RICHARD Leonard must show “leadership” and vote for Labour to support the internationally agreed definition of semitism when his party’s ruling NEC meets today, the Scottish Tories have said.
Failure to do so would cause “irreparable damage to the relationship between his party and Jewish people in Scotland”.
Leonard will phone in to the NEC meeting in central London, to vote on whether to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) code in full, including all 11 of the examples that definition uses to illustrate anti-Semitism.
Those examples include calling for Jews to be killed; using stereotypes about Jewish “power”; Holocaust denial; or “blood libel”.
That definition, and those examples are used in full by the British Government, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, 124 local authorities across the country and numerous governments around the world.
Labour had initially signed up to all but four of the 11, citing concerns over free speech.
Those four were accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country, claiming that Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour, requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations, and comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis.
The party has been engulfed by the row over anti-semitism over the summer. Yesterday, a key ally of Corbyn who claimed Jewish “Trump fanatics” were behind the row was re-elected on to the NEC.
READ MORE: Carlaw tells SNP not to vote with Tories on Brexit
Peter Willsman was recorded on tape at the July meeting of the NEC complaining that Jewish people were making up claims of anti-Semitism “without any evidence at all”.
“They can falsify social media very easily,” he was heard saying.
Left-wing pressure group Momentum, key supporters of Corbyn, dropped support for Willsman’s re-election to the NEC.
They called the comments “deeply insensitive and inappropriate”.
Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, above, called Willsman a “loud mouthed bully”. That, however, hasn’t stopped party members from voting him in.
Last month, Leonard said: “We need to get to a position where not only have we got a very robust code on anti-Semitism within the Labour Party — which we are striving to achieve — but also which allows for freedom of speech, a discourse around Palestine and Israel.”
Tory deputy leader Jackson Carlaw, who is the MSP for Eastwood, said the Scottish Labour chief needed to speak up.
“Richard Leonard has been oddly quiet on this matter,” Carlaw said. “But this is his biggest chance yet to take a proper and convincing stand against anti-Semitism.
“By phoning-in [to the NEC] and voting to adopt the definition, he may well face the ire of Jeremy Corbyn and his legions of dogmatic supporters. But he’d also be reassuring Scotland’s Jewish community that the Labour party here will not tolerate or ignore anti-Semitism.
“There’s been a real lack of leadership on this matter on both sides of the border, but now that can be addressed.
“If Richard Leonard does not back this definition of anti-Semitism, he will do irreparable damage to the relationship between his party and Jewish people in Scotland.”
Last month’s visit to Scotland by Corbyn was overshadowed by comments from former Labour MP Jim Sheridan.
Sheridan, who was MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North until 2015, and is now a councillor in Renfrewshire, wrote on his Facebook: “For all my adult life I have had the utmost respect and empathy for the Jewish community and their historic suffering. No longer, due to what they and their Blairite plotters are doing to my party and the long-suffering people of Britain who need a radical Labour government.”
The party suspended him over the comments.
A poll for the Observer revealed 36% of people believe Labour
holds, or probably holds, an anti-Jewish prejudice.
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