A Labour councillor has been suspended after sharing a blog that claimed Rachel Riley works for “the Israeli state propaganda machine” and that her actions could lead to “another Jo Cox moment”.
Lisa Lewis, a councillor for Southbourne in Dorset who has been given antisemitism training by far-left fringe group Jewish Voice for Labour, retracted the retweet after Ms Riley posted a screenshot of it alongside excerpts from the blog post.
The Countdown presenter tagged the Labour Party with the remark: “Found another one of your racist councillors for you”.
The anonymous blog post, posted on the website of ‘citizen media magazine’ the Dorset Eye, named Ms Riley — who has suffered antisemitic abuse for campaiging against Jew-hate in Labour — in a rant about "goons" who criticise Labour.
It said: “At some point another Jo Cox moment will happen but this time it will not just be MPs who are at great risk. Rachel Riley and her goons will only have themselves to blame if some loose cannon stoops to another loathsome low.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Labour Party takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously, which are are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken. We cannot comment on individual cases."
The JC understands Cllr Lewis has now been suspended from the party pending an investigation.
Dear @UKLabour,
— Rachel Riley (@RachelRileyRR) August 5, 2019
Found another one of your racist councillors for you @Elisalew. 🌹🥀
Yesterday, @SthbourneLabour councillor Lisa Lewis RTd an article claiming I’m going to be responsible for my own murder. @CST_UK pic.twitter.com/hqEuM1E2ER
Since Ms Riley’s tweet, Cllr Lewis edited her Twitter biography so it no longer says she is a Labour councillor or CLP Women’s Officer. She also added the disclaimer “retweets [are] not always an endorsement”.
In previous tweets, Cllr Lewis had claimed that “many Labour Members have attended anti-semitism training” by JVL, the fringe group whose members have repeatedly denied or downplayed antisemitism within the Labour party. "They showed us articles, cartoons, pictures and guided us in which were anti-Semetic [sic] and why", she tweeted last year.
Ms Riley pointed out that on several occasions Cllr Lewis had tweeted that the antisemitism scandal surrounding Jeremy Corbyn was being generated by the media.
The Countdown presenter also said that Cllr Lewis had interacted with two accounts the CST had highlighted in its recent 'Engine of Hate' report into antisemitism in Labour.
On one occasion, Cllr Lewis shared a petition to “stop Rachel Riley from smearing UK Labour”.
Commenting on the criticism levelled at Jeremy Corbyn for liking an antisemitic mural, Cllr Lewis said in a previous tweet: “When I first saw the mural I honestly though the men were Iranian or Pakistani”.
