Protesters to return to Parliament Square over Labour anti-Semitism code

A rally will take place in Parliament Square tomorrow night to protest Labour’s new code of conduct on anti-Semitism.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has organised a demonstration for Thursday 19 July at 6.30PM, aiming to tell the opposition “how we feel” about the new definition.

This comes after Labour’s NEC backed adopting a code of anti-Semitism – ignoring the Chief Rabbi’s warning that doing so would send “a message of contempt” to British Jews.

After repeated calls, including from the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and 68 rabbis from across the religious spectrum to adopt the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, the party’s choice sparked anger.

The Board, JLC and CST accused the Labour of “failing British Jews and failing as an anti-racism party”, while the Jewish Labour Movement prepared to call in the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to investigate the decision.

This follows the Board and JLC’s unprecedented ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration against anti-Semitism in March, protesting the party’s handling of the problem .

Following the protest, community leaders delivered a letter to Corbyn outlining concrete actions they wanted him to address. In April, they met with the Labour leader in a face-to-face meeting, which they described as “a disappointing missed opportunity regarding the problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party”. They added, he failed to agree to any of the concrete actions which they had previously asked for in their March 28 letter to him.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism wrote on its website, that “the Jewish community has been consistent and clear in demanding that the Labour Party follow the Government, police, other political parties and even its own MPs in adopting the International Definition of Antisemitism. Now the NEC has crossed the Rubicon and defiantly adopted its own deeply inadequate definition.

We have long stated that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is institutionally antisemitic and unsafe for Jews. We have watched as brave activists fought from within Labour to save their political home from the clutches of antisemitism. The anti-racist Labour Party of old is now dead and gone.”

Labour’s leaders now want to “consult” on their handling of antisemitism.”

Let’s tell them how we feel.”

• View the Facebook event for the demonstration here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/688342004900768/