Israel could have created row, pro-Corbyn union chief claims

Israel could have created the antisemitism row that has engulfed Labour, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest trade union allies has suggested. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, told a fringe event at the TUC conference that Israel could have “created a story that does not exist” to distract attention from its own “atrocities”, The Independent reported. “One of the best forms of trying to hide from the atrocities that you are committing is to goon the offensive and actually create a story that does not exist for people on this platform, the trade union movement or, I have to say, for the leader of the Labour Party,” he said. Jennifer Gerber, director of Labour Friends of Israel, said that the comments were despicable, adding: “For a general secretary of a major trade union to allude to conspiracy theories and blame Jews for their own persecution shows the extent of the problem we now see on the left.” The Public and Commercial Services Union is not affiliated to Labour but Mr Serwotka is a firm supporter of Mr Corbyn’s leadership. Yesterday Mr Corbyn was accused of perpetrating antisemitism by one of his own peers. Lord Mendelsohn said that antisemitism was “a crisis which has never been gripped since the start of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and has placed his position, his record, his views, his conduct at the heart of it”. He told a debate on antisemitism in the House of Lords: “It astounds me that it is a revelation no longer worthy of questioning that I believe the leader of my party, Jeremy Corbyn, has been a perpetrator of antisemitism.” The debate came as Rosie DuffieId, the first Labour MP for Canterbury, said yesterday that she was considering her future after local activists proposed a motion of censure because she had criticised Labour’s response to antisemitism allegations. The motion was later withdrawn. “Sometimes you have to ask yourself if positives outweigh negatives, and whether it is worth the effect it is having on my family,” she told The Guardian. In the Lords Mr Corbyn was condemned by peers on all sides. Baroness Altmann, a Conservative peer and former minister, urged the Lords to “take note that one of our mainstream political parties is led by an antisemite”. She added: “As I have grownup in this wonderful country, I have never understood how the Holocaust could have happened. My family fled Nazi persecution and I would not be here today had they not done so. I never understood how European citizens could turn on friends to the extent of being willing to murder them as aliens. This was beyond my comprehension, until the last couple of years.’ Lord Pannick, the crossbench peer, said it was “alarming that in this great country that gave refuge to my grandparents, when they were fleeing pogroms at the end of the 19th century, the leadership of one of our major political parties is incubating antisemitism”. Responding for the Labour front bench, Lord Beecham said: “It is deeply disappointing that this appalling manifestation of racism should still be with us. It is especially troubling that there are people who are in denial about the problem.” A Labour Party spokesman told The Times: “Jeremy Corbyn is a militant opponent of antisemitism.”