Reform chief says Jeremy Corbyn is ‘false messiah’ on antisemitism

Senior reform rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner has described Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a “false messiah” and urged him to apologise over the antisemitism row.

Klausner, a lifelong Labour supporter and the daughter of Labour MP Greville Janner, spoke to the Evening Standard ahead of her address at the Genesis Prize award ceremony.

“Jeremy Corbyn is a false messiah,” she said. “Having been at Labour Party conference, I think there is a cult around him whereby he is seen as all the answers to all the problems.”

She added: “I would want him to say I understand that as leader of the party ‘I’m responsible for what has happened and these are the correct steps I will take to start to respond to it’. That is what an apology is.”

A Labour Party spokesperson told the Standard: “This is false and offensive. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are fully committed to the support, defence and celebration of the Jewish community and implacably opposed to antisemitism in any form. We have taken steps to strengthen and speed up our procedures to root antisemitism out of our Party.

“As recently released data showed, antisemitism complaints received over a period of ten months related to about 0.1 percent of our membership, but one antisemite in our party is one too many. We are determined to tackle antisemitism and root it out of our Party.”