LONDON, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 02: Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn joins activists outside Finsbury Park Station on December 02, 2019 in London, England. UK voters are set to go to the polls on December 12 in the country’s third general election in less than five years. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) (JTA) — The Labour Party failed to mention Jews in an elections campaign video that champions diversity and the rights of over 20 groups.
The 68-second video released this week features images of British people, towns and cities, along with a September speech by Dawn Butler, who holds the party’s Women and Equalities portfolio.
Butler lists various population groups, including people who are LGBT+, straight, Roma, black, white, Asian, disabled, “struggling to pay rent” or “wear a hijab, turban, a cross.” She assures that “a Labour government will value you, just be your true authentic self.”
While Jews make up 0.37 percent of the United Kingdom’s population, leaders of major Jewish groups suggested the omission was not connected to the minority’s limited electoral strength.
Rather, they say, it is linked to the anti-Semitism problem in Labour’s ranks following the 2015 election of Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Corbyn, a far-left politician, has supported boycotting Israel and called Hamas and Hezbollah his friends.
Jewish Leadership Council Chairman Jonathan Goldstein told the Jewish Chronicle that the omission of Jews from the video was “extraordinary and chilling” and “shows they don’t regard the Jewish community or anti-Semitism as equal to other communities or racism of other types.”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said that in the video, “The Jewish community is ‘erased’ as a minority group worthy of their support.”
Labour’s media team did not immediately reply to requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.