallacy, deductive fallacy, logical fallacy or non sequitur (; Latin for " tdoes not follow") is a pattern of reasoning rendered invalid by a flaw in its logical structure that can neatly be expressed in a standard logic sy ...

, saying that the allegation "amounts to a mere argument from resemblance: because anti-capitalist discourse and anti-Semitic discourse share some structural features, they are fundamentally the same". For example, both anti-capitalist discourse and antisemitic discourse are often conspiratorial in nature; but similarity does not denote the same motive or intent. According to historian Deborah E. Lipstadt, as well as contemporary local media, the Jewish caricatures resembled the imagery used by ''

Der Stürmer ''Der Stürmer'' (, literally "The Stormer / Attacker / Striker") was a weekly German tabloid-format newspaper published from 1923 to the end of the Second World War by Julius Streicher, the ''Gauleiter'' of Franconia, with brief suspensions ...

'' in Nazi Germany.

Comments about certain Zionists

In a January 2013 meeting in Parliament, the UK Palestinian Authority representative

Manuel Hassassian Manuel Sarkis Hassassian (born 28 December 1953, Jerusalem) is a Palestinian- Armenian professor, who from late 2005 to October 2018 was the Palestinian Authority's diplomatic representative to the United Kingdom, after being appointed to the p ...

said that Jews are "the only children of God ... because nobody is stopping Israel building its messianic dream of Eretz Israel he Land of Israel. Pro-Israel activists at the meeting then challenged Hassassian. In August 2018, MailOnline released footage of comments that Corbyn had made a few days after this event at Friends House in Euston, convened by the Palestinian Return Centre. There, he defended the earlier comments made by Hassassian on the history of Palestine, which, he said, were "dutifully recorded by the thankfully silent Zionists" in the audience. Corbyn went on to say that these "Zionists" had approached Hassassian and "berated him afterwards for what he had said", and that these "Zionists" had "two problems": "One is that they don't want to study history and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don't understand English irony either. Manuel assassiandoes understand English irony and uses it very, very effectively so I think they need two lessons which we can help them with". His comments were accused by some of being coded antisemitism, including by Labour MPs Luciana Berger,

Mike Gapes Michael John Gapes (born 4 September 1952) is a British former politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ilford South from 1992 to 2019. Born in Wanstead Hospital, Gapes attended Buckhurst Hill County High School. He studied ec ...

Catherine McKinnell Catherine McKinnell (born 8 June 1976) is a British Labour politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Newcastle upon Tyne North since 2010. Early life McKinnell was born and raised in Denton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where she attended t ...

, and political strategist

John McTernan John McTernan (born 1959) is a British political strategist and commentator. He has been a political adviser to the Labour Party. McTernan was Prime Minister Tony Blair's Director of Political Operations from 2005 to 2007. He then worked on ...

. A number of Conservative MPs reported Corbyn to the parliamentary standards watchdog over the comments. Historian

Deborah Lipstadt Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian, best known as author of the books '' Denying the Holocaust'' (1993), ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier'' (2005), ''The Eichmann Trial'' (2011), and ...

, writing in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', asserted that Corbyn had crossed the line from anti-Zionism to antisemitism. Corbyn's remarks were defended by shadow chancellor

John McDonnell John Martin McDonnell (born 8 September 1951) is a British politician who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2015 to 2020. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hayes and Harlington since 1997. ...

, who argued that the comments were "taken out of context". A Labour spokesperson said that parts of the speech which contexualised Corbyn's language were "edited out of the footage ... He had been speaking about Zionists and non-Zionist Jews and very clearly does not go on to use Zionists as any kind of shorthand for Jews".

Corbyn's membership of Facebook groups

In March 2018, it was reported that, in 2014, Corbyn and some of his staff had been members of three private Facebook groups, including "Palestine Live" and "History of Palestine", containing antisemitic posts. A spokesman said that Corbyn had been added to the first two groups by others, had little involvement in them, and had either left them already or left following the reports. The Labour Party stated that a full investigation would be undertaken and action taken against any member involved.

Facebook groups

At the beginning of April 2018, ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, wh ...

'' reported that it had uncovered over 2,000 examples of antisemitic, racist, violent threats and abusive posts in Corbyn-supporting private Facebook groups, including frequent attacks on Jews and Holocaust denying material. The 20 largest pro-Corbyn private Facebook groups, which have a combined membership of over 400,000, were reported to have as members 12 senior staff who work for Corbyn and shadow chancellor

. Many of the posts criticised Labour MP

and Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. A Labour Party spokesperson said the groups "are not officially connected to the party in any way". Labour MPs urged Corbyn to instruct his supporters to shut down groups containing abusive posts. Subsequently, Corbyn deleted his own personal Facebook account that he had set up before becoming Labour leader, although his official page remained.

Christine Shawcroft resignation

In March 2018,

Christine Shawcroft Christine Linda Shawcroft (born April 1955) is a British Labour Party activist and former politician. Shawcroft is a director of Momentum and was elected as the chair of the Labour Party's Disputes Sub-Committee in January 2018. In March 2018, s ...

, the recently appointed head of the Party's disputes panel, resigned after it emerged she had opposed the suspension of Peterborough council candidate Alan Bull, for what she called "a Facebook post taken completely out of context and alleged to show anti-Semitism". She later said that she had not seen the "abhorrent" Facebook post in question. Bull, in 2015, had shared in a closed Facebook group an article suggesting that the Holocaust was a hoax to "invite discussion and debate". Bull later said "I'm not an anti-Semite, I am not a holocaust denier – I support equal rights for Palestinian people".

Relationship with the Jewish community

In March 2018, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the

Jewish Leadership Council The Jewish Leadership Council (previously known as the Jewish Community Leadership Council) is an organisation in the United Kingdom, founded in 2003, whose declared aim is to forward the interests of the organised Jewish community in Britain. ...

issued an open letter stating that Corbyn was "repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly anti-Semitic views", concluding that Corbyn "cannot seriously contemplate anti-Semitism, because he is so ideologically fixed within a far-left worldview that is instinctively hostile to mainstream Jewish communities". Following the open letter's publication accusing Corbyn of siding with antisemites "again and again", hundreds of people outside Parliament Square gathered to protest 'Enough is Enough' against antisemitism in the Labour Party, demanding that Corbyn do more to tackle anti-Jewish feeling in Labour Party ranks. Jewish Voice for Labour organised a smaller counter-demonstration. A Jewish Voice for Labour spokesman said after the event: "There is a massive difference between saying that more needs to be done within the party and a demonstration like this which is implicitly trying to force him orbynout ... This protest is unnecessary, inflammatory and politicised." The organisation said in a statement that it was "appalled" by the Board of Deputies' letter. "They do not represent us or the great majority of Jews in the party who share Jeremy Corbyn's vision for social justice and fairness. Jeremy's consistent commitment to anti-racism is all the more needed now." Jewish Voice for Labour's Chair

Jenny Manson Jenny Rachel Manson (''née'' Salaman; born November 1948) is a British Jewish activist, author, former civil servant, former Labour Party councillor for Colindale on Barnet London Borough Council, and Co-Chair of Jewish Voice for Labour. Ea ...

defended Corbyn on ''

Daily Politics ''Daily Politics'' was a BBC Television programme which aired between 6 January, 2003 and 24 July, 2018, presented by Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn. ''Daily Politics'' took an in-depth review of the daily events in both Westminster and other areas ...

'', saying he had taken "enormously strong action" to deal with the issue in his party. In April 2018, Corbyn attended a "third night"

Passover Seder The Passover Seder (; he, סדר פסח , 'Passover order/arrangement'; yi, סדר ) is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of Nisan in the Hebre ...

celebration held in his constituency by the radical Jewish group Jewdas. Corbyn was criticised for attending the event by the Jewish Leadership Council, while the Board of Deputies of British Jews said: "If Jeremy Corbyn goes to their event, how can we take his stated commitment to be an ally against anti-Semitism seriously?"

Charlotte Nichols Charlotte Louise Nichols (born 5 April 1991) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Warrington North since the 2019 general election. Prior to her political career, she worked as a trade union official. ...

