Diane Abbott sparked anger today after it emerged she had dismissed the Labour Party's on-going antisemitism crisis as a "smear campaign against Jeremy" on at least two separate occasions this week.
The JC has learned that Ms Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary, "ranted" about what she said was an orchestrated attack on Jeremy Corbyn in a meeting of her shadow Home Office team earlier this week.
On Tuesday, after discovering that some of her comments had been revealed by shocked colleagues to outsiders after the team meeting, Ms Abbott launched a further bid to discover who had repeated them.
One source said: “Diane could not have made her feelings any clearer on how she believed antisemitism was being used as a smear on Jeremy in the meeting.