Jeremy Corbyn’s failure on antisemitism will forever tarnish his reputation as a leader, the Jewish Labour Movement’s ex-parliamentary chair Ruth Smeeth has said.
Writing ahead of the Labour leader’s departure on Saturday, Ms Smeeth recalled in an article for Politics Home how she ‘‘sat in meetings with Corbyn as he refused to acknowledge that we had a problem or that he should take any responsibility for how the party dealt with antisemites.’’
She laid into the outgoing leader, who has claimed in his last days in office to claim the coronavirus pandemic showed his hard-left politics had been "proven absolutely right".
But Ms Smeeth writes: "I experienced the horror of being a Jewish female Labour MP at a time when it felt that the leadership of my party thought that Jews were fair game - something I still can’t believe I’m writing.