, Young Labour's women's officer and a member of Jewdas, commended Corbyn for attending the event, arguing that it was "absolutely right" for Corbyn to "engage with the community at all levels" and that many of the event attendees "are absolutely part of the 'mainstream community'". In April 2018, following a meeting with Corbyn to discuss antisemitism in the Labour Party, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies said "We are disappointed that Mr Corbyn's proposals fell short of the minimum level of action which our letter suggested. In particular, they did not agree in the meeting with our proposals that there should be a fixed timetable to deal with antisemitism cases; that they should expedite the long-standing cases involving

and Jackie Walker; that no MP should share a platform with somebody expelled or suspended for antisemitism; that they adopt the full

definition of antisemitism with all its examples and clauses; that there should be transparent oversight of their disciplinary process". Corbyn described the meeting as "positive and constructive" and re-iterated that he was "absolutely committed" to rooting out antisemitism in the Labour Party. In April 2018, the

, the sister party of the Jewish Labour Movement, led by

Avi Gabbay Avraham "Avi" Gabbay ( he, אַבְרָהָם "אָבִי" גַּבַּאי, born 22 February 1967) is an Israeli businessman and politician. He was CEO of the telecommunications company Bezeq from 2007 to 2013, then entered politics. He served ...

announced it would cut ties with Corbyn and his office due to their handling of antisemitism, but still retain ties with the UK Labour Party as a whole. In a letter to Corbyn, Gabbay wrote of "my responsibility to acknowledge the hostility that you have shown to the Jewish community and the antisemitic statements and actions you have allowed". In September 2018, Femke van Zijst, spokesperson of the Labour Party of the Netherlands, declared that her party found "recent reports worrisome" about Corbyn and the growth of anti-semitism in the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. In November 2018,

Marie van der Zyl Marie Sarah van der Zyl (née Kaye; born November 1965) is the 48th president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. When she was elected in May 2018, she was only the second female president in the 258-year history of the organisation. She w ...

, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said "Over the summer, we showed how we could keep this issue of antisemitism on the front pages day after day, week after week, exacting a severe political and reputational cost for continued failure."

Working definition of antisemitism

Criticism

In December 2016, Labour adopted the

(IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. In May 2017,

Stephen Sedley Sir Stephen John Sedley (born 9 October 1939) is a British lawyer. He worked as a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales from 1999 to 2011 and was a visiting professor at the University of Oxford from 2011 to 2015. Early life and ed ...

said: "Anti-Semitism, where it manifests itself in discriminatory acts or inflammatory speech, is generally illegal. Criticism of Israel or of Zionism is protected by law. The IHRA working definition conflates the two by characterising everything other than anodyne criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic". Labour formally adopted the definition at its September 2017 Conference. Jewish Voice for Labour's Jonathan Rosenhead described it as intentionally "vague", allowing for "the protection of Israel" via "a side door" and thus "encouraging the presumption that

criticism of Israel Criticism of the Israeli government, often referred to simply as criticism of Israel, is a subject of journalistic and scholarly commentary and research within the scope of international relations theory, expressed in terms of political science. ...

is likely to be antisemitic". The organisation saw the change as an "anti-democratic restriction on political debate", and offered their own definition. In July 2018, 39Chernick, Ilanit (18 July 2018)
"39 Jewish left-wing groups pen letter supporting BDS"
''

The Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...

''. left-wing Jewish organisations in 15 countries, including six in the UK, declared that the definition was "worded in such a way as to be easily adopted or considered by western governments to intentionally equate legitimate criticisms of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights with antisemitism, as a means to suppress the former" and that "this conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against antisemitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law". Writer and scholar of antisemitism

Antony Lerman Antony Lerman (born 11 March 1946) is a British writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, multiculturalism, and the place of religion in society. From 2006 to early 2009, he was Director of the Insti ...

said "Jewish leaders claim exclusive rights to determine what is antisemitism, potentially putting Jewish sentiment above the law of the land. The fundamental principle that IHRA is so flawed it should be abandoned, not tinkered with. The answer to hate speech is more speech, not suppression of offensive views".

Revision

In July 2018, Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) adopted a new code of conduct defining antisemitism for disciplinary purposes, intended to make the process more efficient and transparent. It included the IHRA definition, but amended or omitted four of the eleven examples, all relating to Israel, and added three others. "Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations", is described as wrong, rather than antisemitic. "Comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" is only to be regarded as antisemitic if there is evidence of antisemitic intent. The omitted examples were "the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor" and "Requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations".

Jennie Formby Jennifer "Jennie" Formby (' Sandle; born 12 April 1960) is a British trade unionist and political figure who served as General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2018 to 2020. She was previously political director and south-east England regiona ...

, the general secretary, said the code supplements the definition "with additional examples and guidance", creating "the most thorough and expansive Code of Conduct on anti-Semitism introduced by any political party in the UK". NEC member

said "Clear and detailed guidelines are essential to ensure that antisemitism isn't tolerated, while protecting free speech on Israel's conduct, within a respectful and civil environment. This is what Labour's code of conduct provides."

Response

The

and the

said that the new rules "only dilute the definition and further erode the existing lack of confidence that British Jews have in their sincerity to tackle anti-Semitism within the Labour movement".

Margaret Hodge Dame Margaret Eve Hodge, Lady Hodge, (née Oppenheimer, formerly Watson; born 8 September 1944) is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Barking since 1994. A member of the Labour Party, she previously served as ...

MP called Corbyn a "fucking anti-Semite and a racist." Law lecturer Tom Frost said the code ignored the Macpherson Principle that "A racist incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person." On 16 July, over 60 British rabbis, including Harvey Belovski, Laura Janner-Klausner, Danny Rich and Jonathan Wittenberg said that Labour had "chosen to ignore the Jewish community", that it was "not the Labour party's place to rewrite a definition of antisemitism", and that the full definition had been accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and 124 local authorities. Later in July, in an unprecedented move, three UK Jewish newspapers, ''

'', ''

Jewish News The ''Jewish News'' is a free weekly newspaper, established in 1997, that serves the Jewish communities of Greater London – specifically Middlesex, Hertfordshire and Essex. In 2002, it won the ''Press Gazette'' free newspaper of the year. In F ...

'' and ''

Jewish Telegraph The ''Jewish Telegraph'' is a British Jewish newspaper. It was founded in December 1950 by Frank and Vivienne Harris, the parents of the current editor, Paul Harris. Founding Frank and Vivienne Harris founded the newspaper in their dining ...

'', carried a joint editorial saying that a Corbyn government would be an "existential threat to Jewish life" in the UK which, according to

David Patrikarakos David Patrikarakos is a British journalist, author and TV producer, best known as the author of '' War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century''. Background Patrikarakos was born in Hampstead an ...

, was the most drastic step taken by the Anglo-Jewish community since

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

allowed Jews back into the country in the 1650s. The former chief rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks in turn stated that Labour's antisemitism was causing British Jews to consider leaving the country. The newspapers also stated that "Had the full IHRA definition with examples relating to Israel been approved, hundreds, if not thousands, of Labour and Momentum members would need to be expelled." A Labour spokesman said the party posed "no threat of any kind whatsoever to Jewish people".

Defence

Human rights solicitor

Geoffrey Bindman Sir Geoffrey Lionel Bindman KC (Hon) (born 3 January 1933) is a British solicitor specialising in human rights law International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, ...

said that "The new code of conduct on antisemitism seeks to establish that antisemitism cannot be used as a pretext for censorship without evidence of antisemitic intent in line with the view of the all-party Commons home affairs select committee in October 2016 that the IHRA definition should only be adopted if qualified by caveats making clear that it is not antisemitic to criticise the Israeli government without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent… Far from watering down or weakening it, Labour's code strengthens it by addressing forms of discrimination that the IHRA overlooked."

Geoffrey Robertson Geoffrey Ronald Robertson (born 30 September 1946) is a human rights barrister, academic, author and broadcaster. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship.

QC made a similar point. Philosopher and scholar of antisemitism

Brian Klug Brian Klug (* born in London) is British senior research fellow and tutor in philosophy at St. Benet's Hall, Oxford and a member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University. He is also an honorary fellow of the Parkes Institute for the Study ...

said "The IHRA code is a living document, subject to revision and constantly needing to be adapted to the different contexts in which people apply its definition. This is the spirit in which the drafters of Labour's code have approached their task." In Historian

Geoffrey Alderman Geoffrey Alderman (born 10 February 1944) is a British historian that specialises in 19th and 20th centuries Jewish community in England. He is also a political adviser and journalist. Life Born in Middlesex, Alderman was educated at Hackney ...

wrote: "This Labour Party row will not be settled by relying on a flawed and faulty definition of antisemitism."

Outcome and media review

In September 2018, all 11 examples were accepted by the NEC, while Jeremy Corbyn said that they would not prevent criticism of the Israeli government or advocating Palestinian rights. Also in September 2018, the Media Reform Coalition examined over 250 articles and broadcast news segments covering the issue, and found over 90 examples of misleading or inaccurate reporting. The research found evidence of "overwhelming source imbalance", in which Labour's critics dominated coverage which failed to include those defending the code or critiquing the IHRA definition, and omitted contextual facts about the IHRA definition, concluding these were "systematic reporting failures" disadvantaging the Labour leadership.

