Expelled Labour activists welcomed at JVL fringe meeting

In a speech to the conference floor on Monday Mr McCluskey was loudly applauded for saying that anyone labelling Jeremy Corbyn a racist "has lost every sense of moral proportion."

Responding to Mr McCluskey’s speech, Dame Margaret Hodge said: "It isn’t immoral or indecent to point out that too little has been done to eradicate antisemitism in the Labour Party. It is immoral and indecent to ignore it and to attack those who call it out.”

Mr McCluskey will attend another pro-Palestinian event on Tuesday evening alongside Mick Whelan chair of the Aslef union and Mark Serwotka, the PCS union leader who last week claimed Israel sparked the antisemitism row as a distraction from its own “atrocities”.

A leaflet handed to all delegates in Liverpool on Tuesday will call for a "two-way arms embargo with Israel and through advancing Boycott Divestment and Sanctions."

In an unprecedented move, motions submitted by Harlow and Wolverhampton Constituency Labour Parties  have received enough backing to become one of the four main issues for debate on the main conference floor on Tuesday afternoon.

Senior party figures have told the JC that the plan to attack claims of antisemitism as "smears" designed to prevent discussion of Palestine and to unsettle Mr Corbyn was agreed by senior figures close to the Labour leader, including Momentum founder Jon Lansman, several weeks ago.

"The plan was to go on the offensive at conference and to stop having to defend Jeremy against all these allegations," said the source.

"By putting the case for the Palestine in a much more forthright manner, you can move away from having to condemn antisemitism all the time and you can also question why these allegations keep being made."

Activists have also been instructed to remain quiet during Tuesday's debate if any speeches are made by group's such as the Jewish Labour Movement stressing Labour's long-standing commitment to a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.

The motions condemn Israel over the deaths on the Gaza border during the Hamas-backed marches earlier this year and call for a ban on arms sales to Israel and an independent investigation into the deaths of Palestinians as well as an end to the illegal blockade" of Gaza.

There is also condemnation of President Trump's decision to cut UNRWA funding.

On Tuesday, at a meeting of the pro-Corbyn Jewish Voice For Labour group, around 300 activists were warned against shouting down speakers at the debate because it might give the media ammunition to continue reporting the antisemtism row.

But JVL chair Jenny Manson told the meeting that the evidence was that people "weren't listening" to the claims of antisemitism scandal over the summer.

She said it was time to "move on" from fighting off allegations and to instead highlight the "injustice to the Palestinians."

The JVL meeting also saw Tony Greenstein - expelled by Labour  in February over his use of antisemitic  slurs, including the offensive term “Zio” - deliver a speech in which he said: “We need to be quite clear, the purpose of the witch hunt is not to get rid of individuals. Its purpose is to topple Jeremy Corbyn.” He added: “Antisemitism is a stick to beat the left with.”

There was also an appearance at the JVL event from  Marc Wadsworth, who was stripped of his Labour membership in April after he launched a verbal attack on Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth at the launch of Labour’s antisemitism inquiry.

In her speech, Ms Manson said the group would work to "resolve" some of the disciplinary cases which had seen outspoken activists including Mr Wadsworth and Jackie Walker being suspended or expelled.

She added: "When you think of the way that Jeremy Corbyn has been treated, when you think of the way that Marc Wadsworth and Jackie Walker have been treated. This appalling injection of lack of reason and injustice which has hit the Labour Party."

JVL's Jonathan Rosenhead also told the audience that the debate over the IHRA antisemitism definition had been the  "battering ram " used to attack Mr Corbyn's party by "the formidable power of our very own British-Israel lobby."

Mr Rosenhead said the group had submitted its own submission for use with Labour's own controversial code of conduct on Jew-hatred.

JVL rejected suggestions that comparisons between Israel and "features of pre-war Nazi Germany" or apartheid-era South Africa were "inherently antisemitic."

A leaflet distributed at the event added: "Drawing such parallels can undoubtedly cause offence; but potent historical events and experiences are always key reference points in political debate...Such comparisons are only antisemitic if they show prejudice, hostility or hatred against Jews as Jews."

A British Palestinian activist speaking at the JVL event also accused Israel of being behind attempts to "topple Jeremy Corbyn" in the UK.

Meanwhile JLM activists erected a sukkah inside the Labour conference zone on Monday.  Mayor of London Sadiq Khan expressed his support for the "important move" to commemorate the Jewish holiday.

He posed for photographs with Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger as well as Ilford MP Wes Streeting and JLM chair Ivor Caplin.

The JC has also learned that expelled activist Marc Wadsworth attended a party hosted by the ASLEF trade union and Co-operative Party on Monday night. Jewish MP Luciana Berger who was inside the event immediately left. Her colleague Ruth Smeeth, who was at the door of the party, walked away after learning that the activist who was expelled by Labour after heckling her at the launch of Shami Chakrabarti’s antisemitism investigation was inside. 

It is believed that Mr Wadsworth was at the party as a guest of Aslef’s Tosh McDonald.

Both Ms Smeeth and Ms Berger are MPs from both the Labour and Co-op parties. 

In a statement, the Co-op later said:”An individual was admitted to an event tonight who should not have been. We are very sorry for the upset that this has caused.”