CAA petition saying Corbyn ‘must go’ surpasses 22,000 signatures

A petition branding Jeremy Corbyn ‘anti-Semitic’ and saying he “must go”, has passed 20,000 signatures.

An initiative launched by the Campaign Against Antisemitism is seeking to remove the Labour leader, after a string of incidents involving  events he has appeared at previously.

The appeal gathered storm after being launched on Sunday, hitting 22,000 signatures on Tuesday morning, urging action after “events from Jeremy Corbyn’s disturbing past have trickled into the light”.

The Labour leader has come under pressure over a number of issues linked to anti-Semitism in the party, including the party’s definition of anti-Semitism, his 2014 visit to a Palestinian cemetery in Tunisia and meetings with those connected to the Palestinian cause, including from Hamas. Most recently, he caused outrage after comments made by Corbyn in 2013 were made public, where he said that British Zionists had “no sense of English irony” despite having ‘lived in Britain all of their lives”.

Upon launching the petition, the Chairman of Campaign Against Antisemitism, Gideon Falter, said it’s time for Jeremy Corbyn to step down as Labour leader, saying he is “unfit for any public office.”

In a statement, which appears on the petition,  Falter lists numerous flashpoints in the most recent wave of claims in the anti-Semitism row within the party, before saying: “Throughout the last three years and these past few weeks, Jeremy Corbyn has lied, distracted, tried to twist the definition of antisemitism to exclude his past conduct, and issued false apologies when pressure mounted. He has claimed to have been seeking peace and to have been judged out of context, but the facts show that over many years he sought to defend, honour, assist and promote antisemites and the context is that his actions have been consistent with those of an ideological antisemite.”

Accusing the party of failing to tackle the issue, and instead deciding to “persecute those members who stand up to antisemitism”, Falter adds that “for as long as the Labour Party is in Jeremy Corbyn’s grip, it cannot be a force for good. His past demonstrates that he should never have been elected to the leadership of the Labour Party and he is unfit for any public office. The hour is now. Jeremy Corbyn must go.”

At the bottom of the petition, CAA state that for a challenge on Corbyn’s leadership, there needs to be either 52 Labour MPs proposing a vote of no confidence, or for them to set up their own political party, before calling on the Parliamentary Labour Party to “take action.”