Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth has renewed criticism of the party’s past handling of the antisemitism row. 

The shadow health secretary spoke to Times Radio on Wednesday ahead of the publication of an equality watchdog’s report into alleged antisemitism within the Labour Party.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) findings are set to be published on Thursday, following an 18-month investigation.

Mr Ashworth criticised “the refusal to acknowledge why the Labour Party had an issue with antisemitism in the last few years” and "the delay" in setting up robust disciplinary procedures.

“A lot of this was about the fact that there was just a refusal to acknowledge the issue,” he said.

“I obviously don’t know what’s in the report, because it’s confidential," he added. "But that was a shameful period in our history, and we have to be clear that we are never going back to that, and we will do everything we can to repair relations with the Jewish community who are understandably and quite rightly hurt by the Labour party’s failure to deal with this in recent years.”

Jeremy Corbyn’s successor Sir Keir Starmer has sought to mend relations with the community since his election in April and has pledged to stamp out antisemitism within the party. 

The Labour leader has also vowed to implement any recommendations made by the EHRC.

But Corbyn’s former chief of staff Karie Murphy defended the party’s handling of complaints in a column for The Guardian published earlier this week, which drew strong criticism from the Labour Party’s Jewish affiliate, the Jewish Labour Movement.

She claimed that “under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, antisemites were removed from the Labour party more quickly, transparently and effectively than ever before.”

“Every action we took was aimed at creating a process that got antisemites out of the Labour party swiftly and fairly,” she added.