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Suspended Labour activists using Unite trade union to continue exercising influence in party

Laura Stuart, who was suspended from Labour more than 20 months ago, still has not been expelled

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An activist suspended from Labour over tweets about how “Jews love money and are a bunch of crooks” and “Holocaust indoctrination” was able to continue to influence party circles by obtaining a position in the Barnet branch of the Unite trade union, it has been reported.

Laura Stuart was suspended in November 2017, after she was discovered to be behind the “GazaBoatConvoy” Twitter account.

It had tweeted “Hear it from a Jewish grandmother how Jews love money and are a bunch of crooks”, “Must still be plenty shekels to be wrung out of the memory of the Holocaust. #HolocaustIndustry” and “All Jews are above the law – as in, they cheat the laws of Moses etc. God gives edicts, they set their Rabbis to find ways around them”.

The account also posted content from a wide variety of white supremacists and Holocaust deniers, including David Duke and Paul Eisen. At the time, Labour said Ms Stuart was "suspended pending an investigation".

Twenty months later her case remains unresolved.

But the Sunday Times has revealed Ms Stuart has still been able to play a role in Labour in Barnet, as secretary of Unite Community Barnet.

Unite Community, an initiative of the Unite Trade Union, was set up to allow unemployed people, but in practice, those in work can join.

The Sunday Times reports Labour’s own rules allow Unite Community to send members to sit on the governing body of local Labour parties in areas where it has a presence.

At the time of her suspension from Labour, Ms Stuart, who it was later revealed had been arrested as a “terror suspect” in the UK in 2015, denied that she had been responsible for the GazaBoatConvoy tweets, claiming that she had not been the only one with access to the account.

However, a Facebook account belonging to Ms Stuart, “Laura Macdonald London”, was also found to have posted a series of disturbing comments and images.

In one, a picture of Eric Pickles holding up a pledge to remember the Holocaust at a Holocaust Educational Trust event had been doctored so HET’s logo read “Zionist Fairy Tales”.

A Star of David with a “Z” inside it had been positioned on his forehead, and the sign had been altered to read “I pledge to #F***TheFuture by continuing to obesely support the masonic Zionist terrorist occupation of Palestine.”

In another post, the Facebook account linked to a story about Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, signing a Mayors United Against Antisemitism pledge, along with the word “puke”.

Another showed an antisemitic and homophobic caricature of someone described as part of the “Jewish Internet Defence Force”.

Ms Stuart was suspended from Labour after Adam Langleben, then a Labour councillor in Barnet, published some of the content from the GazaBoatConvoy account, saying that despite reporting the woman behind the account to the party four months previously, no action had been taken.

Mr Langleben did not name Ms Stuart publicly but Labour revealed her identity, telling journalists: “Laura Stuart has been suspended from the Labour Party pending an investigation.”

Mr Langleben, who is no longer a councillor and quit Labour over antisemitism, told the JC: "25 months after my original compliant to the Labour Party, Laura Stuart remains just suspended and not expelled.

“She has claimed to the Sunday Times that she did not produce the antisemitic posts on the GazaBoatConvoy account, but just a cursory glance at her personal account reveals an unhealthy obsession with Jews.

“That she has been using Unite as a backdoor to Labour politics to continue poisoning minds is sickening. What are Unite doing to stop this kind of entryism?”

A Unite spokesperson told the Sunday Times that Ms Stuart had resigned from her position, and said the union absolutely rejected “the allegation that membership of Unite Community is being misused.”

However, the paper reported another example of a suspended Labour member with a senior position in local branches of Unite Community.

It also reported Glyn Secker, secretary of the fringe, pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice for Labour group, was a Unite Community delegate to the Dulwich and West Norwood Labour Party.

Mr Secker was placed under investigation by the party after he told demonstrators at a pro-Palestinian march in May that “Jewish leaders” had turned “a blind eye to the extreme right”, asked “what on earth are Jews doing in the gutter?”

He also claimed they were fomenting a “campaign of allegations of antisemitism against Corbyn and the left to silence Israel's critics…cry[ing] wolf, month after month, year after year in the Labour Party.”

Mr Secker was suspended from Labour in 2018 but this was overturned after aides of Jeremy Corbyn had actively intervened on his behalf, with Labour officials told the party’s leader was “interested in this one”.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated Glyn Secker was suspended from Labour after he asked a crowd: "What on earth are Jews doing in the gutter?" This has been amended.

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