Corbyn accepts £10,000 donation from activist sharing claims of ‘Holocaust’ in Gaza
Parliament's Register of Interest confirms Stephen Moorby made the loan to Corbyn in May
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
Jeremy Corbyn has accepted a £10, 000 donation from a hard-left activist who appeared to justify the kidnapping of female teenagers by Hamas, supported claims of a “Holocaust” being carried out in Gaza, and who questioned claims of human-rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslims.
Parliament’s Register of Interests confirms that the Islington North MP accepted money from a donor named Stephen Moorby in May 2024, and adds the £10,000 was “a short-term loan repayable on 31 May 2024 but with the opportunity for renewal, which was repaid on 3 June 2024.”
But social media records show that in April 2024 Moorby shared a post by the conspiracy theorist Matt Kennard who wrote “There is no good Zionism.”
On October 14, just one weeks after the Hamas massacre in southern Israel, Moorby shared another hugely inflammatory post written by the controversial US author Max Blummental who wrote in response to Israel action against Hamas:”The Holocaust continues.”
Moorby was also keen in November 2023 to show his support for a post which questioned claims made in a newspaper report highlighting how Hamas terrorists had kidnapped four teenage women on October 7, headlined “Don’t Forget Them`! Faces of Girls Still Held By Hamas.”
Moorby shared Mint Press News writer Alan MacLeod’s claim that the article failed to “tell you that all these ‘girls’ are actually active duty IDF soldiers.”
It added “they are presented as innocent children abducted by an evil force” and “not troops guarding the world’s largest open-air prison.”
In March, Moorby also shared a widely tweeted post claiming Israel had a “disproportionate influence on Labour” which showed a Labour Friends of Israel visit to the Jewish state in the aftermath of October 7.
But while Moorby was more than happy to shed conspiracies in relation to Israel, he appeared less happy to concede that the Uyghur Muslims were being oppressed by the Chinese government.
In August 2023 he wrote and posted:”Is the Uyghur genocide narrative yet another US led effort to destabilise its targeted ‘enemies’?”
Moorby had previously written glowingly about Corbyn when he was leader of the Labour Party praising his “powerful and passionate leader’s speech” at the 2019 party conference, which he attended.
He subsequently resigned from Islington North Labour Party, where he was once secretary, after Corbyn was suspended from Labour, before finally being expelled, for his response to the equality watchdog’s report into the then leader’s handling of the antisemitism crisis.
The Register of Interests confirms how Corbyn has been preoccupied with paying back the cost in legal fees of his court case with the right-wing pro-Israel blogger Richard Millett.
Millett had discontinued the case against the former Labour leader, which revolved around comments he made on the BBC Andrew Marr’s show, and while Corbyn was not asked to pay damages, apologise, or pay others costs, he was ordered to pay back his own.
Over £300, 000 were paid back to Corbyn’s solicitor via a crowdfunding appeal launched by a group calling themselves JBC Defence Ltd, over the timespan of the recent parliamentary records.
Corbyn has formed an “independent alliance” with four other independent MPs who were elected on pro-Palestine tickets at the July election.
Last week all five of the group were outspoken in a debate on Israel, which immediately followed a debate on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, at which none of them spoke.
In a move that surprised some supporters, Corbyn also failed to vote in favour of the government’s policy of adding VAT to private school fees.
Jewish News has contacted Corbyn’s office for comment over his decision to accept the £10,000 donation from Moorby.
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