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Hatred 'swept under the carpet'

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Labour has been accused by Jewish students of sweeping allegations of antisemitism at Oxford University Labour Club under the carpet.

An investigation into Jew-hate at OULC was launched in February after Alex Chalmers, the club's co-chairman, resigned, claiming a large proportion of members "have some kind of problem with Jews".

The investigation was chaired by Baroness Royall, but Labour's National Executive Committee blocked the full publication of her report in May.

The peer said at the time that the issues she had considered would be dealt with by Shami Chakrabarti's wider inquiry into antisemitism in Labour.

It had also been expected that the evidence from the Royall report would be considered and published as part of Ms Chakrabarti's inquiry.

However, no mention was made of her findings when Ms Chakrabarti unveiled her own report last week.

A Labour spokeswoman said on Tuesday that there were currently no plans to "publish anything further".

In a joint statement, the Union of Jewish Students and Oxford University Jewish Society called for Baroness Royall's full report to be published immediately.

Labour was "unwilling to confront the issue of antisemitism within its own ranks," they said.

"Many Jewish students at Oxford not only feel frustrated, but also let down by a process that, almost five months later, has failed to properly address the issues that they have raised."

Joan Ryan, Labour Friends of Israel chair, wrote to the party's general secretary saying "justice has not been seen to be done".

"It is imperative that the party now publishes Jan Royall's report in its entirety," she wrote.

● Naz Shah, the Labour MP who apologised earlier this year for a series of offensive social media posts she made about Jews and Israel, has been readmitted to the party following a disciplinary process.

She is expected to make a full apology for bringing the party into disrepute.

Ms Shah was suspended in April.

Ken Livingstone, who was suspended after making comments in which he claimed Hitler had supported Zionism, has been referred to the party's National Constitutional Committee.

Jeremy Newmark, chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, said the decisions on Ms Shah and Mr Livingstone, made by Labour's National Executive Committee, were "positive signs".

A Board of Deputies spokesman said: "Of all those suspended by the Labour Party for antisemitic actions, Naz Shah stands out as someone who has been prepared to apologise to the Jewish community at a local and national level, and make efforts to learn from her mistakes.

"In that regard, her reinstatement seems appropriate."

Social media posts by the Bradford West MP were shown to have backed the spending of "transportation costs" to move Israelis out of the Middle East.

The Guido Fawkes website revealed Ms Shah had shared the highly offensive graphic two years ago, during the summer before her election.

The JC also revealed that in August 2014, Ms Shah had posted a tweet with a link to a blog which claimed Zionism had been used to "groom" Jews to "exert political influence at the highest levels of public office".

And in July 2014, at the height of the Gaza conflict, Ms Shah posted a link on Facebook to a newspaper poll asking whether Israel had committed war crimes.

She wrote: "The Jews are rallying to the poll." She then called on people to vote "yes".

In a post in September that year she appeared to liken Israel's policies to those of Hitler.

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