Corbyn's responses

In March 2018, in response to claims that he may be seen as antisemitic, Corbyn stated, "I'm not an anti-Semite in any form" and that he challenges "anti-Semitism whenever it arises and no anti-Semitic remarks are done in my name or would ever be done in my name". In the same month, Corbyn also said that he would not tolerate antisemitism "in and around" Labour. "We must stamp this out from our party and movement", he said. "We recognise that anti-Semitism has occurred in pockets within the Labour Party, causing pain and hurt to our Jewish community in the Labour Party and the rest of the country. I am sincerely sorry for the pain which has been caused, and pledge to redouble my efforts to bring this anxiety to an end". The following month, writing in the ''

'', Corbyn said, "We have not done enough fully to get to grips with the problem, and for that the Jewish community and our own Jewish members deserve an apology. My party and I are sorry for the hurt and distress caused". In August 2018, he said that antisemitism was a "problem that Labour is working to overcome". He said that some criticism of Israel may stray into antisemitism at times, but denied that all forms of anti-Zionism were inherently racist, and pledged to "root out antisemitism" within the party, saying: "People who dish out anti-Semitic poison need to understand: You do not do it in my name. You are not my supporters and have no place in our movement." In a video release a few days later, Corbyn apologised again, saying, "I acknowledge there is a real problem of antisemitism that Labour is working to overcome. I am sorry for the hurt that has been caused to many Jewish people". In the same month, Corbyn said that the notion that he or Labour posed an "existential threat" to British Jews was "overheated rhetoric", but agreed that factions of the Labour Party had issues with antisemitism and that there was work to be done for Labour to regain the trust of British Jews. In September 2018, at the Labour Party Conference, Corbyn said he wants Labour and the Jewish community to "work together and draw a line" under antisemitism. He went on to attack the record of the Conservative Party for accusing Labour of "anti-Semitism one day, then endorse

Viktor Orbán Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian politician who has served as prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has presided over Fidesz since 1993, with a brief break between 2 ...

's hard-right government the next day". In February 2019, Corbyn reiterated, "As leader ... I wish to set out my own commitment along with that of the wider shadow cabinet as the leaders of the Labour Party in parliament to root out antisemitism. I am determined we will defeat racism wherever we see it and I know that antisemitism is one of the oldest, nastiest and most persistent forms of racism." A week later, he said in Parliament, "(Antisemitism has) no place whatsoever in any of our political parties, in our lives, in our society". In July 2019, Corbyn said "While other political parties and some of the media exaggerate and distort the scale of the problem in our party, we must face up to the unsettling truth that a small number of Labour members hold anti-Semitic views and a larger number don't recognise anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories. The evidence is clear enough. The worst cases of anti-Semitism in our party have included Holocaust denial, crude Jewish-banker stereotypes, conspiracy theories blaming Israel for 9/11 or every war on the Rothschild family, and even one member who appeared to believe that Hitler had been misunderstood. I am sorry for the hurt that has been caused to many Jewish people. We have been too slow in processing disciplinary cases of mostly online anti-Semitic abuse by party members. We are acting to speed this process up. People who hold anti-Semitic views have no place in the Labour Party. They may be few – the number of cases over the past three years represents less than 0.1% of Labour's membership of more than half a million – but one is too many." In October 2019, a Labour spokesperson said "Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community and continue to take robust action to root out antisemitism in the party and wider society." During the 2019 general election, Corbyn apologised on ITV's ''This Morning (TV programme), This Morning'' programme. A few days before, other members of the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn, shadow cabinet, including Nia Griffith, Richard Burgon and

, apologised for antisemitism in their party. In June 2020, Corbyn said claims he tolerated antisemitism among his supporters were "wrong and extremely unfair" and that he had taken steps to create a "robust process" to deal with the claims, describing antisemitism as "absolutely, totally unacceptable in any form".

2019

Training and education

In 2018, the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

was invited to provide antisemitism awareness training to those subject to disciplinary proceedings but declined as they did not believe training was an appropriate sanction. In July 2018, Jewish Voice for Labour asked its members for help in delivering an "expanded programme" of antisemitism training to party members in response to what it called a "growing number of requests". In March 2019, the Labour Party, referencing the volunteer-led nature of existing antisemitism training, announced that a short course in antisemitism would be developed by the

and that Jewish communal organisations would be consulted. The intention would be to enrol staff, NCC and NEC members on the course. The Jewish Labour Movement, which had provided volunteer-led training for the past three years, then withdrew its training provision for branches. In June 2019, Labour peer Peter Hain and former Israeli negotiator in peace talks Daniel Levy argued that "actually the problem is political, and therefore requires a political not simply a procedural solution". In July 2019, Labour MP Clive Lewis (politician), Clive Lewis in an article in ''The Independent'' wrote that: "Expulsions alone will not solve Labour's antisemitism crisis. Political education about antisemitism can help to ensure a socialist politics based on real equality becomes the common sense across the party." In July 2019, Labour appointed Heather Mendick as a liaison officer to improve the party's relationships with the Jewish community.

Chair Jonathan Goldstein expressed objections to the appointment and said that the JLC will not be engaging with Mendick. Later in July 2019, Labour issued an online leaflet entitled "No Place For Antisemitism" alongside related documents and videos, as the launch of a programme of educating members on oppression and social liberation, and to help them confront racism and bigotry. This was promoted to all party members by an email from Jeremy Corbyn.

Disciplinary processes, outcomes and staff claims

Disciplinary processes

In April 2018, the new Labour General Secretary,

, announced that a team of lawyers had been seconded to handle disciplinary cases and that a new post of in-house general counsel had been advertised "to advise on disciplinary matters and improvements to our processes". In September 2018, the NEC approved a doubling of the size of the party's key disciplinary body, the National Constitutional Committee, in order to speed up the handling of antisemitism claims. In February 2019, Formby noted that the Governance and Legal Unit had suffered during 2018 from a high level of staff sickness and departures, which was addressed in part by secondments. She also said that the unit was now back to full strength and that the size of the unit will be more than doubled. Later in the month, Charlie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, Lord Falconer accepted an invitation to examine Labour's processes in order to increase transparency though this did not take place due to the announcement of the

's investigation. Formby asked that a request by Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson (Labour politician), Tom Watson to Labour parliamentarians, asking that complaints about antisemitism be copied to him for monitoring, be disregarded on the grounds that this would disrupt the official process and be in breach of data protection law. In May 2019, Labour National Executive Committee member

wrote that leaked emails "...suggest that former compliance unit officials from the Labour right may have delayed action on some of the most extreme and high-profile antisemitism cases, including Holocaust denial, allowing a backlog of cases to build up that would damage the party and Jeremy's leadership." He also accused former General Secretary Iain McNicol and his team of delaying action on handling antisemitism cases, and allowing a backlog of cases to build up that would damage the party and Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. In July 2019, a Labour spokesperson said that the rate at which antisemitism cases have been dealt with had increased fourfold after Formby took up her position in May 2018. In August 2019, Jewish Voice for Labour said that Labour's processes had greatly improved since April 2018. Later in the month, the NEC agreed to speed up determination of the most serious cases by giving a special panel comprising the General Secretary and NEC officers the authority to consider these cases and expel members where appropriate, rather than requiring the cases to be referred to the quasi-judicial National Constitutional Committee. The rule change will be submitted for approval to the Labour Party Conference in September. In June 2020, following the election as leader of Keir Starmer, it was reported that "a trusted ally of the Labour leader" had been appointed as a "management enforcer" to oversee the management of allegations of antisemitism. According to a party source, "For anyone seeking to stay in their jobs it would not be sensible to disobey the new manager's requests. The manager has also been given the power to step in and make decisions himself about cases."

Disciplinary outcomes

In February 2019, Formby announced to Labour MPs that, of the complaints about antisemitism received by the party from April 2018 to January 2019, 400 related to individuals who were not party members. In a further 220 cases, Labour had found that there was insufficient evidence of a breach of party rules. Some of the remaining 453 complaints, i.e. those where there was sufficient evidence of a breach of party rules, related to social media posts dating back a number of years. These 453 complaints received over the ten month period represented 0.06% of Labour's 540,000 membership. Investigations had resulted in 12 expulsions and 49 resignations from the party and 187 formal warnings, while some complaints received recently were still under investigation. Some Labour MPs questioned the accuracy of the data. In July 2019, Formby provided updated disciplinary figures regarding complaints of antisemitism and committed to regularly publishing statistics. During the first six months of 2019, 625 complaints about members had been received, some members being the subject of multiple complaints, and 116 members suspended. A further 658 complaints were received about people who were not members. Of the complaints received relating to members, Labour decided that 100 lacked sufficient evidence and 163 showed no rule breaches, 90 received formal warnings or reminders of conduct and 97 had been referred to the National Constitutional Committee, which has the power to expel members. 146 cases were still being processed. National Executive Committee Antisemitism Panels had met six times and made 190 decisions, compared with two and eight in the same period the previous year. The National Constitutional Committee had concluded 28 cases and made eight expulsions with another twelve members resigning, compared with ten, seven and three in the same period the previous year. In January 2020, the Labour Party reported that 149 members resigned or were expelled during 2019 as a result of disciplinary processes relating to antisemitism. Of these, 45 members were expelled, compared to ten in 2018 and one in 2017. NEC disciplinary panels heard 274 cases, compared with 28 cases in 2017. 296 members were suspended, compared to 98 in 2018, itself a big increase on the previous year. After the September 2019 annual conference gave NEC panels the power to expel, twice the number of people were expelled in two months than had been expelled during the whole of 2018.

