Labour leader candidate Lisa Nandy blames 'failure of leadership' for inaction on antisemitism

"But membership of this party has to start from a recognition of where we are now and how serious this is.

"Not only have we completely lost the trust of the Jewish community, but we are being investigated for institutional racism.

"If you do not accept this is a problem then you really have to question why you are in the Labour Party.

"We are Her Majesty's Opposition, just. 

"Because of that, it's very important that Labour sorts out the very serious crisis with antisemitism - and the failure of leadership shown on this issue."

Ms Nandy accepted there were some who have been so put off by the Labour's direction over the past few years that they would never return, and others who would accuse MPs like herself of being part of the problem for continuing to remain in the party

But she insisted: "It is important to every person in this country, whether you are Jewish or not Jewish, left or right - you have a stake in making sure Labour gets this right.

"For a Labour leadership candidate it is essential that the JC comes and asks questions, makes sure we do this right and holds us to account for our decision making. 

"Nobody should try to prevent that."

Ms Nandy appears to relish the prospect of discussing her views on Israel, Zionism and a commitment to the Palestinian cause that has seen her act as chair and vice-chair of the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East group.

She had visited Israel and the Palestinian territories as a newly elected MP in 2010, and became heavily involved in subsequent campaigns, particularly around the issue of child imprisonment.

"Because I have been involved in the cause for the past decade I think there is a need for me to demonstrate that I have always and will continue to support the right of Israel to exist," she concedes.

"Particularly with what has happened in the Labour Party over the past few years."

If Mr Corbyn's commitment to the Palestinian cause reflected a one-sided view of the conflict, Ms Nandy was keen to show that her views were more balanced.

Her grandfather, she pointed out, was the pro-Israel Liberal Democrat MP Frank Byers, who later became a life peer.

"He was one of the very many people who fought to establish the state of Israel," said Ms Nandy.

"He once made a speech in parliament about a people, a group of refugees looking for a home, for security, with a very troubled recent past.

"About needing that security and having Britain to defend that right."

Ms Nandy said she felt a "symmetry" with speeches she has given on the need for "recognition of Palestine several decades later."

She added :"It surely has to be possible that both of these things are true."

Ms Nandy said that, unlike Mr Corbyn, it would be "important" for her to visit "Israel and Palestine" if she became Labour leader on April 4.

She has visited Israel on three previous occasions.

"Every time I have been struck it is for those people trying to reach across and have dialogue," she added.

"I want these people to know that the Labour Party supports what they are doing. If made leader it will be important for me and my leadership team to show we can engage with both, listen to both and give confidence to both."

Ms Nandy said that the word "Zionism" had been "horribly distorted and weaponised" by some in her party.

"It has become really unhelpful for the debate," she added. "I believe that Israel's right to exist is actually the only way to guarantee a two-state solution and the rights of the Palestinian people too.

"I dislike the way we have started using these terms in the party as a term of abuse.

"I want this to stop. This is the sort of leadership I would show."

While Labour Friends of Palestine has taken "no stance" on the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions [BDS] movement, Ms Nandy said she was "opposed to it."

Her objection to BDS was "mainly because given the very particular circumstances around the state of Israel coming into existence I think it throws into question the right of Israel to exist."

She added: "My own view is nobody should be questioning the right of Israel to exist so I've never been in favour of it [BDS] and I have consistently spoken out on it."

But Ms Nandy hit out at those who criticised her and other Labour campaigners for taking part in debates with those who do support BDS.

"There is a live debate going on in the Middle East around BDS and it's right that people who support it should get a hearing along with people like me who don't," she said.

"I think there is a worrying trend in Labour towards no platforming and I don't think that is the answer to any of the main challenges we face."

Ms Nandy said she was not in the main hall during the infamous Labour conference in Liverpool in 2018, on the day delegates waved Palestinian flags en masse.

"I saw it in TV later as I had committed to speaking at too many fringe events," she said.

She insists she has been "proud" to hold the Palestinian flag herself - but she would not refuse to also hold an Israeli one.

Ms Nandy insisted that any work she has done with the more radical Palestine Solidarity Campaign has been "positive... particularly around the issue of child detention".

But she added: "I do believe there are certainly elements with what I would call the 'anti-Labour left' that use the Palestinian cause for their own ends."

The 40-year-old has had a hugely encouraging week, having secured the backing of the GMB trade union and starting to see herself spoken about as a genuine challenger to frontrunners Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

With Mr Corbyn's successor announced on April 4, Ms Nandy was unsurprised that Labour's failure to tackle antisemitism has kept coming up throughout the leadership campaign.

"For Labour this was and is existential," she said. "When we were on the doorsteps in December, it came up.

"I have a very small Jewish community in Wigan. This should not have been one of the key issues of the election - but it was.

"And it was because people are thoroughly decent in this country. They do not like nastiness, they do not like discrimination.

"I have a lot of elderly constituents who fought in the war to defeat Hitler."

Ms Nandy stressed she "in no sense" believed the vast majority of Labour members were racist and said it broke her heart to see local activists who had chased the far right out of Wigan being insulted during the General Election campaign.

"They don't like racism, don't like discrimination - yet they've been called 'racists' for a month on the doorstep," she said.

"They want to see Labour take this seriously now and sort this out."

Ms Nandy acknowledged the criticism of Labour's leadership candidates who are now speaking out about the party's failure on antisemitism, having remained silent when Mr Corbyn was leader.

She said that, unlike her three rivals, she was not a part of Mr Corbyn's shadow cabinet after 2016. She said she "hasn't criticised anybody else because I genuinely don't know what they did."

She added she had been asked whether the party shouls dismiss every member of its ruling National Executive Committee.

"The truth is there were people speaking up, and there are people who were not," she said.

