Jewish Labour Movement passes motion of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn over anti-semitism row
3 min read
The Jewish Labour Movement has branded Jeremy Corbyn "unfit to be Prime Minister" over his handling of the party's anti-semitism crisis.
In a historic move, JLM members passed a motion of no confidence in the Labour leader at its annual general meeting.
The motion said Labour bosses had "fundamentally failed to address anti-semitism" in the party.
It also accused party officials "continuing to provoke" JLM, most recently by replacing the group - Labour's longest-standing socialist affiliate - as the provider of anti-semitism awareness training to party members.
The motion went on: "The leadership of the Labour party have demonstrated that they are anti-semitic and have presided over a culture of anti-semitism in which they have failed to use their personal and positional power to tackle anti-semitism, and have instead used their influence to protect and defend anti-semites.
And it added that JLM resolves "to make a proclaimation stating that we have no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn and our belief that he is unfit to be Prime Minister".
The motion, which was passed almost unanimously, came as The Sunday Times revealed leaked emails which showed that hundreds of cases of alleged anti-semitism remain unresolved.
Labour MP and JLM member Ruth Smeeth, who spoke in support of the motion, said: "Today’s vote by the Labour party’s oldest socialist affiliate is yet another dark day in the misery of anti-semitism in my once great party.
"We agreed last month that we wouldn’t disaffiliate from the party but that we’d stay on our own terms. Today we set our terms. The leadership of the Labour party need to listen and act.
"They need to publish their response to the EHRC investigation in full. They need to hand over the complaints process to an independent body and they need to start taking this issue seriously - something they have patently failed to do over the last three years."
Earlier, Shadow Attorney General Baroness Chakrabarti had pleaded with the JLM not to sever its ties with Labour because Jeremy Corbyn "won't be leader forever".
A Labour spokesperson said: "Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community and its organisations.
"Anti-semitism complaints received since April 2018 relate to about 0.1% of our membership, but one anti-semite in our party is one too many. We are determined to tackle anti-semitism and root it out of our party.”
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