Shami Chakrabarti urges Jewish Labour ‘not to personalise’ anti-Semitism

• Keerthi Mohan
• 08 April, 2019

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By: Keerthi Mohan

SHAMI CHAKRABARTI has urged Labour’s Jewish affiliate not to leave the party saying Jeremy Corbyn won’t be leader forever.

The shadow attorney general has urged the Jewish Labour Movement to stay int he party to tackle racism together.

She told Sky News on Sunday: “My plea to them is not to personalise it. My plea to the Jewish Labour Movement is to stay in the Labour movement and to tackle racism together, not to personalise it and make it about Jeremy Corbyn because he is one person and he won’t be leader forever.

“We have to make this non-factional, non-personal and work together, and that’s my plea to colleagues and comrades in the Jewish Labour Movement, who are such an important part of Labour’s history and Labour’s story.”

The Jewish Labour Movement on Sunday (8) passed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn’s leadership.

The party is under pressure over its handling of antisemitism allegations. A report in The Sunday Times claimed that the party’s system for dealing with complaints had been beset by delays and interference from the leader’s office.

The paper said that some members investigated for posting comments online such as “Heil Hitler” and “Jews are the problem” had not been expelled despite complaints being made against them.

Refuting these claims, a spokesperson for the party was quoted as saying: “The information which was leaked to the Sunday Times does not reflect the full details of cases and action taken and is not up to date. It is not taken from our complaints tracking system and it contains a number of inaccuracies. It vastly overstates the number of complaints allegedly ‘sent to LOTO’. More cases have received decisions on suspension than reported, so the number of ‘outstanding’ cases is also wrong.

“The Labour party recently released figures and we are committed to thorough and consistent handling of complaints. We report cases regularly to the NEC. Reporting misleading and inaccurate information misleads the public and undermines effective action against antisemitism.”