Top journalist and comedian quit Labour Party
Have I Got News For You star Hal Cruttenden and Times journalist Jane Merrick abandon the party for refusing to accept the internationally recognised definition of anti-Semitism.
Comedian Hal Cruttenden and journalist Jane Merrick have quit the Labour Party over its attitude towards anti-Semitism.
Cruttenden, who has appeared on Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You, took to Twitter on Thursday, posting a picture of his membership card cut up into small strips and stating: “Sad to be leaving the Labour Party. Can’t really look Jewish friends in the eye and stay any more.”
Meanwhile, political writer Merrick penned a heartfelt piece for The Times, recalling her long allegiance to the party.
However, she notes: “I cannot support a party which does not accept the internationally recognised definition of anti-Semitism, which allows — by omission from this international definition — a member to call a Jewish person a Nazi, or to accuse a Jewish person of being more loyal to Israel than to their home country, or to claim that Israel’s very existence is a racist endeavour.
“Given what has happened to Labour this week, I cannot wait any longer. It is not enough to do nothing. So I am leaving the party and will not vote Labour until a new leader arrives and undoes the damage Corbyn has inflicted.”
She adds: “By remaining a member of Corbyn’s Labour Party, I would be tolerating antisemitism. I would be watching, impotently, a once proudly anti-racist party be tarnished by those senior officials whose hatred of Israel would, under the IHRA definition, make them anti-Semitic and, therefore, thrown out of the party if that definition were adopted.”
Sad to be leaving the Labour Party. Can’t really look Jewish friends in the eye and stay any more. I suppose this makes me a Blairite, Centrist Dad secret Tory… #LabourAntisemitism pic.twitter.com/vzQMP8twhl
— Hal Cruttenden (@Halcruttenden) July 19, 2018
With a very heavy heart… https://t.co/ObU2f2DKcH
— Jane Merrick (@janemerrick23) July 20, 2018
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