LABOUR’S caustic civil war rumbled on over the weekend, with Eddie Izzard calling for the party to “stamp out the stain of anti-Semitism” found in a “minority” of members.
Izzard was appointed to the party’s national executive committee (NEC) after Christine Shawcroft resigned late on Saturday night.
She had been the chair of the party’s disputes panel and had been under pressure to quit after leaked emails showed that she, a staunch Corbynista, had opposed the suspension of a left-wing Labour council candidate who been accused of Holocaust denial.
Izzard, who was runner-up in the NEC elections, said Labour needed to “stamp out completely the stain of anti-Semitism from a minority of members.” “
It has no place in our party,” he added. “We must make amends and repair the damage with the Jewish community as Jeremy Corbyn has promised to do.”
The comic and actor, who is a Labour centrist, also offered his support to Corbyn. “We must unite our party around the platform of hope that Jeremy Corbyn has built so that we can kick out this terrible Tory government and build a Britain for the many, not the few,” he said.
His call came as Apprentice star Alan Sugar deleted a mocked-up picture of Jeremy Corbyn alongside Adolf Hitler posted on his social media on Friday night. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell had asked the former Labour peer to take the offending tweet down. Sugar resisted initially before wiping it from Twitter. He later responded: “It’s a joke, but the angry brigade like to moan.”
Meanwhile, the Edinburgh Eastern constituency Labour party passed a motion calling on the party’s NEC to probe members who had spoken out against Corbyn in recent days.
The motion – proposed by Daniel Moran, a senior staff member for former Scottish Labour deputy leader Alex Rowley – called for “an investigation into members from within the Labour Party actively campaigning to undermine the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn”.
It argued that there was “a systematic and organised campaign designed to destabilise the party leadership not based on policy considerations.” This campaign, the motion added, was “bringing the party into disrepute.”
One Scottish Labour source called the motion “shameful”, telling a news website: “Members across the UK have been united in their outrage at the anti-Semitism in the party, and have rightly spoken out to reassure the Jewish community. But instead of condemning anti-Semitism, this motion demands a formal investigation into those courageous enough to speak out. This sends entirely the wrong message, and shows just how low some supporters of Corbyn are prepared to stoop.”
Moran told The National that criticism was unfair. His motion, he insisted, was about asking “for unity in the party and to stop the orchestrated attacks from within” and had “nothing to do with anti-Semitism”.
He added: “I, like Jeremy Corbyn, fundamentally disagree with all forms of prejudice. I would call out anti-Semitism whenever I see it, just as I would racism, sexism or any other form of hateful prejudice.”
Corbyn, in a Passover message released on Friday, said Labour needed “do better” at tackling anti-Semitism.
Shadow digital minister Liam Byrne said one way Labour could do better would be to tackle the backlog of about 70 cases of anti-Semitism still to be investigated. One of those involves former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who was suspended over comments suggesting Hitler supported Zionism in the 1930s.
“I personally do not think that Mr Corbyn is an anti-Semite, I don’t think he has an anti-Semitic bone in his body,” Byrne told BBC Radio 4’s The World this Weekend. “But the reality is now that we need action and not simply words. We have got a lot of disciplinary cases stacking up. Mr Livingstone is at the top of that queue.”
Meanwhile, the party rubbished a Sunday newspaper report that said 12 staffers working for Corbyn or McDonnell were members of Labour-supporting Facebook groups where anti-Semitic comments had been made. A senior party source said: “This has been written up in a way that makes it look as if these people were active and complicit in the abuse. But A lot of these people did not even realise they were members of these groups.”
Last night it was reported that Corbyn had deleted his personal Facebook account.
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