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Emily Thornberry: Corbyn aides tried to cut manifesto's condemnation of attacks on Israel
The leadership hopeful said advisers tried to drop reference to rocket and terror attacks
January 8, 2020 16:00
The leadership hopeful said advisers tried to drop reference to rocket and terror attacks
January 8, 2020 16:00Labour leadership contender Emily Thornberry has revealed Jeremy Corbyn’s aides tried to cut condemnation of Palestinian attacks against Israel from the party’s election manifesto.
Ms Thornberry, who is running to replace Mr Corbyn, said advisers around him “proposed to amend the language we had used in the 2017 version to remove the condemnation of rocket and terror attacks by Palestinian groups against Israel, while rightly continuing to condemn the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the blockade of Gaza.”
The shadow foreign secretary wrote in the Jewish News that she “repeatedly complained that this was utterly unacceptable,” but was told by “Jeremy’s office that they thought this was ‘very balanced considering the considerable imbalance in the conflict.’
She added: “Disgustingly, attacks on Israeli civilians were being deliberately dismissed in a way that would never have been tolerated of attacks on any civilians in any other country around the world.”
The MP said she believed that Mr Corbyn “knew nothing about the row” based on his reaction at a later meeting. She suggested his advisors failed to tell him about it – something she believed "they frequently did without his knowledge.”
The manifesto ultimately kept the passage condemning the attacks but Ms Thornberry said “the whole process left me deeply disturbed at the mentality of the advisers around Jeremy.”
Ms Thornberry, who has previously spoken at Labour Friends of Israel events, argued that the reason she stayed in Labour while colleagues left over antisemitism was so that she could challenge moments like that and win.
She wrote: “I wanted a Shadow Foreign Secretary in place to fight and ultimately win these arguments.”
She said as leader of the party there would be “no more suspensions, training sessions, or forgiveness, I would just kick these scumbags out of our party, the way we should have done long before now.”
She also said it Labour needed to “act on the recommendations from the EHRC, the JLM and the BOD (Board of Deputies).
She said she would invite Lord Charlie Falconer to implement these recommendations and to propose changes to Labour’s disciplinary procedures.
However her response to the antisemitism crisis over the past four years has not gone uncriticised.
At Limmud in December 2018 she acknowledged allegations of antisemitism that engulfed the party were “shameful” but defended Mr Corbyn by insisting that “there isn’t a racist or antisemitic bone in Jeremy’s body”.
She told the audience: “When people accused Jeremy of being an antisemite he was so upset and as a result he has found it difficult to deal with the problem. He hasn’t dealt with it properly, but to call him antisemitic is wrong.”
The audience jeered Ms Thornberry after her comments.
In February 2018 she sparked anger with an apparently flippant reference to “antisemitism” during an interview with ITV’s Robert Peston.
She was accused of attempting to play down allegations of sexist bullying at a party event on the programme.
Asked about the alleged intimidation of a female Labour activist, Ms Thornberry said: “I think there are allegations she was pushed, she was shoved, she was intimidated - that there was antisemitism.
"This is just kind of one of those things. I talked to her afterwards."
One Labour MP told the JC at the time Ms Thornberry’s remarks were an “absolute disgrace”.
The MP added: “How could she think it was appropriate to use the very serious issue of antisemitism in such a vile and flippant way?”
Ms Thornberry is running alongside Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy and Jess Phillips in the leadership contest on April 4.
She won just a single vote in the first round of MPs' nominations, compared with 23 for Sir Keir, who was in first place and six for Rebecca Long Bailey, who was in second place.
