Jeremy Corbyn under fire from Tom Watson over handling of anti-Semitism

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Jeremy Corbyn was today under fire today from deputy leader Tom Watson over his office’s handling of anti-Semitism cases after last night’s “watershed” BBC Panorama documentary.

Mr Watson said there was “almost a permissive culture” towards anti-Semitism in the party, as he claimed there was evidence of “some participation” from the leader’s office in disciplinary cases.

He called on Mr Corbyn today to adopt urgent changes including automatically excluding party members who have a “prima facie” case of anti-Jewish racism and language and said a new “completely independent” complaints system should be brought in.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In the last four years, since Jeremy and I were elected leader and deputy leader of the party, there is a growing belief that there is a sickness in our party, that this kind of abuse has been in some way allowed,”

“That there’s almost a permissive culture that people can use anti-Jewish, racist language both in our meetings and to each other on social media and we’ve failed to address that properly.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and communications chief Seamas Milne, who was criticised in the Panorama documentary.
PA Archive/PA Images

He went on: “It does seem to me that there is obviously some participation in these disciplinary cases from the leader’s office, which means they are responsible for dealing with the rebuilding of trust in the Jewish community.”

The BBC documentary Is Labour Anti-Semitic included testimony from eight ex-staff members - some of whom broke non-disclosure agreements - to say they had been undermined in their attempts to tackle anti-Semitism within Labour.

Former officials alleged that Labour’s director of communications, Seumas Milne, and its general secretary, Jennie Formby, interfered with investigations.

Mr Watson told Sky the “Panorama programme was a watershed moment” and said a new independent complaints system “made up of people of standing from the Jewish community” should be brought in.

Labour peer Lord Levy said the Jewish community were today in shock, disbelief and fear at the programme’s revelations.

Labour has been severely critical of the documentary describing it as “seriously inaccurate, politically one-sided polemic, which breached basic journalistic standards”.

They dispute many of the show’s assertions, adding that it included “invented quotes and edited emails to change their meaning.”

Today a whistle-blower featured in the documentary spoke exclusively to the Evening Standard.

Former party complaints administrator Martha Robinson, 24, denied that the former staffers were “politically motivated” against Mr Corbyn and his team as she had personally voted for him to be leader.

She said: “We all believe that we have done the right thing [in speaking out].

“This is what we wanted, to get the story out there and to tell the truth about what happened.

“The process that the party used for disciplinary issues is so complex, and there are so many different stages to it, that they can very easily kind of twist and misrepresent the figures. They can say ‘oh we’ve only had this many complaints of anti-Semitism’, but there’s another 500 emails that haven’t been read.”

Ms Robinson also revealed she was informed her contract was not renewed in March 2019 because there was no longer a need for her role.

She said: “I was never given any support, never given any training on what anti-Semitism means or what it meant for Labour.”

She said on the day she left there were 440 emails in her inbox she believes were related to anti-Semitism cases.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “These claims are untrue.”

The party does not believe the levels of emails in an inbox are representative of the number of complaints or disciplinary cases.

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