Historian Sir Richard Evans has said he has changed his mind about voting Labour in the December general election after reading an open letter by Anthony Julius.

Sir Richard, who wrote a three-volume history of the Third Reich, tweeted to say “As much as Corbyn's lamentable failure to apologise in his tv interview, or the intervention of the Chief Rabbi, this has persuaded me to change my mind and not vote Labour.”

Mr Julius was solicitor to historian Deborah Lipstadt in her successful defence against a libel case brought by Holocaust denier David Irving. Sir Richard was the lead historical witness in the case.

In his open letter, published in the New Statesman, Mr Julius wrote: “The party has become cruel, malicious, stupid and dishonest. The cruelty has been persistent and extreme – death threats, shouted abuse at branch meetings, online trolling. The malice has been patent, incontinent and pervasive.

“Antisemitism is stupid. It makes people stupid. It is not a coincidence that the least accomplished leader of the Labour Party is also its only anti-Semitic one.

“If you live in a world of conspiracies, if you think the world is divided into the blamelessly good, the victims, and the unqualifiedly evil, the oppressors, then anti-Semitism is for you.

“We cannot leave the work to the party itself. Supporters have to lend a hand. Depriving the party of a vote is a start.”

Sir Richard tweeted he read Mr Julius' "persuasive" letter. 

"As much as Corbyn's lamentable failure to apologise in his TV interview, or the intervention of the chief rabbi, this has persuaded me to change my mind and not vote Labour," he said.

Prof Lipstadt also wrote in response to Sir Richard in the JC that “he sees [antisemitism] as a sidebar, an ancillary item. It is not. It is a cornerstone of Labour’s public stance, and something – just like racism – which cannot be tolerated.”