Waterstones cancels launch of Labour antisemitism book

Waterstones has cancelled the launch of a new book on media coverage of the Labour antisemitism row at its Brighton shop.

Film director Ken Loach was tipped to attend the launch on Monday evening alongside authors Greg Philo, Mike Berry, Justin Schlosberg, Antony Lerman and David Miller.

But the launch of Bad News for Labour Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief was cancelled and moved to the Rialto Theatre instead.

Publishing house Pluto Press tweeted on Monday it was “disappointed” by the decision, claiming the cancellation was “due to external pressure put on the store.”

A spokesperson for the publishing house said in a statement: “Judging from the amount of hostile activity that has come our way on social media and elsewhere, we suspect that there was a concerted campaign to get this event shut down.

“Naturally, we were disappointed that Waterstones’ head office has chosen to cancel the event at such short notice”

But Waterstones’ managing director James Daunt cited concerns about a lack of preparation. “We had an event which was being chaotically done, causing quite a lot of emotion and that needed to be handled professionally on our part,” he said.

The book, out this month, contains chapters critical of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

Pluto Press described the 224-page book as revealing “shocking findings of misinformation spread by the press, including the supposedly impartial BBC, and the liberal Guardian.”