Labour antisemitism cases could cross hate crime threshold, says ex-senior police officer

He said a further four - including the ones detailed above - warrant a criminal investigation as hate crimes.

Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, told LBC: "If so many of these cases are serious enough to be referred to the police and yet Labour is dragging their heels in dealing with them, then that clearly contributes to the complete lack of confidence that the Jewish community has in the way that Labour is dealing with these at the moment.

"If Jeremy Corbyn was a competent leader of the Labour Party, he would have already dealt with these cases of antisemitism months ago. He would have rid this party of the stain that now affects them.”

LBC political editor Theo Usherwood said: "It is worth focusing briefly on the 17 cases which constitute race hate incidents.

"They include the party member who described the prison sentence of a former Nazi SS guard at Auschwitz as 'a disgusting travesty of justice'.

"In another post, a sponsored abseil for charity was advertised - to which one activist commented that two MPs should be invited so they could 'throw them off the top - no ropes.'"

"Mr Chishty's team stressed to me, that after further investigation, these cases could easily be treated as crimes."

Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has confirmed she will pass the evidence to her investigative team.

Appearing on LBC, she said: "We take hate crime very seriously.

"If somebody makes an allegation to us, absolutely we will take it seriously, we will scope it, we will see if a crime has taken place. First instance, does it look like a crime, which is perhaps what Mak has done.

"I will pass this to my experts to deal with. We’ll see if a crime has been committed."