Jewish leaders to meet with Lisa Forbes following apology letter

Community leaders have agreed to meet with Labour’s new Peterborough MP Lisa Forbes after she apologised for appearing to endorse antisemitic material online.

Forbes contacted the Board of Deputies, Community Security Trust, Jewish Leadership Council and Antisemitism Policy Trust to request a meeting.

Her letter also acknowledges “the hurt” she caused and laments the rise of the “scourge of antisemitism” across the UK in recent years.

“I am sorry that I have caused hurt in your community, to you and to those you represent,” Forbes wrote in her letter.

“I am aware that the kind of content I mistakenly engaged with online was deeply offensive and contained antisemitic language and tropes which harm the Jewish community

“I know it is not good enough to simply say I am anti-racist; I know I need to demonstrate to you that I will take action to gain your trust and I hope you will agree to meet with me and to allow me to attend any relevant training for me to better understand the nature and extent of antisemitism and the impact it has on the Jewish community,” she wrote.

In their reply, published today, Jewish leaders agreed to a “two-hour” meeting with Forbes, demanding that she arrange a date and time.

“We will also explain about anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, IHRA and the nature of modern antisemitism and set out the threat that the CST has to deal with on a regular basis,” the joint letter reads.

The Peterborough MP faced controversy in the week before the poll, over a Facebook post she “liked” which said Theresa May has a “Zionist slave masters agenda”.

She was also found to have signed a letter opposing the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which stated critics of Israel should be able to “speak freely” about its “system of apartheid and ongoing ethnic cleansing” in the same way “Jewish members must be able to speak freely about the Holocaust.”