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West London Labour Party calls off planned Kerry-Anne Mendoza meeting

The Canary editor had been invited to speak to Kensington Labour Party on Monday evening

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Kensington Labour Party have confirmed that a planned meeting at which the editor of The Canary website had been due to appear as a guest speaker will not now go ahead.

Kerry-Anne Mendoza had been advertised by the West London Labour Party as speaking at  Monday’s night’s all-member meeting with the claim she is “among the most prominent left-wing journalists in the country.”

But after details of the event leaked over the weekend there was a furious response from campaigners against antisemitism and many Labour members who pointed to Ms Mendoza’s lengthy record of highly controversial statements – including comparisons between planned Brexit celebrations and Nazi Germany.

Kensington Labour had said The Canary editor, who is not a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s party, would be giving a talk on “current affairs”, covering the recent report on black people, racism and human rights by the House of Commons and Lords Joint Committee on Human Rights.

On Monday a spokesperson for the local party confirmed to the JC there was “not going to be a meeting with Kerry-Anne Mendoza as a speaker.”

The previous day, the fanatical Jeremy Corbyn supporter had launched an attack on Labour shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds after she told  BBC presenter Andrew Marr that dealing with antisemitism in the Labour Party "is more important than any other consideration."

Ms Mendoza wrote: “Why is it more important than Islamophobia, anti-black racism or transphobia? It shouldn’t be. Not unless you’ve created a hierarchy of prejudice, which is itself an act of prejudice.”

In past she has defended former MP Chris Williamson and other Labour figures accused of antisemitism and after Mr Corbyn’s defeat at the polls suggested that those who opposed Labour antisemitism would be attacked.

The editor-in-chief of the Canary accused JC columnist Jonathan Freedland of “manufacturing” the general election result.  

In January 2020 she claimed celebrations over the completion of Brexit could turn into a  “21st century Kristallnacht" while in August she wrote, "Get Brexit done Build, build, build, Jobs, jobs, jobs Arbeit macht frei."

In December 2019, the government’s antisemitism adviser Lord John Mann  announced he would be “instigating an investigation this January into the role of the Canary and other websites in the growth of antisemitism in the United Kingdom.”

When the JC raised concerns about Ms Mendoza’s appearance at a Labour Party meeting she tweeted: “Black woman can’t talk about racism, says white man.”

 

 

 

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