Jeremy Corbyn indrømmer at han har modtaget omkring 300 klagesager som involverer egne partimedlemmers antisemitiske holdninger efter at han blev partileder i 2015. Inde i selve partiet klages der over at der ikke gøres nok for at rydde op. 150 personer er blevet smidt ud af Labour som følge af antisemitisme de sidste to år og 74 nye sager venter på behandling. Denne debat har stået på i lang tid i Storbritannien og den har bidraget til indre strid i Labour, hvor mange er misfornøjede med Corbyns manglende ledelse i kampen mod antisemitisme.

Jeremy Corbyn fik selv meget kritik for at have forsvaret et antisemitisk vægmaleri i Øst-London i 2012. Vægmaleriet befandt sig på Brick Lane i den nu muslimske bydel Tower Hamlets. Det blev fjernet efter at folk havde klaget.

Den politiske korrespondent Lewis Goodall stiller i Sky News spørgsmål ved Corbyns holdning og håndtering af vægmaleriet:

To those people I would simply say this: if an old Facebook post of Theresa May was discovered, inquiring as to «why» an anti-Islamic mural was being removed from London’s streets, what would your reaction be?

What, indeed, would be Mr Corbyn’s? I think if we’re honest, we know the answer.

En af Corbyns allierede, Christine Shawcroft, meddelte i dag sin afgang efter at have forsvaret et Facebook-opslag af kollega Alan Bull om at Holocaust ikke fandt sted. Christine Shawcroft ledede det panel, som traf beslutningerne i klagesagerne om antisemitisme.

Alan Bull har længe været i søgelyset for sine antisemitiske udmeldinger. Her er en anden:

Konspirationerne er mange – her mener Alan Bull at Mossad stod bag drabet på JFK:

Tidligere på ugen var der en stor demonstration i London mod antisemitisme.

I et åbent brev til The Times udfordrer Labour-politiker og medlem af Overhuset, Bernard Donoughue, Jeremy Corbyn:

LABOUR AND ANTISEMITISM
Sir, The great Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell said in a speech to the party more than half a century ago that a country or society could be judged by how it treated its Jewish citizens. The same can be said for a political party. Today the Labour Party under its present leadership is so far sadly failing that test. Jeremy Corbyn can and should correct that failure immediately — not by apologies but by actions to discipline Labour’s antisemites.

Antisemitism is not just an issue for Jewish party members; it is a deep moral issue for all decent British people, for non-Jews such as myself as much as for Jews.

I worked for Gaitskell from 1959-63, in No 10 for Harold Wilson and for James Callaghan from 1974-79 and as an agriculture minister for Tony Blair from 1997-99. None of those great Labour leaders would have tolerated antisemitism in their party. That is 40 working years of a much longer Labour tradition that has recently been sadly broken and should be restored. The challenge for Mr Corbyn is to do that now.
Bernard Donoughue 
House of Lords, London SW1

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