Vicious antisemitism in Labour was part of my reason to leave politics, says Tom Watson

“I couldn’t  understand it - and I still don’t understand it. It caused terrible offence to people who disagreed with me.

“People just blindly denied antisemitism in our ranks.”

The former MP for West Bromwich East told the journalists John Sweeney and Michael Weiss how he had tried to “show a bit of humility’’ after the 2017 General Election result and attempt to “hold the party together” by accepting that Jeremy Corbyn had “done enough’’ carry on as leader.

But he told the ‘Last Call With Sweeney and Weiss’ podcast that  the antisemitism issue was one of two that he decided he would have to intervene over.

Among the party members who had campaigned for years for Palestinian rights there were those who crossed over into antisemitic discourse, he said.

He said within this group were “those who could not distinguish between the  state of Israel and Jewish people and just didn’t like Jewish people. The language they used was racist.’’

Asked whether he believed Mr Corbyn was himself an antisemite, Mr Watson said: “It doesn’t matter – these people joined while he was leader.”

He said these people could have been removed from office and out of the party “very easily”.

Mr Watson added that the antisemitism he witnessed “had not been near the mainstream of politics for many decades”.

Although he said ‘’friends in the Jewish community say it’s always been there – it’s just never been articulated.’’

The outspoken new chair of UK Music said he expected the EHRC report into the party to be a “great stain on a century old institution that is going to be very hard to recover from”.

Asked about new leader Sir Keir Starmer, he said “it’s early days” but he admitted he had “nearly wept” when one of his first acts had been to reach out to the Jewish community.

Mr Watson was scathing of the impact of the pro-Corbyn news sites such as Novara Media and The Canary on Labour. He said they were they ‘’are so irrelevant to the lives of many millions of British people.’’

He said “every time” Sir Keir is attacked by the two websites, it will “help him put himself in a winning position”.

Mr Watson also said that  “avowed Stalinist Leninist” Seumas Milne, Mr Corbyn’s director of communication,  and the “aristocratic” Andrew Murray, his chief adviser, had helped to Labour to a position that left them out of touch with millions of voters at the polls.