Spring Statement: Chancellor says McDonnell ‘turned blind eye’ to antisemitism

Chancellor Philip Hammond has accused his counterpart John McDonnell of “turning a blind eye” to antisemitism during his Spring Statement.

Hammond’s remarks came after the Labour frontbencher described the budget speech as a display “of this government’s toxic mix of callous complacency over austerity and its grotesque incompetence over the handling of Brexit.”

McDonnell also said: “The Chancellor turns up today with no real end or reversal of austerity and to threaten us because this is what he means that austerity can only end if we accept this government’s bad deal over Brexit.”

In response, Hammond dismissed McDonnell’s criticisms as being  “the same old recycled lines.”

He added: “The ultimate audacity is the moral lecturing tone in the close of his remarks.

“I really do take exception to being lectured to by a man who has stood idly by, turning a blind eye while his leader has allowed antisemitism to all but destroy a once great political party from the inside out.

“Atlee and Bevan must be rotating in their graves. Look at what this pair have done to the Labour Party and just think what they would do our country.”