Dame Louise Ellman is tipped to be the latest MP to defect from Labour after being barracked by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn during a stormy meeting of her Liverpool Riverside constituency party on Friday night.
At what was described as a “Soviet show trial”, a motion supporting the activists who targeted fellow Jewish Liverpool MP Luciana Berger was passed overwhelmingly. It dismissed claims that she was forced out of Labour by the bullying of local activists as “a smear”.
A party member for more than 55 years, Dame Louise, 73, is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel and has been a vocal critic of antisemitism within Labour. Quoted in the Sunday Times, she said : I am still fighting with the party’s failure to deal with antisemitism but I am struggling to deal with the current situation.”
It has also been revealed that an explosive, unpublished report by senior party staff into the Liverpool Riverside constituency has found that Dame Louise was physically threatened by one member and “there have been CLP meetings during which antisemitic incidents are alleged to have taken place.
“These have arisen as a result of ‘obsessive interrogations’ of the MP over the Israel-Palestine conflict.” Of the incidents which have drawn claims of antisemitism, “some members have felt that others are holding the MP – a Jewish woman – personally accountable for the actions of the Israeli government.”
The investigation found three incidents at CLP meetings, “with over 10 subsequent complaints received about online comments or comments made or overheard in private in the context of CLP meetings. The most extreme of these involved one member describing Zionism as ‘a danger to the Jewish people’ and a ‘negation of the principles of Judaism itself’ and explicitly suggesting Israeli responsibility for Isis, Hamas and Al Qaeda.”
Incidents of online abuse “have included members stating that the MP's voting record is ‘enough to incite antisemitism’, that the MP's ethnicity has contributed to her having a ‘major blind spot on the Israel-Palestine conflict’, and that the MP is "JLM's [Jewish Labour Movement’s] bitch".
The report concluded: “There can be no doubt that Liverpool Riverside CLP has experienced severe difficulties over the last year and a half, exacerbated by the public playing out of tensions between some members and the MP and elected representatives. Meetings have been typified by tensions and uncomradely behaviour, while incidents of antisemitism seem to have occurred with troubling regularity."
Interviewed by the JC last year, Dame Louise spoke about claims that Momentum would try to oust her. “It’s been a terrific constituency over the years,” she said. “The electorate have continued to back me solidly. But now in my CLP there are some who want to bring back the old Militant days.”
On the day of the Liverpool Riverside party meeting, Mr Corbyn had told Sky News that he did not believe bullying “exists on a wide scale” within Labour. On the same day, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told London’s Evening Standard that the party could have supported Luciana Berger “more effectively.” They had listened but there was not enough action. “We are going to have to learn a lesson from that.”
Interviewed today on Andrew Marr’s BBC show, Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson said he had handed Jeremy Corbyn a dossier of 50 cases of alleged antisemitism within Labour that he needed to act personally on.
Ms Berger was one of seven Labour MPs who quit on Monday to form The Independent Group. Ian Austin, the adopted son of a Jewish refugee, announced he was leaving the party on Friday, but said he would not be joining The Independent Group.
