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Michael Gove pledges 'unshakeable solidarity' with Jewish community

Environment Secretary attacks Corbyn for 'giving all the errors of the 20th Century another chance to wreck our society'

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Michael Gove has used his speech at Conservative Party conference to call for "unshakeable solidarity" with the Jewish community in the face of "unacceptable antisemitism" from Jeremy Corbyn's Labour.

In a speech to the party faithful in Birmingham, the Environment Secretary said Mr Corbyn was "giving all the errors of the 20th Century another chance to wreck our society."

Mr Gove warned: "We have seen how this story ends before - in misery and shame."

He accused the Labour leader of pursuing a "toxic cocktail of unrepentant Marxist-Leninism and unacceptable socialism."

Addressing the impact of Labour's values on the community, Mr Gove said:"When our Jewish friends and neighbours live in fear for their futures let us stand with them.

"Against prejudice, against intimidation, against bigotry and against hate.

"So let us take action, right here, right now. Let a message come loud and clear from this hall of unshakable solidarity with the Jewish community." 

In an earlier speech to the main conference hall on Monday, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said that the experiences of his father, who fled the Nazis aged six, had inspired him to fight antisemitism “until my last breath”.

He told the conference that his father “grew up knowing that his grandmother, grandfather, most of his relatives, the loved ones he left behind, had been systematically slaughtered for no other reason that that they were Jews”.

Mr Raab, 44,  who replaced David Davis as Brexit Secretary in July , said his Czech-born father Peter “never forgot what happened to his family,” adding: “I will honour his memory by fighting the scourge of antisemitism and racism until my last breath”.

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