The Jewish Labour Movement has accused the Labour Party leadership of attempting to “censor” its antisemitism training sessions, amid reports that it has withdrawn from offering such sessions at the party’s conference.

Last week, the JC reported how the chair of the JLM, Ivor Caplin, had written to Jennie Formby, Labour's general secretary, warning that the group’s faith in the party leadership to deal with the crisis “has all but disappeared.” He said the JLM would reject any invitation to take part in Labour’s working group on antisemitism unless the party adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism in full.

Mr Caplin also noted that JLM, Labour’s official Jewish affiliate, was “incredibly disappointed” that its offer to provide antisemitism training to members of Labour’s NEC had been turned down.

As reported by the Independent, Mr Caplin has also written to Ms Formby confirming that the group has withdrawn from offering to deliver the "antisemitism awareness module” at next month’s conference in Liverpool. This was, he said, after some of the module was censored.

“We presume this was to make the module compliant with the antisemitism code of conduct that neither JLM or the Jewish community have any confidence in.”

Last month, despite the protests of Jewish communal groups, including the JLM, and a cross-communal coalition of rabbis, the Labour Party declined to accept the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, instead adopting its own definition. 

According to reports, the Labour leadership demanded that JLM removed from training sessions any discussion of the cases of Ken Livingstone, who claimed Hitler had supported Zionism, and Naz Shah, who was suspended from Labour after social media posts including a comment that “the Jews are rallying” and the suggestion Israelis should be deported en masse to America. Ms Shah was readmitted to the party following a period of working together with the JLM.

Labour is understood to have contacted a number of other Jewish organisations about the possibility of providing antisemitism training, a number of which have turned the party down.