Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that Labour’s task under Sir Keir Starmer is to “correct” the “failures” to deal with antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn.

Writing the foreword to a republished edition of the late historian David Cesarani’s book, The Left and the Jews, the Jews and the Left, he revealed how the original manuscript started life as a briefing for the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and future Prime Minister.

“I worked with David Cesarani many years ago when I asked him to help me with a speech I was making on antisemitism. The notes he sent me for that speech turned into the pamphlet you are about to read,” he wrote.

“Over the many years since, I have had reason to be grateful for the advice he gave me then.”

Mr Cesarani’s initial briefing for Mr Brown was commissioned in response to a number of incidents where antisemitism had infected the British Left, around the period of the Iraq war in 2003.

According to Mr Cesarani’s wife, Dawn Waterman, Mr Brown had taken a particular interest following wellpublicised incidents such as the 2002 New Statesman cover depicting a golden Star of David piercing a Union Jack flag, with the headline, “A kosher conspiracy?”, and previous comments by then Labour MP Tam Dalyell who said that the then prime minister Tony Blair was “unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers”.

The republication of Mr Cesarani’s pamphlet comes as Keir Starmer is trying to change Labour in light of his predecessor’s failure on antisemitism.

Writing in the new edition, Ms Waterman said that she had often thought it sad that “at the moment it was most needed, David wasn’t there to help us better understand and challenge the growth of antisemitism in the Labour Party”.

“The Left and the Jews, the Jews and the Left” is available for £4.99