News
Chris Williamson says expelled Labour activist Jackie Walker should be Labour MP
Suspended MP told Labour Against The Witchhunt event she 'should be on the green benches'
September 25, 2019 14:59
Suspended MP told Labour Against The Witchhunt event she 'should be on the green benches'
September 25, 2019 14:59Suspended Labour MP Chris Williamson has claimed that Jackie Walker, the activist the party expelled, should be one of its MPs.
Mr Williamson, who had the whip withdrawn over his repeated interventions in the party's antisemitism crisis, said the expelled activist, who was with him on a panel at a fringe event at Labour conference on Tuesday, "should not only be in the Labour Party, she should be on the green benches in the House of Commons".
"This McCarthyite era will come to an end," he added.
“Jackie Walker should not only be in the Labour Party, she should be on the green benches in the House of Commons,” says Chris Williamson, who Labour has suspended but not yet kicked out of the party.
Ms Walker was expelled in March, almost three years after she was suspended twice over comments about Jewish issues.
She was initially suspended after claiming that “many Jews” were “chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade”.
Readmitted a few months later, she was again suspended after attending a Jewish Labour Movement event at party conference, where she wrongly said that Holocaust Memorial Day did not commemorate other genocides and said that she “still haven’t heard a definition of antisemitism that I can work with”.
At Tuesday's event, which was covered by HuffPost journalist Rachel Wearmouth, Mr Williamson also called for party's Compliance Unit, which investigates complaints against members, to be dismantled, saying: "I would tear down the compliance unit because we are a political party, not the Stasi.
"Let's devolve it to the CLPs [Constituency Labour Parties] and let the people decide."
Also present was former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who quit Labour in May 2018 as he was being investigated for his repeated claims that Hitler supported Zionism.
Without evidence, he told the meeting: "There has been an increase in antisemitism because all this media attention on it has led to real antisemites attacking people."
Anti-racism campaigners Hope Not Hate said the event was a "reminder of the desperate need to fight antisemitism on the left. It is good that this event was outside conference, shunned by most delegates. But so much more work is needed in order to drive this scourge from the Labour Party and movement".
Tonight’s meeting, is reminder of the desperate need to fight antisemitism on the left. It is good that this event was outside conference, shunned by most delegates. But so much more work is needed in order to drive this scourge from the Labour Party and movement.
— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) September 24, 2019
A Board of Deputies spokesperson said that Mr Williamson was "making the case for his own expulsion".
Chris Williamson seems to be making a very eloquent case for his own expulsion from @UKLabour . Why isn't Labour acting with the same speed and determination in his case as it has with others accused of being disloyal to the party? https://t.co/fwT9MEpEQf
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) September 25, 2019
