Lord Blunkett: Labour 'letting down' Britain over anti-Semitism row
3 min read
Labour is "letting down" the people of Britain by failing to properly tackle its anti-Semitism problem, a party grandee has declared.
Lord Blunkett said his party should be focusing on holding the Government to account rather than having internal battles.
His comments came as the latest row over anti-Jewish sentiment by Labour members continues to rage.
Speaking to Radio Four's Today programme, Lord Blunkett also said that "in an ideal world" Christine Shawcroft would be suspended by Labour for defending a former party candidate who posted an article on Facebook which said the Holocaust was a "hoax".
She was forced to stand down as chair of Labour's disputes panel when her email backing Alan Bull was leaked to The Times, but remains a member of the party's ruling National Executive Committee.
More than 40 Labour MPs and peers have written to Jeremy Corbyn urging him to suspend Ms Shawcroft's party membership.
Lord Blunkett said that both Labour's NEC and the trade unions should be doing more to handle the problem.
“Well in an ideal world she should (be suspended), but the problem for Jeremy Corbyn is that he has now acquired, or those immediately supporting him have acquired unbridled power in every element of the Labour party structures," he said.
"When you do that people demand you take action where you don’t have the power. This is a matter for the national executive committee. The trade unions have abrogated their historic responsibility numerously recently. It is time they stepped up."
He said that members should be doing more than 'just ticking a box' from campaign group Momentum when selecting candidates for this year's NEC elections.
"It is time the NEC took responsibility, and when people vote in the internal election for NEC members this summer I hope they’ll stop just ticking a box sent out by Momentum on social media and they’ll think for themselves and act to put people in place on the National Executive who will sort this mess out once and for all because it is the people of Britain we are letting down, and instead of internalising which is what we are doing, we should be arguing with the Government over the things they are doing.”
The former Home Secretary is the latest peer to criticise Labour for their handling of the crisis after Lord Winston claimed that he was "deeply ashamed" of the party.
Speaking at an event earlier this week, Lord Blunkett also admitted that the anti-Semitism problem in the party had been growing.
"I think its worsened in two ways. One is people have sought to enter the Labour party who a year or two ago either would not have sough to or would not have been allowed in.
"Much of this problem is coming from people who are not traditional Labour Party members and who should be rejected.
"Secondly I think, for understandable reasons, there is a tendency on the left to be so engrained with the plight of the Palestinians, which is a really severe issue, that they see everything to do with Israel and conjoin that therefore with international Zionism and then conjoin that with being a Jew, with that issues.
"They can't intellectually get off it. They can't separate the genuine campaign for a homeland and freedom from oppression for the Palestinians from this issue."
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