Labour’s Barry Gardiner denies Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic, merely critical of Israel’s politics
Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner has said that Jeremy Corbyn and the Party have been wrongly accused of antisemitism, and that the Labour leader is merely “critical of the politics of Israel”.
Mr Gardiner, who is the Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade, said that it was “important” to have “clarity” on Mr Corbyn’s record, and that “What Jeremy [Corbyn] has always done is be critical of the politics of Israel and the way Israel has dealt with the Palestinian question. And he has been absolutely unequivocal on that. He has not and the Party has not, in my view, been antisemitic.”
However, in the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism has shown that Jeremy Corbyn is personally responsible for 24 incidents of antisemitic discourse, which is equal to fifteen percent of all recorded incidents involving parliamentary candidates and party leaders. Overall, Labour Party candidates for Parliament account for 82 percent of all incidents.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right, and that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is the party leader of choice for those who hold multiple antisemitic views.
On 28th May, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.
Over 58,000 people have now signed our petition denouncing Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite and declaring him “unfit to hold any public office.”