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Luciana Berger vows she would never 'in good conscience' help Corbyn become PM

Lib Dem candidate said it 'continues to be the case that my position is being misrepresented'

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Luciana Berger has vowed she will never "in good conscience, do anything to facilitate Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk becoming Prime Minister", as Conservatives claimed voting for the Lib Dem helps Labour.

Ms Berger, who quit Labour in February and is standing in Finchley and Golders Green for her new party, said that, despite giving "my response to this important question on a large number of occasions... it continues to be the case that my position is being misrepresented".

"I have been and will continue to be categorical in my answer. I have opposed antisemitism in the Labour Party and beyond for the last few years at great personal and political cost to myself," she wrote in an email to Anthony Julius, the prominent lawyer

"I couldn’t have done any more. Earlier this year I very publicly left the Labour Party. I gave up a safe seat in Liverpool, with close to a 30,000 majority, to stand up for the British Jewish community. I set out to the country how that, in my view, Her Majesty’s Opposition is institutionally antisemitic.

"I left Labour precisely because I could not, in good conscience, do anything to facilitate Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk becoming Prime Minister. That remains my strongly held view today."

She added that Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson had "repeatedly given her assurances that there are no circumstances in which she will support Jeremy Corbyn, and the people around him, to lead our country".

This is because of Labour's "refusal to take a position on Brexit, its attitude to our national security, its outlandish economic policies and, crucially, its appalling record on antisemitism", Ms Berger added. 

She concluded: "I am very confident I will not have to make the choice again between the party of which I am a member and opposing antisemitism, but, if I ever did, I have already demonstrated which choice I would make and I would never hesitate to do so again."

Mr Julius said: "She has answered a direct question. I am satisfied with this; we should all be. Every vote for Luciana is a defeat for Corbyn. We should not let him force a Jew out of parliament for the crime of standing up for Jews."

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