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Labour support among British Jews collapses to 8.5 per cent

Just 8.5 per cent of British Jews would vote Labour if there was an election tomorrow, an exclusive JC poll has revealed.

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Just 8.5 per cent of British Jews would vote Labour if there was an election tomorrow, an exclusive JC poll has revealed.

And 38.5 per cent of Jews give Labour the worst possible mark – 5 out of 5 – for antisemitism among party members and elected representatives.

The poll results come as Jeremy Corbyn's party is engulfed by an antisemitism crisis now entering its fourth month.

The 8.5 per cent figure shows Jewish support for the party has plummeted since last year's election, when 18 per cent of the community said they voted Labour under Ed Miliband's leadership.

Two-thirds of the Jewish community said Mr Corbyn is doing a bad job of addressing antisemitism in his party. Asked about the independent inquiry he launched last Friday, his proposed new code of conduct for Labour members and his opposition to racism, 66.4 per cent of Jews said he has not done enough.

Just one in five – 20.5 per cent – said Mr Corbyn's efforts to tackle the problem are "good".

Polling carried out by Survation on Tuesday and Wednesday for the JC reveals communal support for Labour has collapsed. Respondents were asked whether they had considered voting for the party since 2005. More than two-thirds said they had not. Just 32 per cent had thought about backing Labour in the past 10 years.

Of those who did not vote for Labour last year, but have considered doing so in the past decade, 84 per cent said they considered Mr Corbyn's position as leader an "important" factor when deciding whether to support the party. Fourteen per cent said Mr Corbyn is "not important" to their voting intentions.

Respondents were asked for their perceptions of antisemitism in the leading political parties. Just over 70 per cent ranked the level of Jew-hate in the Conservatives in the two lowest bands out of five. Only one per cent of Jewish voters believed the Tories have "high" levels of antisemitism.

For Labour, the same question revealed that 38.5 per cent of British Jews thought the party has a "high" level of Jew-hate, ranking it 5 out of 5.

In total, almost 87 per cent felt there is antisemitism among Labour's members and elected representatives.

Support for Labour is highest among those aged 18-34, at 10.8 per cent, but among the over-55s it drops to only five per cent.

The poll also reveals that more than four out of five Jews feel "safe or quite safe" in this country. Just 2.2 per cent said they feel "very unsafe". Another 15 per cent said they feel "quite unsafe".

According to the results, 64 per cent of the community voted for the Conservatives in the general election a year ago.

This week's poll puts the Tories on 66.5 per cent with Jews, with the Liberal Democrats on 3.8 per cent and Ukip on 1.9 per cent.

Survation polled a representative sample of more than 1,000 British Jews.

In August last year, a JC poll showed 67 per cent of British Jews were concerned about Mr Corbyn becoming leader.

Eighty-three per cent had said they were concerned by comments in which Mr Corbyn referred to terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as "our friends".

Corbyn's Labour and antisemitism - what you need to know. All the comment and analysis in one place, here

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