Claims by former staff

In April 2019, the Party's lawyers wrote to its former head of disputes asking what information he had shared with the media and for his commitment not to commit further breaches of his non-disclosure agreement. In July, an edition of the BBC programme Panorama (TV programme), ''Panorama'' entitled Panorama (TV programme)#Is Labour Anti-Semitic?, "Is Labour Anti-Semitic?" produced by John Ware (TV journalist), John Ware, included a claim by former staff that, in the first half of 2018, senior Labour figures had interfered in the complaints process while new senior officials in their department downgraded outcomes for antisemitic behaviour. Labour denied that there was interference and said the former staff included those who had "personal and political axes to grind". The Party added "The ''Panorama'' programme was not a fair or balanced investigation. It was a seriously inaccurate, politically one-sided polemic, which breached basic journalistic standards, invented quotes and edited emails to change their meaning." The BBC responded that "the investigation was not pre-determined, it was driven by the evidence". Labour later submitted a formal complaint about the programme to the BBC. Staff members represented by the GMB (trade union), GMB trade union voted overwhelmingly to call on the Party to be consistent in supporting whistle-blowers wherever they worked and to apologise to their former colleagues.

Resignations of MPs and peers

In August 2018, Labour MP Frank Field (British politician), Frank Field resigned the Labour whip over a "culture...of nastiness". He retained his party membership, announcing that he would sit as an "independent Labour MP". It was suggested by Owen Jones that the resignation had little to do with antisemitism, whilst Andrew Grice (a columnist for ''The Independent'') and others have suggested that Field left before he was deselected by his local party, as he had lost a vote of confidence in his constituency over his support for Theresa May's Brexit plans in a recent parliamentary vote. In February 2019, seven MPs quit Labour to form Change UK, The Independent Group (latterly Change UK), citing their dissatisfaction with the party's leftward political direction, its approach to

and to allegations of antisemitism. They were later joined by four more MPs, including three from the Conservative Party. Another MP resigned from Labour to sit as an independent. One of the original seven,

, said that Labour had become "sickeningly institutionally racist". Two days later, Corbyn said in Parliament, in response, "(Antisemitism has) no place whatsoever in any of our political parties, in our lives, in our society". Four of the MPs had recently lost votes of no-confidence brought by their Constituency Labour Party, constituency parties, while two such motions against Berger had recently been withdrawn. Following its failure to secure any seats in 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom, May 2019 European Parliament election, six of its MPs resigned to sit as independents. In July 2019, three members of the

, David Triesman, Baron Triesman, David Triesman, Leslie Turnberg, Baron Turnberg, Leslie Arnold Turnberg and Ara Darzi, Baron Darzi of Denham, Ara Darzi resigned the Labour whip to sit as independents, citing dissatisfaction with the party's handling of antisemitism, Brexit and defence policy. In October 2019,

MP resigned from the party, citing her worries about antisemitism in the party and opposition to the prospect of a government led by Corbyn. Labour responded that "Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community and continue to take robust action to root out antisemitism in the party and wider society." Motions of no confidence in Ellman had recently been submitted for discussion in three branches of her constituency Labour Party. Liverpool Riverside (UK Parliament constituency), Riverside constituency Labour party said: "[S]he made it very clear at the last CLP meeting that she could not support a Jeremy Corbyn-led government. This inevitably meant that Louise would be triggered and was very unlikely to win any reselection process."

External investigations

In November 2018, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick announced that they had been passed an internal Labour dossier detailing 45 allegations of antisemitic hate crimes committed by Labour Party members and would review them with a view to investigation. In May 2019, following complaints submitted by the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

and the Campaign Against Antisemitism, the

(EHRC) launched a formal investigation into whether Labour had "unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish": specifically, whether "unlawful acts have been committed by the party and/or its employees and/or its agents, and; whether the party has responded to complaints of unlawful acts in a lawful, efficient and effective manner." In 2016, Labour MP Harriet Harman had expressed concern about the suitability of its chair, David Isaac, given his principal role as an equity partner at a City law firm that advises the Conservative government, Pinsent Masons. Previously, in September 2017, the EHRC Chief Executive, Rebecca Hilsenrath, had demanded a zero tolerance approach to antisemitism in the Labour Party and swift action by the leadership to deal with it.

, former founding director of the

, raised concerns that such a statement made Hilsenrath unsuitable to lead a probe into Labour. He wrote in ''openDemocracy'': "Prior to investigation, is it not worrying that the CEO already claims to know what the Labour Party needs to do?" Hilsenrath later recused herself from the decision to investigate the Labour Party as her status as "an active member of the Anglo-Jewish community" could cause a perception of bias. The Labour Party asked the EHRC to communicate any interim recommendations in the course of the investigation. The Shadow Chancellor,

, looked forward to the investigation's conclusions stating: "I want it quicker actually, I need it speeded up. Let's learn the lessons and then also work with the organisation to implement what recommendations they bring forward. On that basis I'm hoping we'll get a clean bill of health but more importantly we can become much more effective at tackling not just antisemitism but racism, both in our party and society overall." Jewish Voice for Labour welcomed the investigation by the EHRC. The organisation produced a dossier for the EHRC in response to its request for evidence in relation to its investigation. JVL holds that without making public the complaints and Labour's response when the EHRC shared them ahead of launching the investigation, the EHRC have violated the Equality Act 2006 which requires that they specify who is being investigated and "the nature of the unlawful act" they are suspected of committing, both required by its own terms of reference. Signatories to JVL's letter includes human rights lawyer Sir

QC and University of Oxford professor

. In June 2020, Jeremy Corbyn said that the Conservatives in power had "for some reason, which I don't fully understand... decided to take away its independent status and make it part of the government machine".

Criticism of Labour Party advocates

In 2019, those seeking to defend the Labour Party and some members from what they saw as unfair or exaggerated allegations themselves came under attack. Chris Williamson (politician), Chris Williamson MP was suspended and investigated after he was recorded saying that "The party that has done more to stand up to racism is now being demonised as a racist, bigoted party. I have got to say I think our party's response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion… we have backed off too much, we have given too much ground, we have been too apologetic...We've done more to address the scourge of antisemitism than any other political party. And yet we are being traduced". As with Jackie Walker and Labour Against the Witchhunt, efforts were made to prevent him speaking at events. Before the 2019 general election, the Labour Party banned Williamson from standing as a Labour candidate. Pro-Corbyn websites, such as The Canary (website), ''The Canary'', were the target of an advertising boycott campaign by Stop Funding Fake News, which said that ''The Canary'' regularly published "fake news" and attempts to "justify antisemitism" and that two of its writers had made antisemitic comments. According to ''

'', the campaign has been backed by Rachel Riley, who campaigns against the party leadership's handling of allegations of antisemitism, while ''The Canary'' has called the accusations a smear and those behind the campaign "political Zionists". Research by the

identified a number of pro-Jeremy Corbyn and pro-Labour social media accounts that claimed that allegations of antisemitism in the party were "exaggerated, weaponised, invented or blown out of proportion, or that Labour and Corbyn are victims of a smear campaign relating to antisemitism".

Response to attack on rabbi

After an Israeli rabbi was attacked whilst visiting London in November 2019, Corbyn phoned Rabbi Herschel Gluck, chairperson of Jewish neighbourhood watch organisation Shomrim (neighborhood watch group), Shomrim, to express his concern for and empathy with the community. He tweeted that "We must stop this scourge of antisemitism". Gluck commented that the community appreciated Corbyn's concern and that Corbyn was the only party leader who called.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis's statement on the 2019 general election

In his leader's interview with Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Neil dedicated the first 10 minutes of the 30-minute programme entirely for discussion of Labour's relationship with the Jewish community. This interview drew attention as Corbyn refused to apologise for antisemitism in the Labour Party, even though he had repeatedly done so on previous occasions. The UK's Chief Rabbi,

, made an unprecedented intervention in politics, warning that antisemitism was a "poison sanctioned from the top" of the Labour Party, and saying that British Jews were gripped by anxiety about the prospect of a Corbyn-led government. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Hindu Council UK supported Rabbi Mirvis's intervention, if not entirely endorsing it.

