‘Anti-Semitism in Labour exaggerated’ – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: John Heawood, Eastward Avenue, York.
Eradicating anti-Semitism has been a priority for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.Eradicating anti-Semitism has been a priority for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Eradicating anti-Semitism has been a priority for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

ACKNOWLEDGING the Tory party’s present troubles, Sir Bernard Ingham rushes to restore the balance by rubbishing Labour (The Yorkshire Post, January 12).

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His gallant rescue attempt includes claims about the Labour Party, stretching from 1945 to the present day, that some might query.

Eradicating anti-Semitism has been a priority for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.Eradicating anti-Semitism has been a priority for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Eradicating anti-Semitism has been a priority for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

I can only comment on one: that Sir Keir Starmer “has somehow to live down the anti-Semitism rife on the Left”, suggesting that anti-Semitism in Labour’s left wing is noticeably more widespread than in his own party.

I can find no concrete evidence about current Labour Party anti-Semitism; Sir Keir 
can no doubt supply it if he wishes.

But the widely acclaimed Equality and Human Rights Commission’s 2020 report into Labour Party anti-Semitism warned us that “such matters are by no means an issue for the Labour Party alone”. That in turn recalled the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee’s finding in 2016 which found that “there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of anti-Semitic attitudes within the Labour 
Party than any other political party”.

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