Mary Honeyball, a Labour MEP for 19 years, quits party over 'shameful' inaction on antisemitism

A woman who served as a Labour Member of the European Parliament for 19 years has quit the party, citing the leadership's “shameful” lack of action on antisemitism as one of her reasons to go.

Mary Honeyball, an outgoing MEP who represented London from 2000, decided not to stand in Thursday’s European Parliamentary elections. She waited until voting had ended to announce her decision, telling the Evening Standard it “had not been easy.”

As well as“the party’s disastrous stance on Brexit”, she also decried how “shamefully, the Labour Leadership have done nothing like enough to purge the Labour Party of the racism shown towards its Jewish members.”

She said she believed “the antisemitism currently infecting the Labour party” was derived from “the Labour Leadership’s animosity towards Israel.