Jewish Labour Movement and the 2019 general election

Labour's only Jewish affiliate, the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

, said they would not be actively campaigning for Labour except for exceptional candidates.

2020

Keir Starmer's statements

On 4 April 2020, newly-elected party leader Keir Starmer expressed the view that "Antisemitism has been a stain on our party" and apologised to the Jewish community on behalf of the Labour Party, vowing to fight it. Starmer had previously made eliminating antisemitism in the Labour Party one of his main campaign issues, and said he would take steps to eradicate it "on day one" of his assuming party leadership. He also said he would look to fully cooperate with the EHRC's investigation into antisemitism in the party.

Internal investigation into Labour's Governance and Legal Unit

The following week, Sky News reported that an 860-page report into the handling of antisemitism by the party, planned to be sent to the EHRC in addition to previous submissions, would be withheld on the advice of lawyers. The report was the result of an internal investigation into Labour's Governance and Legal Unit, which handles disciplinary cases. The report concluded that there was "no evidence" that antisemitism complaints were treated any differently than other forms of complaint, or of current or former staff being "motivated by antisemitic intent". The report also found that Corbyn's team inherited a lack of "robust processes, systems, training, education and effective line management" and that hostility towards Corbyn by former senior officials contributed to "a litany of mistakes" which "affected the expeditious and resolute handling of disciplinary complaints", including providing "false and misleading information" to Corbyn's office on the scale and handling of antisemitism allegations. The report urges the EHRC to "question the validity of the personal testimonies" of former members of staff. Furthermore, ''The Independent'', which saw the dossier in full, stated that the report said that staffers associated with the right-wing of the Labour Party sought to undermine Corbyn and prevent Labour from winning the 2017 general election in the hope that a poor result would trigger a leadership contest to remove Corbyn as leader. Former Shadow Chancellor

called for the immediate suspension of some former staff named in the document, pending the results of the independent investigation, and the document should be provided to the EHRC investigation into the party. He said: "They've got to have access to all of the information. We've got to rid ourselves of this culture that prevented a Labour government when we desperately needed one but also, by the looks of it, undermined the party's ability to deal with antisemitism effectively" and wrote that "the revelations in the leaked Labour report are a genuine scandal". On 23 April, Labour's NEC met and to agreed the terms of reference for the independent investigation into the circumstances, contents and release of an internal report to conclude with its own report being published by mid-July. Several amendments were passed by the NEC, including one moved by Rayner that referred to the offer of whistleblower protections. On 1 May, the NEC appointed a four-person panel to investigate the report on the party's handling of internal antisemitism complaints. Martin Forde QC, a barrister was chosen by the NEC to chair the independent inquiry. He will be supported by three Labour peers: Baroness Debbie Wilcox, Baroness Wilcox of Newport, Debbie Wilcox, Lord Larry Whitty, Baron Whitty, Larry Whitty and Baroness Ruth Lister, Baroness Lister of Burtersett, Ruth Lister. In June 2020, Jeremy Corbyn said: "I always knew that there was a culture in the Labour party that was not a healthy one, of an almost self-perpetuating bureaucracy. All organisations have a degree of self-perpetuating bureaucracy about them." In June 2020, the Labour Party revealed during a High Court of Justice, High Court hearing, that it had suspended the membership of some party members in order to protect the integrity of its investigation into the leaked anti-semitism report. According to Novara Media, former party director Emilie Oldknow, who featured prominently in the leaked documents, and Patrick Heneghan, Labour's former executive director for elections, campaigns and organisation were among the members who were suspended. In June, Labour's press office provided a statement prepared by party lawyers to journalists covering the story that defended the comments, describing criticism as "po-faced" and stating: "These were messages exchanged between co-workers in the expectation that they would remain private and confidential and the tone of the language used reflects that." In response, 13 NEC members (one third of the NEC), including representatives from four trade union from Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, Fire Brigades Union, Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen and Unite the Union wrote to Labour leader Keir Starmer accusing his office of misleading them about how the party dealt with leaked WhatsApp messages by senior officials detailed in the report and accusing party officials of defending "racist, sexist and abusive" messages about colleagues, and "also directly prejudged the specific issues that Martin Forde's inquiry is considering... and thereby undermines its independence". The NEC members called for an apology and retraction from Starmer.

Sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey

In June 2020, Rebecca Long-Bailey was asked to resign as Shadow Secretary of State for Education by Labour leader Keir Starmer after she shared a link to an ''Independent'' interview with the actor Maxine Peake which contained the following words:

"The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd's neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services."

The original article stated that "the Israeli police has denied this". Starmer said that the article should not have been shared by Long-Bailey "as it contained anti-Semitic conspiracy theories". ''The Independent'' amended the original article to add a note that "the allegation that US police were taught tactics of 'neck kneeling' by Israeli secret services is unfounded". Peake later stated that she was "inaccurate in [her] assumption of American police training and its sources". The claim had been linked to a report by Amnesty International, but Amnesty said that they had never reported that Israeli security forces had taught the technique. ''The Guardian'' said a "series of individual MPs condemned the decision" and some did not consider Peake's allegations to be anti-semitic.

, shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, said that "criticism of practices of [the] Israeli state is not anti-semitic". He did not believe that Long-Bailey should have been sacked and stood "in solidarity" with her. NEC member

said: "I don't believe there is anything antisemitic in the [Maxine Peake] interview and sacking Rebecca is a reckless overreaction by Keir Starmer."

Steve Reed

In July 2020, Steve Reed (politician), Steve Reed used Twitter to suggest that Conservative Party donor Richard Desmond was "the puppet master to the entire Tory cabinet" in relation to the planning scandal involving Desmond and minister Robert Jenrick. The tweet was criticised as antisemitic for containing a "classic anti-Semitic trope about a Jewish businessman" and Conservative MPs asked Starmer to sack Reed. After Reed deleted the tweet and apologised, no further action was taken against him.

Aftermath of 2019 ''Panorama'' programme

In July 2020 the Labour Party was sued for defamation by seven former members of staff who had appeared in the 2019 BBC ''Panorama (British TV programme), Panorama'' programme ''Is Labour Anti-Semitic?'' The former staffers said senior Labour Party figures had made statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party by appearing in the programme. When the programme was aired, a Labour party spokesperson had called them "disaffected former officials" and said they had "worked actively to undermine" Corbyn and had "both personal and political axes to grind". In response to the lawsuit Starmer agreed to pay damages to the former staff members and issue a formal apology. Corbyn expressed disappointment at Starmer's decision and said that the Labour Party was risking "giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle anti-Semitism in the Labour Party in recent years" and that the settlements were a "political decision, not a legal one". In response, the show's presenter John Ware (TV journalist), John Ware decided to sue Corbyn personally. A fundraising campaign, set up with an initial target of £20,000 to help Corbyn with legal fees related to Ware's action, surpassed £270,000 within a few days. Starmer's decision also prompted the Labour Party's largest backer, the trade union Unite the Union, Unite led by Len McCluskey, to review its donations to the party. McCluskey said "It's an abuse of members' money. … It's as though a huge sign has been put up outside the Labour party with 'queue here with your writ and get your payment over there' ".

Publication of the EHRC report

On 29 October 2020, the

published their report into antisemitism in the Labour Party, which found "serious failings in the Labour Party leadership in addressing antisemitism and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints". The report found evidence of political interference into complaints of antisemitism, failure to provide training to handle complaints of antisemitism, and harassment, in breach of the Equality Act 2010. After the publication of the report,

said his team had "acted to speed up, not hinder the process", and that the scale of antisemitism within Labour had been "dramatically overstated for political reasons". Corbyn was suspended pending investigation from the Labour Party when he refused to retract his remarks. Corbyn's suspension was welcomed by Labour figures including

, and Harriet Harman, as well as by the

. Corbyn stated he would "strongly contest" his suspension.

, Unite leader Len McCluskey, and

expressed opposition to Corbyn's suspension.

2021

Exclusion of alleged far-left factions

In mid-July 2021, the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party voted to ban four factions which they described as being on the far-left, including Resist (Chris Williamson), Resist, Labour Against the Witchhunt, the Labour in Exile Network, and Socialist Appeal (UK, 1992), Socialist Appeal, on the grounds that "these organisations are not compatible with Labour's rules or our aims and values." These factions had been accused of obstructing efforts to combat antisemitism within Labour. The party committee also ruled that belonging to these factions is grounds for expulsion from Labour; that future complaints will be handled by a review panel of independent lawyers reporting to an independent appeal body; and that all prospective Labour candidates will be trained by the

Jewish Labour Movement {{Infobox organization , name = Jewish Labour Movement , pronounce = , nickname = , named_after = , logo = JewishLabourMovementLogo.png , image_border = , size ...

in dealing with antisemitism. While the Jewish Labour Movement welcomed the announcement, the bans were condemned by

and Unite the Union for targeting left-wing elements and worsening internal tensions within the party.

