Suspended Labour activist to discuss her ‘lynching’ by Israel supporters

The former vice-chair of left-wing grassroots group Momentum is to discuss how she was “lynched” by Israel supporters at a talk in Kent on Sunday, after she was twice suspended for comments alleged to be anti-Semitic.

Jackie Walker, who claims both black and Jewish heritage, is a prominent Labour figure and staunch critic of Israel, but is currently suspended pending a decision by the party’s National Constitutional Committee.

The event at the Red Hall in the coastal town of Broadstairs is called ‘The Lynching – What They Wouldn’t Let Jackie Walker Tell You.’ The marketing material includes a quote reading: “To oppose Israel is to be anti-Semitic.”

The title is a reference to an article by Marxist commentator Tony Greenstein, who wrote: “The attacks on Jackie Walker and others are political, a determined effort by the Israel lobby to make Britain’s Labour Party safe for Israel and Zionism.”

Walker, who was vice-chair of Momentum’s steering committee, first offended the Jewish community when she was shown commenting on “the Jewish financiers of the slave trade” in a Facebook post.

Later, she was overheard complaining that the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust should include other genocides (it does) at a meeting organised by the Labour Party. At the same meeting, she is head saying that she had not yet come across a definition of anti-Semitism that she could “work with”.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust (CST) said: “It is disgusting to see Jackie Walker’s imagery of a lynching, as if she is a victim of senseless hateful anti-Black racism. Now, she will no doubt tell even more people that Jews bear responsibility for the slave trade, whilst herself posing as the victim at every opportunity.”