"What I welcome is that every single leadership contender is now publicly saying this is a problem that needs to be dealt with."

But then she pointedly added: "One of the things I would like to happen now, one of the things I found very hard to understand, is why the Shadow Cabinet did not demand the right to the see party's submission to the EHRC (the equalities watchdog conducting the investigation into allegations of institutional antisemitism in the party)."

Ms Nandy confirmed that all four leadership candidates have been invited to a briefing next Wednesday with Mr Corbyn in which he will explain why he responded to the antisemitism issue in the way he did.

"One of the things I'm going to be asking is the EHRC submission to be shown to us," she said. "That hasn't been seen.

"I'm going to ask for it. Whether they do or not is another matter."

Ms Nandy was adamant that, when the EHRC report sback with its findings, the "minimum" the party would do under her leadership would be to implement all of the recommendations.

She reveals that the experience of her father Dipak Nandy, the Indian-born Marxist academic, who was instrumental in writing the Race Relations Act and subsequently became the director of the Runnymede Trust, has influenced her own thinking.

"The reason I am a Manc by birth", she said, "was that my father moved [to Manchester] so he could work for the Equal Opportunities Commission, trying to get it off the ground as one of the things that came out of the Act.

"The EHRC has obviously evolved from this, but one of the regrets of the people involved in drafting the legislation in the first place was the lack of teeth the organisation had. 

"I say implementing the recommendations of the EHRC is a minimum requirement because I am not sure how strong they are going to be.

"I think it is important not to close the door to more robust action."

If there were a moment when Ms Nandy recognised Mr Corbyn's own failure to want to tackle his party's antisemitism crisis, it came, in April 2016.

She hesitated to name the person involved in the incident, referring instead to the "very high-profile incident involving a Labour MP."

But it quickly became apparent she was referring to the eventual suspension of Naz Shah, the MP for Bradford West, who had shared Facebook content suggesting Israel should be relocated to the United States.

"The story broke on the Tuesday, and on the Wednesday I was supposed to be on the BBC's Daily Politics show," she said.

"I phoned the Labour Party press office and said 'What are we doing about this - presumably we are suspending or investigating this case?'

"Jeremy (Corbyn) had given an interview before all of this saying if antisemitism is alleged we investigate and we suspend.

"But it took 24 hours to get any response, and when that came back it was suggested that the leadership were ready to draw a line under this and were not proposing to do anything at all.

"My argument at the time was that this simply would not do. We had a new MP who is not going to be protected in what would deservedly become a huge media storm.

"I said that rather than dealing with it we were giving a green light to antisemites."

But Ms Nandy said she was left with no option but to go onto The Daily Politics and call for Ms Shah to be suspended.

"It was not a comfortable thing to do," Ms Nandy said in our interview. "But not to speak up was for me the moment I felt complicit in it. So I did.

"Shortly afterwards the Shadow Cabinet fell apart. That was the moment we had to get up and show leadership or else I realised this would get worse.

"Over the next few years we have seen a series of failures to deal with high-profile cases - Chris Williamson being a good example - which were not robust or credible."

Ms Nandy also recalled how Jewish Labour MPs were treated for regularly speaking out at weekly meetings of the Parliamentary Labour Party urging the leadership to act over antisemitism and for the party to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

She said this had continued to affect her.

"I will never forget standing in (Westminster's) Committee Room 14 with Jewish MPs begging the party to take seriously what was happened and to adopt the IHRA," she said.

"The response coming from the top table - that we know better than you about what constitutes racism - I can't imagine a scenario where the party would speak to any other minority community in such a fashion."

So what else - other than adopting the recommendations of the EHRC and signing up to the ten Board of Deputies pledges on "healing" the rift with the Jewish community - can we expect from a Labour Party led by Ms Nandy?

"One of the first things I would like to do is open the door and listen to people who left the party on what we need to do to resolve this," she said, before adding: "And then do it."

Asked about the influence the pro-Corbyn, fringe Jewish Voice For Labour group has had on the antisemitism crisis, she said she felt "instinctively uncomfortable telling Jewish people what group's they can and can belong to."

But Ms Nandy added that her "starting point" as leader of the Labour Party would be with the Jewish Labour Movement.

"The JLM is the only Jewish organisation affiliated to the Labour Party, so as leader your starting point is there," she adds.

"That sees clear - and doesn't mean that I would work with a whole range of other organisations, the Board, the Community Security Trust, who I have done work with in the past, the JLC,  all of these organisations are important to have an open door to.

"But there is one condition, that if you do not accept that the incidents of antisemitism that have happened over the past few years have actually happened, if you do not accept there is a problem then no meaningful dialogue is possible.

"At times JVL has given the impression that they do not believe this is a real problem.

"It is a real problem, and as Labour leader I would be happy to have dialogue with those who wish to talk about how to resolve it."

Ms Nandy was less willing to criticise the power Unite union boss Len McCluskey's holds within the party - although she accepted her complaints about his approach to antisemitism remained unresolved.

"In my personal dealings with Len on antisemitism he took what I was saying seriously," she said.

"I went to see him after JLM had the contract to do their training sessions removed.

"He took what I said seriously - but it never got resolved and JLM never got the contract back.

"That actually has been the story of the last four years. Spending a lot of time behind closed doors doing the talking and nothing happening.

"I can see the frustration of Jewish MPs, members, the Jewish organisations has been palpable - it never seems to move."

Ms Nandy said there was "a big moment coming up in a few weeks time" over antisemitism.

She accepted there was "no use" trying to urge former Jewish colleagues such as ex-MPs Luciana Berger and Dame Louise Ellman to return to the party "at the moment."

She concluded: "We have got to sort this out. I suppose my message would be as leader of the Labour Party I will make sure we sort this out."