2022

Forde Report

The long-awaited Forde Report, written by lawyer Martin Forde in response to the dossier that was leaked in April 2020 (''The work of the Labour Party's Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014–2019''), was finally released on 19 July 2022, revealing that antisemitism had been used as a factional weapon by opponents, and by supporters, of Corbyn in the Labour Party. The report said: "[R]ather than confront the paramount need to deal with the profoundly serious issue of anti-Semitism in the party, both factions treated it as a factional weapon." It also laid bare how senior Labour staff displayed "deplorably factional and insensitive, and at times discriminatory, attitudes" towards Corbyn and his supporters, and revealed that there was a "hierarchy of racism" in the party which ignored Black and Asian people. Responding to this, Corbyn's former advisor Andrew Fisher (political activist), Andrew Fisher wrote: "Forde confirms that reflection is necessary. Cultural change requires painstaking work, not glib assertions of change."

Rebuttals

Labour movement

In September 2017, general secretary of Unite the Union, Len McCluskey said that the row "was created by people who were trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn". He stated that he had never heard antisemitic language at a party meeting, adding "Unfortunately at the time there were lots of people playing games, everybody wanted to create this image that Jeremy Corbyn's leadership had become misogynist, had become racist, had become anti-Semitic and it was wrong." In October 2017, Labour Against the Witchhunt was formed to oppose what they saw as unjustified disciplinary action against Labour activists in relation to alleged antisemitism. In December 2017,

founder

categorised antisemitism in the Labour Party into three forms: petty xenophobic remarks, of which he "[doesn't] think there's much" in the Party; old-school blood libel type antisemitism, which, according to Lansman, is "extremely rare"; and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, whereby, Lansman says, "we all understand that when that conflict heats up, it results in dreadful antisemitism. It shouldn't result in that, but it does". In May 2019, Labour National Executive Committee member Peter Willsman asserted that the Israeli embassy were "behind all this antisemitism" and were "the ones whipping it all up". He added: "They caught somebody in the Labour Party. It turns out they were an agent in the Israeli Embassy", referring to ''The Lobby (TV series), The Lobby''. In June 2019, Labour peer Peter Hain and former Israeli negotiator in peace talks Daniel Levy claimed that the effect of Labour's stance on antisemitism has been "to empower apologists for totally unacceptable Israeli government attacks on Palestinians and the steady throttling of their rights – allowing those apologists to scale new heights in their dishonest attempts to label criticism of such Israeli policy as 'antisemitic'". In July 2019, the Labour Party in Northern Ireland (LPNI) released a statement opposing the second suspension of Chris Williamson (politician), Chris Williamson on the grounds that it was "arbitrary and unreasonable" and stated that the "allegations of 'rampant anti-semitism in the Labour Party' have led to detailed research and a number of investigations being conducted to ascertain the truthfulness of the claims. Some of the research has been conducted by world renowned Jewish organisations, with no affiliation, support for, or loyalty to the UK Labour Party. Despite their clear objective and independent credentials; their findings have been almost universally ignored by the UK media." It then went on "it is a fair comment to say that the Labour Party does not have any form of particular problem with anti-semitism. It is also fair to say that Labour Party Members are not to blame for the narrative that suggests that there is a particular problem with anti-semitism in the party. It logically follows that members of the Labour Party should not feel that they should be apologetic about something that has been shown to be false." In August 2019, former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Shadow Home Secretary Roy Hattersley, Lord Hattersley said that he believed that Labour had "managed to expunge the party" of antisemitism.

Jewish activists and organisations

Some left-wing Jewish groups have disputed the antisemitism claims. These include Jewish Voice for Labour, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jewish Socialists' Group, Jewdas and

; all of whom have said that accusations of antisemitism against the Labour Party have a twofold purpose: firstly, to conflate antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to deter such criticism and, secondly, to undermine the Labour leadership since Corbyn was elected leader in 2015. In August 2015, dozens of prominent Jewish activists signed an open letter criticising ''

'' for what they viewed as its "character assassination" of Corbyn. They wrote: "Your assertion that your attack on Jeremy Corbyn is supported by 'the vast majority of British Jews' is without foundation. We do not accept that you speak on behalf of progressive Jews in this country. You speak only for Jews who support Israel, right or wrong." They continued, "There is something deeply unpleasant and dishonest about your McCarthyism, McCarthyite Association fallacy, guilt by association technique. Jeremy Corbyn's parliamentary record over 32 years has consistently opposed all racism including antisemitism." Signatories to the letter included

and

. In April 2016, Richard Kuper, spokesperson for Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said that, while "there is some antisemitism in and around the Labour party – as there is in the wider society in Britain", "there is clearly also a coordinated, willed and malign campaign to exaggerate the nature and extent of antisemitism as a stick to beat the Labour party" under Corbyn. In the same month, Ian Saville, a Jewish Socialists' Group and Labour Party member, said he was "disturbed" by the way antisemitism had "been used to attack the left in the Labour Party." In April 2016, the Jewish Socialists' Group said that antisemitism accusations were being "weaponized" in order to "attack the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party with claims that Labour has a "problem" of antisemitism". It added "A very small number of such cases seem to be real instances of antisemitism. Others represent genuine Criticism of the Israeli government, criticism of Israeli policy and support for Human rights in the State of Palestine, Palestinian rights" The statement concluded "The Jewish Socialists' Group sees the current fearmongering about antisemitism in the Labour Party for what it is – a conscious and concerted effort by right-wing political forces to undermine the growing support among Jews and non-Jews alike for the Labour Party leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, and a measure of the desperation of his opponents". Later that month, 82 "Jewish members and supporters of the Labour party and of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership" wrote an open letter to ''The Guardian'' stating that they "do not accept that antisemitism is 'rife' in the Labour party" and that "these accusations are part of a wider campaign against the Labour leadership, and they have been timed particularly to do damage to the Labour party and its prospects in 2016 United Kingdom local elections, elections in the coming week." The Jewish members and supporters included Miriam David, Ivor Dembina, Professor Stephen Deutsch,

, Charles Shaar Murray, Ian Saville and Lynne Segal. In December 2017, Jewdas suggested that the allegations are aimed at discrediting the party and called the reaction to them a "bout of faux-outrage greased with hypocrisy and opportunism", saying it was "the work of cynical manipulations by people whose express loyalty is to the

and the right wing of the Labour Party". In March 2018, Joseph Finlay, the former deputy editor of ''Jewish Quarterly'' magazine and co-founder of several grassroots Jewish organisations, wrote in the ''

'' defending Corbyn, describing him as "one of the leading Anti-racism, anti-racists in parliament", and that; "Antisemitism is always beyond the pale. Labour, now a party of over half a million members, has a small minority of antisemites in its ranks, and it suspends then whenever it discovers them. I expect nothing less from an anti-racist party and an anti-racist leader." He continued, "There are many threats to Jews – and we are right to be vigilant. ... The idea that Britain's leading anti-racist politician is the key problem the Jewish community faces is an absurdity, a distraction, and a massive error." In May 2018, the Palestinian-Israeli Socialist Struggle Movement said that they "view Corbyn as a strong opponent of antisemitism and see the attacks being made on him for what they are: attempts to discredit a left-wing politician who has put forward a manifesto seen by capitalists as too radical in favour of working class interests ... The smear campaign against Corbyn is a dangerous attempt to sabotage the struggle for left and socialist solutions". In February 2019, over 200 Jewish members and supporters of the Labour Party signed a letter published in ''The Guardian'', calling the party under Corbyn an "a crucial ally in the fight against bigotry and reaction" and Corbyn's campaigning consistently in support for "initiatives against antisemitism". They also welcomed Labour's support for "freedom of expression on Israel and on the rights of Palestinians". They felt that the "disproportionate focus on antisemitism on the left, which is abhorrent but relatively rare." The Jewish members and supporters included Prof David B. A. Epstein, David Epstein, Mike Leigh, Prof

, Prof

, Gillian Slovo, Prof Annabelle Sreberny, Walter Wolfgang, Peter Buckman, Erica Burman, Keith Burstein, Miriam David, Michael Ellman, Nick Foster, Susan Himmelweit,

