The Jewish Labour Movement has emailed all of its members asking them to "decide collectively where we go from here" following the departure of its parliamentary chair Luciana Berger from the Labour Party.
Some JLM members are said to favour severing ties completely from Labour – the party to which it has been an official affiliate for 99 years.
The group’s 2,000-strong membership was emailed just after midnight on Tuesday inviting them to an emergency meeting next month to discuss options for the organisation.
JLM national secretary Peter Mason contacted all members announcing extraordinary general meetings to be held concurrently in London and Manchester on 6 March “to decide collectively where we go from here”. JLM is the party’s only Jewish affiliate and is due to celebrate 100 years in that position next year.
Mr Mason wrote: “Far too little has been achieved for the party to be able to claim in all honesty that it upholds the zero tolerance environment promised.”
He added that Ms Berger’s decision to quit Labour was the “culmination of the same dilemma that each of us has been forced to contend with for a very long time.
“As members discuss in private and share on social media their own responses to this very same dilemma, setting out their reasons for staying or leaving, it is only right that we come together as a movement to decide collectively where we go from here.”
But some senior figures within the group have played down suggestions of an imminent split from Labour.
One source said: “It would be a big, big error to walk away from Labour now even in these darkest of days. You don’t give up your power just like that. The only ones that will exploit such a move would be the Jewish Voice For Labour group.”
But another JLM source said it would “give Corbyn such a bloody nose to see the JLM walk away from the party under his control.”
Ms Berger’s future as parliamentary chair of JLM remains unclear – and she is unlikely to attend the AGM with her second baby expected over the next few weeks.
Even though she has left Labour she would not be barred from remaining a JLM member as the Independent Group she has joined is not yet a political party.
Two other JLM executive members Adam Langleben and Joe Goldberg, both former councillors, have quit Labour in protest at the party’s handling of the antisemitism crisis.
Ivor Caplin, the JLM's national chair, has stressed the choice to disaffiliate was not "imminent" and would only be done after a full ballot of members.
