ANOTHER Labour candidate suspended, for call to ‘lock up’ UK Jews who join the IDF
Former MP Graham Jones, contesting Haslingden and Hyndburn, blasted 'f***ing Israel' at same 31 October meeting that led to downfall of disgraced Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali
Former Labour MP Graham Jones launched a foul-mouthed attack on “f***ing Israel” and claimed that British Jews who volunteered to fight for the IDF “should be locked up”.
Jones, who is Labour’s candidate for the Haslingden and Hyndburn seat he lost at the last election, was allegedly recorded making the attack at the same 31 October meeting that led to the downfall of Azhar Ali.
Rochdale by-election candidate Ali had claimed that Israel left its borders open for Hamas to carry out its massacre of southern kibbutzes.
It is understood that Jones has been administratively suspended from Labour, pending investigation. There is a process that has to be gone through to formally remove candidacy, and Jones had already been called in on Tuesday evening for an interview.
Responding the latest revelation to dog Keir Starmer’s party, the Jewish Labour Movement described Jones’ comments as “appalling and unacceptable” and called for the ex-MP to now be “stood down” as the parliamentary candidate.
The Guido Fawkes website broke the story on the latest antisemitism scandal to rock Labour on Tuesday, although it is understood other newspapers were also aware of Jones comments.
Jones, who was first elected in 2010, had stepped down in 2015 after Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader.
He lost in seat in 2019 by a margin of almost 3,000 votes.
Tory MP Sara Britcliffe, who defeated Jones at the 2019 election, said:”At a time of increasing community tensions, it is the responsibility of all of us in politics to be careful with the language we use.
“We need immediate answers from those seeking to represent Hyndburn about whether they challenged Mr Ali. Creating community cohesion is essential and this quite frankly does the complete opposite.”
Labour was forced to disown Rochdale candidate Ali after the comments emerged from a meeting of activists in which he claimed Israel allowed the Hamas atrocity of 7 October to happen in order to give it the “green light” to invade Gaza.
The party then chose to withdraw support for Ali after further comments were published by the Daily Mail in which he allegedly blamed “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters” for fuelling criticism of a pro-Palestinian MP Andy Mcdonald.
A spokesperson for JLM said: “We are dismayed that Jones was not only a bystander at the meeting where Azhar Ali made his antisemitic comments, but sought to inflame tensions further.
“Over the past two days, the importance of a zero tolerance approach to antisemitism in Labour has become clearer than ever. Labour must stand Graham Jones down as a parliamentary candidate and conduct a disciplinary investigation.”
Jewish News approached Labour for comment.
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