Filmmaker Ken Loach has proposed a Labour motion attacking the BBC Panorama episode on Labour antisemitism, calling it a "hatchet job".
The motion was proposed and passed at a meeting of the Bath Labour Party on Monday after last week's broadcast about whistleblowers' attacking the influence Jeremy Corbyn's allies have assumed over complaints of antisemitism against Labour members.
The programme has become epicentre of a huge row within the party, after the leadership attacked the whistleblowers as "disaffected", triggering legal threats and one union offering its Labour staff members legal advice.
The Bath motion said: “This was a dishonest hatchet job with potentially undemocratic consequences. It disgraced the name of Panorama and exposed the bias endemic within the BBC.”
It also demanded the BBC broadcast a follow-up of “similar length and prominence” to address their concerns.
Joe Rayment, who was a councillor in Bath until May, tweeted a picture of the motion, calling it "absolutely disgraceful", adding it was "denying the lived experience of Jewish people in favour of blind loyalty".
This absolutely disgraceful motion has just been passed by @BathLabourParty. I completely reject it and I want to make it clear that I voted against it. Denying the lived experience of Jewish people in our party in favour of blind loyalty. pic.twitter.com/kZ3gQ85DVD
— Joe Rayment 🌹 (@joerayment91) July 15, 2019
Former councillor Adam Langleben, who has quit Labour over its antisemitism crisis, said he was "astonished" Mr Loach, a longtime supporter of Mr Corbyn, was actually a Labour member, adding he thought he was "just one of the cranks still outside of it".
Astonished Ken Loach is actually a member of the Labour Party. Thought he was just one of the cranks still outside of it.
— Adam Langleben (@adamlangleben) July 15, 2019
Just a few years ago he founded a party, Left Unity, to oppose Labour.
(just four years ago he launched it's manifesto) https://t.co/eh9C8sBhoG