Labour NEC candidate: Corbyn didn’t defend activists accused of antisemitism

A former Labour MP standing to be the Welsh representative on the party’s ruling body claimed Jeremy Corbyn didn’t do enough to DEFEND those accused of antisemitism.

In 2020 Lynne Jones, the MP Birmingham Selly Oak between 1992 and 2010, wrote: “Unfortunately Jeremy Corbyn was one who didn’t defend fellow anti-racists and didn’t stand up to those accusing him of being antisemitic either.”

Now challenging former Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones for a position on Labour’s powerful national executive committee (NEC), Jones also shared claims that communal organisations such as the Board of Deputies (BoD) and the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) are linked to a wider “Israel lobby” who are “serving the purposes of the British establishment.”

In another social media post, the veteran left-winger supported calls for Holocaust Memorial Day to be renamed Genocide Memorial Day.

In further online observations, Jones also appeared to defend a series of former Labour figures caught up in the antisemitism row, including disgraced former MP Chris Williamson.

Jones is now being backed by MPs including Diane Abbott and Beth Winter, along with the Momentum and Welsh Labour Grassroots groups, in her campaign to be elected on to the NEC.

But her track-record on issues including Labour’s antisemitism crisis and Israel have been described as “alarming” by Jewish Labour activists contacting Jewish News. One Jewish member told Jewish News on Monday: “The prospect of someone like Lynne Jones ending up on Labour’s ruling NEC is terrifying.”

Commenting on claims of antisemitism in Liverpool Wavertree Labour party as Jewish former MP Luciana Berger quit, Jones previously wrote: “If they were antisemitic I doubt the CLP would have selected Luciana.”

When Jewish veteran MP Dame Margaret Hodge wrote in October 2019 that she could not rule out leaving Labour herself over the antisemitism crisis, Jones wrote: “Wish she would rule out staying.”

In November 2020, social media posts reveal how Jones responded to an online article encouraging Labour activists to defend Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP, who left the party in a bitter row over comments that Labour was “too apologetic” about antisemitism ahead of the 2019 general election.

While Jones offers no comment directly on Williamson himself, she writes: “Unfortunately Jeremy Corbyn was one who didn’t defend fellow anti-racists and didn’t stand up to those accusing him of being antisemitic either.”

Just one month later Jones claimed Corbyn was “intimidated” into accepting the IHRA definition of antisemitism, with full examples, writing in her December 2020 post that this was “still insufficient to quell #Israel lobby.” Addressing the new Labour leader, Jones wrote: “Keir Starmer is this enough to get me expelled from UK Labour?”

Jones also directed an online post to Jewish journalist and commentator Jonathan Freedland after he wrote of Corbyn’s failure on antisemitism. She criticised Freedland writing to him on social media stating: “The misdirected ‘battle’ you have been fighting has increased antisemitism and racism in all its forms.”

Jones, who once chaired the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs in Parliament, also attacked both the BoD and the JLM after linking both communal groups to moves to get film director Ken Loach expelled from Labour.

The 71 year-old then shared a quote from an article written by the blogger Jonathan Cook stating: “The fact that the BoD and the JLM have been able to exercise such clout against allegations for which there is no evidence indicates how enthusiastically the Israel lobby has been integrated … into serving the purposes of the British establishment.”

Back in 2018 newspaper reports had revealed how parliamentary records showed how Corbyn, along with former shadow chancellor John McDonnell had supported calls to rename Holocaust Memorial Day, in recognition of other genocides Jones, responding to an article by the Daily Mirror on the issue, wrote: “To be replaced by ‘Genocide Memorial Day’. What’s wrong with that?”

She added: “I grew up in the 50s horrified by the Nazi exterminations, but I’d never heard the term ‘Holocaust’ until a 70s US TV series.”

Last year, as more Labour activists were “auto-excluded” from the party for membership of proscribed groups such as Labour Against The Witchhunt, that repeatedly played down allegations of antisemitism in Labour, Jones wrote that “there is a witch-hunt to be against”. There is no suggestion that Jones was ever a member or had any other affiliation with Labour Against The Witchhunt.

Social media posts by Jones also confirm she has made regular financial donations to the Electronic Intifada news site, made infamous by associate editor Asa Winstanley’s regular claims that antisemitism allegations were “weaponised” by the right wing.

Winstanley quit the Labour party during disciplinary proceedings against him. Jones has urged her supporters to also donate to Electronic Intifada.

Jewish News approached Jones and the Labour Party for comment over her posts.