, Ann Jungman, Frank Land, Gillian McCall, Helen Pearson and Ian Saville. In July 2019, Andrew Feinstein, anti-corruption campaigner and executive director of Corruption Watch (South Africa), Corruption Watch pointed out that "Only a very small percentage of Labour members hold anti-semitic views and a YouGov poll in 2015 found Labour displayed the second least amount of any political party, second only to the Liberal Democrats. In 2017, two years into Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, the extent of anti-semitism in Labour had actually dropped, according to polling." In August 2019, Gabor Maté, Canadian psychologist and writer, Jewish holocaust survivor and former Zionist, when asked about allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party said: "...The whole antisemitism charge, when it comes to the Palestinian issue, is simply a way to intimidate and silence critics of horrendous Israeli policies." In November 2019, John Bercow, the Jewish former Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom), Speaker of the House of Commons and Conservative MP, said he had never experienced antisemitism from a Labour Party member and had known Corbyn for 22 years and did not believe he was antisemitic. In February 2020 Bercow claimed that he had only ever experienced 'subtle' antisemitism from members of his own Conservative Party, and had never experienced any antisemitism from Labour MPs. In November 2019, 14 British Jews signed a letter published in ''The Guardian'' stating: "As British Jews, most of whom have family in Israel and lost family in the Holocaust, and all of us with plenty of experience taking on antisemites face to face across the political spectrum, we are not prepared to be used as cannon fodder in what is really a political siege of the Labour party." The British Jews included

, Lynne Segal, Jacqueline Rose, Miriam David,

, Jonathan Rosenhead, Graeme Segal and

Academics and researchers

In April 2016, independent researcher Jamie Stern-Weiner's review of the cases of antisemitism found that some were represented in the media in a way that treated comments about "Zionists" as being the same as Holocaust denial and comments about antisemitic conspiracy theories. In May 2016, Israeli historian and Oxford University Professor of International Relations

argued that "charges of Jew-hatred are being deliberately manipulated to serve a pro-Zionist agenda." In the same month,

said: "The only plausible answer is, it's political. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the factual situation; instead, a few suspect cases of antisemitism – some real, some contrived – are being exploited for an ulterior political motive. As one senior Labour MP said the other day, it's transparently a smear campaign." In January 2017, John Newsinger, professor of history at Bath Spa University, wrote: "There has been a sustained attempt made to discredit the Corbynites by alleging that they are somehow responsible for the Labour Party having a serious problem with anti-Semitism, that the Labour left and the left outside the Labour Party is, in fact, anti-Semitic ... There are two points worth making here: first that the allegations are politically motivated smears, perpetrated by people completely without shame, and second that they do considerable damage to the real fight against anti-Semitism." Also in 2017, linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky said: "I wholeheartedly support the right of anyone to criticise Israel without being branded antisemitic. That goes in particular for Jackie Walker." In April 2018, 42 senior academics wrote to ''The Guardian'' condemning anti-Corbyn bias in coverage of the debate and suggested that "Dominant sections of the media have framed the story in such a way as to suggest that antisemitism is a problem mostly to do with Labour and that Corbyn is personally responsible for failing to deal with it. The coverage has relied on a handful of sources such as the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and well-known political opponents of Corbyn himself." They continued: "It is not 'Whataboutism, whataboutery' to suggest that the debate on antisemitism has been framed in such a way as to mystify the real sources of anti-Jewish bigotry and instead to weaponise it against a single political figure just ahead of 2018 United Kingdom local elections, important elections. We condemn antisemitism wherever it exists. We also condemn journalism that so blatantly lacks context, perspective and a meaningful range of voices in its determination to condemn Jeremy Corbyn." The academics included Lynne Segal, Annabelle Sreberny, Beverley Skeggs, Gary Hall (academic), Gary Hall, Neve Gordon, Margaret Gallagher, Maria X, Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Jill Daniels and Ruth Catlow. One of the academics, Jane Dipple of the University of Winchester, was herself investigated by her university and the Labour party over allegedly antisemitic posts on Facebook. In August 2018 the university said that Dipple no longer worked there but refused to say if she had been sacked or if she had resigned. Later that April, Israeli historian and socialist activist

stated that "Corbyn is not an anti-Semite and the Labour Party, until his election, was a pro-Israeli bastion..." and "there is anti-Semitism among all British parties – and much more on the right than on the left." He continued: "It is not the Labour Party that is infested with anti-Semitism; it is the British media and political systems that are plagued by hypocrisy, paralysed by intimidation and ridden with hidden layers of Islamophobia and new chauvinism in the wake of

." In May 2018,

, a former Court of Appeal judge, dismissed the charge that the Labour Party is "institutionally" or "culturally" antisemitic. He wrote that "an undeclared war is going on inside the party, with pro-Israeli groups such as the Jewish Labour Movement seeking to drive out pro-Palestinian groups like the Jewish Voice for Labour by stigmatising them, and Corbyn with them, as anti-Semitic." He believes that outside bodies like the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council – "neither noted for balanced criticism of Israel" – weigh in, aided by "generous media coverage". In July 2018, philosopher and scholar of antisemitism

wrote: "It's paradoxical if, at the moment Labour wakes up to the necessity of combating antisemitism in its ranks, it is shouted down because of its failure to deal with it in the past." In October, he wrote: "It appears that two different objectives are being conflated by Jewish leadership: confronting antisemitism and toppling Corbyn." In August 2018, Lorna Finlayson, a lecturer in political philosophy at the University of Essex stated that "No one has yet produced any evidence either that antisemitism is more prevalent in the Labour Party than elsewhere in British society (within the Conservative Party, for instance), or that its incidence within Labour has increased since Corbyn became leader." In September, Professor Rebecca Ruth Gould, a literary theorist, said that "Labour must recognise the internal diversity of the Jewish community and not allow a political faction to silence other points of view, as is happening now to an unprecedented degree." In October 2018, Goldsmiths, University of London-owned Media Reform Coalition published a report on the coverage of the revised Labour's code of conduct on antisemitism examining "over 250 articles and broadcast news segments." It reportedly found "over 90 examples of misleading or inaccurate reporting." In relation to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the research found evidence of "overwhelming source imbalance", which over-represented critics of Labour, failed to report on those defending the code or critiquing the IHRA definition and excluded "contextual facts about the IHRA definition." A group including Noam Chomsky, Yanis Varoufakis, Ken Loach, and Brian Eno wrote to ''The Guardian'' protesting against the newspaper's reporting. In November the report's main author Dr Justin Schlosberg, wrote an open letter to the Reader's Editor of ''The Guardian'' (whom the report had been critical of) criticising the newspaper's lack of reporting or comment on the research, despite it being "endorsed by a wide range of experts as well as public figures." and having "sparked considerable debate on social media platforms and attracted significant attention from independent media outlets." In March 2019, Neve Gordon, Professor of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, wrote: "the real point of contention ... is not about whether the party should tolerate anti-Semitism, but about what anti-Semitism is."

Journalists and authors

In 2018, Mark Seddon and Francis Beckett conclude that "(t)he debate has become toxic. It's all abuse and bullying and point-scoring. It long ago ceased to concentrate on the protection of British Jews on one hand, and the creation of a better and more equal society in Britain on the other." For Ruth Picardie, Matt Seaton the controversy over Labour's attitudes to Jews and antisemitism is a proxy fight whose real conflict is one of a battle for the soul of the party waged between Social Democracy, social democrats and traditional anti-imperialist socialism, socialists. Rob Ferguson locates the specific attack on Jeremy Corbyn in the UK in the context of wider international developments since 1967 and particularly from the early 2000s. In July 2018, writer and scholar of antisemitism

wrote: "It's hard to believe, after the battering Labour has experienced over the issue of antisemitism in the party since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader and the fact nothing the party has done has succeeded in fully placating its critics, that officials expected anything approximating universal approbation. But the new code [of conduct] had barely seen the light of day before it was being condemned in the harshest terms by all and sundry..." In September, he noted "...The default mode of almost all the mainstream media is to take as given that the party is institutionally antisemitic" and "the ever wilder doubling-down on painting Corbyn an antisemite and the increasingly desperate attempts to oust him from the leadership using hatred of Jews as a weapon with which to achieve this." In August 2018, author Lev Golinkin wrote: "so many others are, too, for anti-Semitism that's at least as dangerous. And yet the same leaders and institutions who are up in arms over Britain's Labor Party have failed, over and over, to express appropriate outrage" and "a case can be made that for many of these institutions, people like Corbyn and Louis Farrakhan, Farrakhan are manna from heaven, because they allow them to show the world how fiercely they fight anti-Semitism without actually having to do so in places where it's inconvenient." Israeli journalist and author Gideon Levy called Corbyn "a paragon of a leftist, one who has fought his whole life for the values he believes in." He added: "Leave the incitement campaign against Corbyn and wish him luck: He's a man of conscience, and I hope he'll be Britain's prime minister. It could be good for Israel as well." In November 2019, Levy wrote "The new and efficient strategy of Israel and the Zionist establishment brands every seeker of justice as an anti-Semite, and any criticism of Israel as hatred of Jews. Corbyn is a victim of this strategy, which threatens to paralyze and silence Europe with regard to Israel." Writer

wrote: "...allegations that Labour is institutionally antisemitic, or that Corbyn himself is a racist, cut against, rather than with, the grain of what people already suspect to be true. Those who dislike Corbyn overwhelmingly think he's a politically correct peacenik, not a Jew-hater." In August 2018, American scholars Noam Chomsky and

