Written evidence submitted by Elizabeth Morley

Antisemitism in the Labour Party

I would like to point out at the outset that Jeremy Corbyn has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli Government and a passionate campaigner for justice for the Palestinians throughout his political life. It is generally accepted that when criticism of Israel is based on incontrovertible evidence of Israel's breaches of UN Resolutions and international human rights legislation it cannot be, nor should it be, confused with antisemitism. Antisemitism is a form of racist hatred, something which to my knowledge Mr Corbyn was never once accused of in all his 33 years as an MP. However, since he became Labour leader, this accusation has been used against others in the Party to make maximum trouble for him and undermine his leadership.

I have been a close observer of Parliament over the last 10 years. I noticed that when Mr Corbyn won the Labour leadership election last September hostility against him began almost immediately, both in Parliament and in the media. The 35 MPs who had nominated him were labelled "half-wits", "morons ", or worse. The campaign to denigrate and humiliate him has been the most shocking thing in politics I have witnessed yet. Even Mr Cameron began taunting him with personal remarks across the dispatch box almost from day one. Labour MPs, both on the front and back benches, who should have rallied round their leader and sprung to his defence, did the very opposite. Instead of looking shocked and angry, they seemed rather pleased that their leader was being made fun of. Week after week at PMQs their body language alone made it blindingly obvious that some in the PLP were hostile to him and would never accept him as their leader.

In tandem with allusions to his links with Sinn Fein, aspersions were repeatedly cast about the fact that Mr Corbyn had once welcomed a group of politicians from Palestine and Lebanon with the words: "Hello friends". The insinuation clearly being that he supported extremists and terrorists from Northern Ireland to the Middle East. Attacks on Mr Corbyn's character and probity came thick and fast from every side: he didn't wear a tie; he should have worn a suit; he didn't seem to sing the national anthem; he didn't bow low enough at the Cenotaph. Then his first cabinet pick was unfairly criticised: "he didn't have enough women in his shadow cabinet", even though he appointed 13 women and 13 men. The campaign against him peaked with the choreographed resignations over his "leadership style". All manner of pressure was put on him to resign, to make him throw in the towel. Then came the EU Referendum. Even before the campaign got under way, it was being put about that he was a secret "Brexiter" and could not be relied on to campaign for Remain. No matter if he did or didn't, it was inevitable that if we voted Leave, that too would be used against him and trigger a further wave of resignations.** But even that was not the end of the attacks. New charges against Mr Corbyn keep breaking on the news almost daily; attempts to tighten the screws until he breaks down and succumbs, to topple him by any means, continue even as a write.

The entire "antisemitism" furore has to be seen against this background. The charge of antisemitism, of causing offence to Jewish people, has for a long time been a potent weapon against any politician. So perhaps it was inevitable that one way or another it would sooner or later be resorted to in an effort to vilify him and weaken his leadership. As it could not be levelled against him personally, the case was built by delving into the past and present activities of his supporters and MPs on social media. From there it was but a short step to accusing him of "not doing enough to stamp it out", no matter how many "culprits" he suspended, no matter that he consistently asserted that all kinds of racism and

bullying were unacceptable.

Has any other party leader ever faced these kinds of accusations before? I don't think so. When Paul Flynn was accused of "antisemitism" in 2011, he was criticised but that was all. Notwithstanding the best efforts of John Mann, he was certainly not suspended over it. Ed Miliband was not pilloried for "not doing enough to stamp it out"; there was no attempt to trawl through people's past in the search for anything vaguely "antisemitic". When former Lib Dem MP David Ward was suspended in 2013 over "offensive antisemitic comments", nobody tried to claim that antisemitism was rampant in the Lib Dem Party, even given the well-known record of Jenny Tonge. Or take the case of Bob Russell:

accused of "antisemitism", but never suspended over it; nor did it prevent him being knighted in the New Years Honours! Successive Lib Dem leaders were not subjected to a witch-hunt over their failure to stamp out antisemitism in their party. This week again, Cllr Ward has been accused of "antisemitism". It's hardly going to rebound on Mr Farron.

In conclusion: I do not believe that the Labour Party would have been accused of "antisemitism" had it not been for the fact that there is a massive attempt to discredit Mr Corbyn by fair means or foul, to get rid of him as Labour leader. And why? Because for reasons best known to themselves, some people do not want him ever to become the prime minister of this country. As for Mr Corbyn having been a "rebel" under previous Labour leaders, yes, he always voted with his conscience rather than the whip. What he never did was try to undermine the leadership.

NB: A note to explain why in places I have put antisemitism in inverted commas: Genuine antisemitism, hatred of Jewish people for no other reason than that they are Jewish, is repugnant and has to be condemned. But there needs to be a thorough inquiry into these claims of "offence" of Jewish people. I am three quarters Jewish myself; I too criticise Israeli policies against the Palestinian people. I am not offended when gentiles do the same. I am only offended if I hear anti-Jewish hatred. I would have liked the Home Affairs Committee to make this distinction too. I would have liked them to ask some of these questions and probe the likely motivations behind some of these accusations: were any of them deliberately engineered to feed into the agenda of undermining Mr Corbyn? At least some of these accusations of "antisemitism" might then have turned out not to have been genuine at all.

** [How ironic that by contrast Mrs May, who certainly did not campaign anything like passionately for the cause espoused by her own leader at the time, far from being blamed for the result, was rewarded with the keys to No. 10!]

Yours sincerely,

Elizabeth Morley