British Prime Minister May Calls Out Labour Leader Corbyn: We Must Have Zero Tolerance for Antisemitism by Barney Breen-Portnoy
The leader of Britain’s Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn must “think very carefully” about antisemitism within his party, British Prime Minister Theresa May declared on Wednesday.https://www.algemeiner.com/2016/10/19/british-prime-minister-may-calls-out-labour-leader-corbyn-we-must-have-zero-tolerance-for-antisemitism/
May — the head of Britian’s governing Conservative Party who succeeded David Cameron at 10 Downing Street in July — made the statement during a Prime Minister’s Questions session, just days after the publication of a House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee report which found Labour had shown “demonstrable incompetence” in dealing with antisemitism within its ranks.
In response to a question posed by Conservative MP Oliver Dowden, May said: “I absolutely agree with my honorable friend that this house should send a very clear message that we will not tolerate antisemitism. I have been concerned about the rise in the number of incidents of antisemitism in this country.
“We should very clearly ensure that those incidents of antisemitism are properly investigated and dealt with, and that we give the clear message that we will not tolerate it. But that does have to be done by every single political party in this chamber, and I say to the leader of the opposition that given the report of the Home Affairs Committee about antisemitism and the approach to antisemitism in the Labour Party, he needs to think very carefully about the environment that has been created in the Labour Party in relation to antisemitism.”
Recently, as reported by The Algemeiner, Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth was assigned police protection, following an antisemitic death threat made against her on a social-media platform.
At the time, Smeeth told the UK’s Sun newspaper she held Corbyn “personally responsible” for the threats she had received. Earlier this summer, as reported in The Algemeiner, Smeeth said she was “verbally attacked” by an activist linked to the left-wing organization Momentum — which supports Corbyn — during the conference revealing the results of Labour’s own controversial investigation into antisemitism allegations within the party.
As reported by The Algemeiner, antisemitic incidents in the UK jumped in the first half of 2016, with the Jewish community being targeted on an average of three times per day.
In August, the head of a UK charity and antisemitism watchdog group told The Algemeiner that British Jews were “being denied justice” by their country’s main criminal prosecution agency, as it failed to crack down on antisemitic crimes.
Last month — as reported by The Algemeiner — an 11-year-old Jewish boy walking home from school in London’s Hackney neighborhood was forced to remove his kippa by a gang of bullies.
Watch Prime Minister May’s remarks below:
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