, called the criticism of Corbyn and Labour 'insane' and 'hysteria' and led by powerful interests, with Chomsky arguing that the aim is to undermine Corbyn's attempt to create a political party responsive to the electorate, and Finkelstein asserting that, given the lack of evidence, the campaign was a calculated hoax. In May 2019, Finkelstein called the allegations of antisemitism "witch-hunt hysteria". In July 2019, Chomsky said: "The way charges of anti-semitism are being used in Britain to undermine the Corbyn-led Labour Party is not only a disgrace but also ... an insult to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust." In February 2019, journalist and author Jonathan Cook noted that a Labour Party report by Jennie Formby providing numbers on Labour antisemitism cases "decisively undercut" the claims of Corbyn's critics "not only of endemic anti-semitism in Labour, but of any significant problem at all". In November 2019, he said that "The media and Israel lobby may have been largely successful in recruiting British Jews and many others to their self-serving campaign to stop Corbyn becoming prime minister..." In April 2019, historian and University of Buckingham Professor of Politics

wrote in the ''

'' that Jeremy Corbyn "has an impressive demonstrable record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives". In May, he wrote in ''The Spectator'' that "I will agree that from time to time, as backbench MP and party leader, Corbyn has acted unwisely. But the grounds for labelling him an anti-Semite simply do not exist." In October 2019, Greg Philo, lead author of ''Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief'' remarked in an interview with ''Jacobin (magazine), Jacobin'' magazine that "Both the BBC and even a paper like ''the Guardian'' have contributed to public misunderstanding of this issue. They have a moral duty to discuss the new evidence and analysis that we have offered. But both have not covered it. That is a key source of their power — they can impose silence and simply refuse to discuss their own role." Palestinian author and academic Ghada Karmi wrote that the book "shows Labour is not 'institutionally racist' but the victim of an orchestrated campaign of unfounded accusations of antisemitism."

Surveys and studies

General population

In 2015, 2016 and 2017, the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) commissioned YouGov to survey British attitudes towards Jews. The 2017 survey found that supporters of the Labour Party were less likely to hold antisemitic views than those of the

or the UK Independence Party (UKIP), while those of the Liberal Democrats (UK), Liberal Democrats were the least likely to hold such views. 32% of Labour supporters endorsed at least one "antisemitic attitude", as defined by the CAA, compared to 30% for the Liberal Democrat, 39% for UKIP supporters, and 40% for the Conservatives. The blog Evolve Politics said that the survey data revealed that, among Labour Party supporters, antisemitism had declined between 2015 and 2017. UK antisemitic attitudes by political position 2017

UK antisemitic attitudes by political position 2017

A Populus Ltd, Populus poll during August 2018 found the wider British public did not pay much attention to the prominent news coverage over antisemitism in the Labour Party. No more than 5% rated it as the news story they had noticed most. A study into contemporary antisemitism in Britain by the

(JPR) in September 2017 found that "Levels of antisemitism among those on the left-wing of the political spectrum, including the far-left, are indistinguishable from those found in the general population. Yet, all parts of those on the left of the political spectrum – including the 'slightly left-of-centre,' the 'fairly left-wing' and the 'very left-wing' – exhibit higher levels of anti Israelism than average." It went on, "The most antisemitic group on the political spectrum consists of those who identify as very right-wing: the presence of antisemitic attitudes in this group is 2 to 4 times higher compared to the general population." It continued: "However, in relation to anti-Israel attitudes, the very left-wing lead: 78% (75–82%) in this group endorse at least one anti-Israel attitude, in contrast to 56% in the general population, and 23% (19–26%) hold 6–9 such attitudes, in contrast to 9% in the general population. Elevated levels of anti-Israel attitudes are also observed in other groups on the political left: the fairly left-wing and those slightly left-of-centre. The lowest level of anti-Israel attitudes is observed in the political centre and among those who are slightly right-of-centre or fairly right-wing." The report, however, found that "...anti-Israel attitudes are not, as a general rule, antisemitic; but the stronger a person's anti-Israel views, the more likely they are to hold antisemitic attitudes. A majority of those who hold anti-Israel attitudes do not espouse any antisemitic attitudes, but a significant minority of those who hold anti-Israel attitudes hold them alongside antisemitic attitudes. Therefore, antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes exist both separately and together." The study stated that in "surveys of attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities... The most consistently found pattern across different surveys is heightened animosity towards Jews on the political right..." and that "The political left, captured by voting intention or actual voting for Labour, appears in these surveys as a more Jewish-friendly, or neutral, segment of the population."

British Jews

In 2017, a poll commissioned by Campaign Against Antisemitism of 1,864 British Jewish adults found that 83% (in 2016, 87%) felt that the Labour Party was too tolerant of antisemitism among its MPs, members, or supporters. A Survation poll by ''The Jewish Chronicle'' prior to the 2017 general election found that 13% of Jews intended to vote for Labour, an increase from the 8.5% in May 2016. When asked to rank the degree of "antisemitism among the political party's members and elected representatives" between 1 (low) to 5 (high), Jews ranked Labour at 3.94, compared with 3.64 for UKIP, 2.7 for the Liberal Democrats, and 1.96 for the Conservatives.Labour support just 13 per cent among UK Jews
,

, Marcus Dysch 30 May 2017 In September 2018, a Survation survey conducted for ''The Jewish Chronicle'' found that 85.9% of British Jews considered Jeremy Corbyn antisemitic, and 85.6% considered the Labour Party to have "high" or "very high" levels of antisemitism within the party's members and elected representatives. This compares to 1.7% and 6.1% for Theresa May and the Conservative Party respectively. This was an increase from 69% who considered the party to have "high" or "very high" levels of antisemitism in 2017. A poll conducted for ''

'' by ''Survation'' in October 2019 showed that 87% of British Jews believed that Corbyn was antisemitic, with 47% "seriously considering" leaving the country if Corbyn became Prime Minister.

Labour Party members

In May 2016, a YouGov poll found that 49% of Labour members felt that the party did not have a problem with antisemitism, 47% agreed that it was a problem, but "no worse than in other parties, while 5% thought that antisemitism is a bigger problem in Labour than in other parties. In March 2018, a poll showed 77% of Labour members believed the charges of antisemitism to be deliberately exaggerated to undermine the leader or stop criticism of Israel, while 19% said it was a serious issue. A July 2019 poll by YouGov amongst Labour Party members found that 70% of members thought that antisemitism in the party was a "genuine" problem.

Notes

References

Sources

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General references

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20th century

Second Boer War and "Jewish finance"

Jewish immigration and the Balfour Declaration

Support for Israel

Growing sympathy for Palestine

Jewish voting intentions

2000–2015

Tested election posters

Concern over Israel lobby

Livingstone's comments

Corbyn's backbench record

2016

Shah, Livingstone and Walker's comments

Inquiries into antisemitism

Muslim prejudice

2017

Jewish constituencies in the general election

Hate speech made a disciplinary offence

Authors' public letter

2018

Corbyn's backbench record

Talk by Hajo Meyer

Renaming of Holocaust Memorial Day

John A. Hobson's foreword

Response to mural

Comments about certain Zionists

Corbyn's membership of Facebook groups

Facebook groups

Christine Shawcroft resignation

Relationship with the Jewish community

Working definition of antisemitism

Criticism

Revision

Response

Defence

Outcome and media review

Corbyn's responses

2019

Training and education

Disciplinary processes, outcomes and staff claims

Disciplinary processes

Disciplinary outcomes

Claims by former staff

Resignations of MPs and peers

External investigations

Criticism of Labour Party advocates

Response to attack on rabbi

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis's statement on the 2019 general election

Jewish Labour Movement and the 2019 general election

2020

Keir Starmer's statements

Internal investigation into Labour's Governance and Legal Unit

Sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey

Steve Reed

Aftermath of 2019 ''Panorama'' programme

Publication of the EHRC report

2021

Exclusion of alleged far-left factions

2022

Forde Report

Rebuttals

Labour movement

Jewish activists and organisations

Academics and researchers

Journalists and authors

Surveys and studies

General population

British Jews

Labour Party members

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Bibliography

General references

Further reading