Largest local Labour party to vote on affiliation to JVL group

The biggest Constituency Labour Party in the country is to vote on a motion to affiliate to the Jewish group that held a counter-protest to the demonstration against anti-Semitism earlier this year.

Councillors in the Hornsey and Wood Green CLP, which represents half the borough of Haringey, are to vote on Wednesday evening whether to affiliate to Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), a network of left-leaning Jewish members of the Labour Party.

JVL says it takes its inspiration from the anti-apartheid struggle, upholds the right to boycott Israel and opposes “attempts to widen the definition of anti-Semitism beyond its meaning of hostility towards or discrimination against Jews as Jews”.

It is jointly led by Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who addressed the national Labour Party Conference last year, calling for “an end to the Israel’s blockade on Gaza, and an end to occupation and settlements,” before adding that “this party does not have a problem with Jews,” for which she received a standing ovation.

Joe Goldberg, the local government officer for the Jewish Labour Movement and a former Labour councillor in Haringey, said: “Never before has my CLP and my Party decided that it understands my identity as a Jew better than me.”

He said the motion was “an attempt to delineate between good Jews and bad Jews,” adding: “In this case good Jews deny anti-Semitism and bad Jews are us, the Jewish Labour Movement, affiliated to the Labour Party for 98 years with 2,000 members”.