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Ellman: I want a Palestinian state but for hard left I am an evil Zionist

Former MP tells Limmud about the intimidation she faced in Labour

December 26, 2023 05:34
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Labour MP Louise Ellman at the Jewish Labour Movement Conference in 2018 (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

ByGaby Wine, Gaby Wine

4 min read

Former Labour MP Louise Ellman has revealed how she was left “traumatised” by a campaign of intimidation, harassment and dehumanisation, which forced her resignation from the party.

Ellman, who was MP for Liverpool Riverside from 1997 to 2019 left the Labour party after “antisemitism became rampant […] at the top of the Labour party and at ground level” under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Addressing a packed room at the Limmud conference in Birmingham, she said that the antisemitism towards her from members of her local constituency party was “predominantly antisemitic anti-Zionism…I’m not talking about someone criticising the policies of the government of Israel. I’m talking about a way of thinking, when Zionism is seen as inherently racist, imperialist, conspiratorial, all-powerful and in fact, remarkably similar to [antisemitic publication] The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

She told the audience that when Corbyn became Labour leader, membership of her constituency grew quickly from around 500 to 2,700 and that the new members “were pretty clear about why they had joined. They had an explicit aim, which, they told me, was to remove me.”

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