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London Jewish Group Demands Investigation into Labour Party’s ‘Endemic Anti-Jewish’ Behavior

[additional-authors]
May 6, 2019
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

(JTA) — A Jewish advocacy group in London has accused the Labour Party of “endemic anti-Jewish behaviour” and wants the government to investigate.

The report by Labour Against Antisemitism contains “15,000 screenshots taken from hundreds of Labour members ‘and officials’ promoting anti-Semitic views.” It was was submitted to the British Equality and Human Rights Commission and seeks a “full-scale antisemitism probe.”

Jewish groups have accused the party’s leftist leader, Jeremy Corbyn, of overseeing a massive surge in anti-Semitism within the party once considered the natural home of British Jewry.

Labour Against Antisemitism spokesman Euan Philipps said in a statement that a team of volunteers over the last two years “has systematically collected and detailed evidence of Labour Party members promoting antisemitic views and tropes across a range of social media platforms.”

“This has all been reported to the party’s compliance team, in a format suggested by them and including a significant level of detail,” he said.

Philipps said Labour took little effort to deal with the problem.

“Most distressing of all, reports containing the most appalling levels of racism have been given only the lightest reprimand,” he contended. “The message again and again has been the same: we don’t care about this issue.”

Nine lawmakers have quit the party over anti-Semitism in its ranks.

According to The Jewish Chronicle, over 85 percent of British Jews believe that Corbyn is an anti-Semite. He has called Hamas and Hezbollah his friends, defended an anti-Semitic mural and laid flowers on the graves of Palestinian terrorists. Corbyn has called to boycott Israel and applauded a speaker who called for its destruction.

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