Labour has allowed legitimate criticism of Israel to “act as a cover for the demonisation of the entire Jewish people” ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said.

He made the comments as he announced that he has joined the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) as an affiliated member and condemned how the party had “let the Jewish community and itself down” in its handling of antisemitism.

In a video message, published by anti-racism campaigners Hope Not Hate on Monday, Mr Brown called on other party members to join JLM.

"No ifs, no buts, no qualifications, no caveats." Gordon Brown has a message to Labour supporters: the fight against antisemitism is a fight for all of us to wage. pic.twitter.com/2JPLRS9pwZ

— HOPE not hate (@hopenothate) April 1, 2019

“In the last two years the Labour Party has let the Jewish community and itself down. They should never have allowed legitimate criticism that I share, of the current Israeli government to act as a cover for the demonisation of the entire Jewish people,” he said.

“Solidarity means standing up with those who are under attack and that is why I am joining as an affiliate member of the Jewish Labour Movement and I urge all my colleagues to do the same.

“Tackling antisemitism, racism and fighting for equality is not a diversion or a distraction from the purpose of fighting for my party, it is the purpose of my party. We will never allow evil to triumph over good and neither will the British people.”

JLM is due to vote on whether to remain affiliated to Labour, which it has been since 1920, at its annual general meeting on Sunday.

Mr Brown paid tribute the late Sir Nicholas Winton, who joined Labour in 1936 and helped to bring children to the UK from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939 through the Kindertransport.

He said: “The Labour Party has a long noble tradition of standing up against prejudice, bigotry, discrimination, antisemitism and racism from apartheid to islamophobia.

“No if, no buts, no qualifications, no caveats. It is an understanding that discrimination that starts with one minority never ends with one minority.

“It is a belief that we must never accept the unacceptable, never tolerate the intolerable, and we must never equivocate on what is unequivocally wrong.”

Mr Brown said Labour made a promise to the Jewish community “in the wake of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust”.

He said: “You will never walk alone and we will never walk by on the other side.”