Actress and antisemitism campaigner Tracy Ann Oberman has accused Jeremy Corbyn’s son of setting his “Labour outriders” on her after she jokingly tweeted a picture of his father at the theatre where she is in a play.
Ms Oberman, who is playing the lead role in Mother of Him at the Park Theatre, in Finsbury Park north London, discovered the Labour Leader had turn up to the theatre and shared a photo of him on her Twitter feed.
Mr Corbyn was attending the theatre, which is in his constituency, on Friday with his wife and Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti.
Ms Oberman shared a photo of Mr Corbyn and his wife and Baroness Chakrabarti on Twitter joking that she was being trolled by the Labour Leader.
Amazing - Tommy Corbyn has set his Labour Outriders on me because he didn’t like my jokey pic of his Dad the EHRC king and Whitewash Report Chakrabarti So guess what - I’m going to tweet it again - 😂 you don’t intimidate me. #belouder #trollshegone #CorbynOutriders #WontShutUp pic.twitter.com/Guu09I2SZX
— Tracy Ann Oberman (@TracyAnnO) October 5, 2019
Her tweet then caught the attention of Mr Corbyn's son, Tommy, who accused Ms Oberman of being a “troll.”
Tweeting in response to her photo, he wrote: “You nasty troll. My dad has been a friend and supporter of the @ParkTheatre since it opened in 2013 and helped in setting it up.
“The fact you think your presence is even worthy of a second thought is laughable.”
@TracyAnnO You nasty troll. My dad has been a friend and supporter of the @ParkTheatre since it opened in 2013 and helped in setting it up. The fact you think your presence is even worthy of a second thought is laughable. https://t.co/0zd6KnSLrH
— Tommy Corbyn (@TommyCorbyn) October 5, 2019
Ms Oberman has been a vocal campaigner against antisemitism online and has spoken out about how that has led to her being trolled online.
She said Tommy Corbyn had “set his Labour Outriders on me because he didn’t like my jokey picture of his Dad the EHRC king and Whitewash Report Chakrabarti So guess what – I’m going to tweet it again – you don’t intimidate me.”
Amazing - Tommy Corbyn has set his Labour Outriders on me because he didn’t like my jokey pic of his Dad the EHRC king and Whitewash Report Chakrabarti So guess what - I’m going to tweet it again - 😂 you don’t intimidate me. #belouder #trollshegone #CorbynOutriders #WontShutUp pic.twitter.com/Guu09I2SZX
— Tracy Ann Oberman (@TracyAnnO) October 5, 2019
Speaking to the JC Ms Oberman said: “The tweet was clearly a jokey nod to my followers and I am shocked that Tommy Corbyn can attack me for posting it when neither he nor his father have spoken out about the abuse I and many others have received in his fathers name.
“I love the Park Theatre because of its huge diversity and the great choice of plays it puts on.”
Baroness Chakrabarti, the former director of civil liberties group Liberty, was asked by Mr Corbyn to look into antisemitism in the party in 2016.
However her report was dismissed by Jewish groups and MPs as a "whitewash" because it found that Labour was not overrun by antisemitism or other forms of racism despite an “occasionally toxic atmosphere”.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, said the “credibility of her report lies in tatters” after she accepted a peerage following the publication of her report.
Ms Oberman set up a podcast called Trolled in April to talk about the experience of receiving abuse online.
She recently appeared on Lorraine Kelly’s ITV show to discuss trolling, detailing the kind of things that people say to her.
