Six leading British Jews praise ‘rare moral courage’ of Labour whistleblowers

Six leading British Jews — Howard Jacobson, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sir Simon Schama, Neil Blair, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Baroness Neuberger — have praised the Panorama whistleblowers as showing “rare moral courage and decency that belongs in a great tradition, and gives us hope”.

In a strongly-worded letter in The Observer, the six writers and activists speak of “the poison in the [Labour] party’s soul”, and mourn the fact that “trust between Corbyn’s Labour and most Jews in Britain appears to be fractured beyond repair”.

The statutory investigation into Labour by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, say the signatories, “is not a matter of housekeeping, but a taint of international, historic shame”.

As “accusations of antisemitism became too insistent to ignore, Labour’s leadership, they charge, “set out to change the narrative from hate to housekeeping… all suggestions that racist hate against Jews was becoming endemic to Labour were mendacious, mischievous and malign”.

The Panorama programme had shown the extent of the issue and “the degree to which it has been protected, sanctioned and propagated by the leadership faction” had now been “laid bare. There is nowhere left for the Labour leadership to hide”.

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