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Jeremy Corbyn was thought 'too stupid' to tackle antisemitism, Mail on Sunday claims

Newspaper says it has leaked account of meeting between Mr Corbyn and Jewish leaders - but president of Board of Deputies says they would not have used word 'stupid'

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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was “too unemotional or too stupid” to understand complaints by Jewish leaders about the party’s failure to tackle antisemitism, according to the Mail on Sunday.

The newspaper said it had obtained a leaked account of last month’s meeting between Mr Corbyn and representatives of the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Communty Secretary Trust which had been drawn up by one of the Jewish leaders present.

But Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies, who attended it, said he did not recognise the account and in particular the word “stupid”.

According to the summary of their discussions reported by the Mail on Sunday, Mr Corbyn appeared “bored, uninterested and condescending.”

His body language, the paper reported, had been “hard to read. He was not especially animated. It may have been pensive, or bored and uninterested.”

The report of the meeting said Mr Corbyn had replied with “pre-prepared statements in a monotone. It suggested an emotional, political or intellectual inability to improvise suitable responses.

‘Most of the time he had his chin on his hand and a facial expression somewhere between scepticism, concentration and non-interest.”

While the Board and JLC had openly expressed their disappointment after the meeting, the criticisms reported by the Mail on Sunday in the summary are harsher.

But Mr Arkush, speaking on behalf of the JLC and CST today, said, “I don’t recognise the authenticity of the account and in particular the word ‘stupid’, which is not a word we would use.”

Mr Goldstein told the JC last month that Mr Corbyn had been “very engaged — but when it came to any of the specific asks that we as a community regard as a bare minimum for our protection, it met with [comments about] either behavioural process or ideological blockages.”

The Board and JLC have tabled a series of demands they expect the party to fulfil including the adoption of the full definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and clearing a backlog of disciplinary cases over alleged antisemitism.

The Board’s president-elect Marie van der Zyl has said a follow-up meeting is due to take place in July but the problem of antisemitism was not something likely to be resolved “overnight”.

A Labour spokesman said Mr Corbyn had made clear at the meeting "his absolute commitment to root out antisemitism" from the party, the Mail on Sunday reported.

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