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Luciana Berger no confidence motion dropped after outrage
Jewish Labour MP was due to face the motion for publicly criticising Jeremy Corbyn's failure to tackle antisemitism
February 8, 2019 17:12
Jewish Labour MP was due to face the motion for publicly criticising Jeremy Corbyn's failure to tackle antisemitism
February 8, 2019 17:12The no confidence motion against Labour MP Luciana Berger has been withdrawn, after it triggered huge anger among the party's parliamentarians and Jewish supporters.
Liverpool Wavertree Labour members were due to debate two motions against Ms Berger, the parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, for her vocal criticism of Jeremy Corbyn and the party leadership for failing to tackle antisemitism.
One of the motions accused her of "continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be prime minister". The other said she was "continually criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories".
Huge outrage followed, as MPs including Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband rushed to her defence. Deputy Leader Tom Watson said those who brought the motions "bring disgrace to the party that I love" in an angry speech to the House of Commons.
But late on Friday, just as Shabbat was coming in, it was announced the motions had been withdrawn and the extraordinary meeting where they were to be debated had been cancelled.
A Labour leadership source told the JC it was "the right decision".
Ms Berger said in a statement: "This was never just about me - sadly this is all too typical of the malign culture now bearing down on many hard-working MPs.
"The leadership have always maintained that they can’t intervene in local party matters. They appear to have proven today that they can step in when they are being embarrassed.
"Nothing will deter me from exposing the truth about the antisemitism allowed to fester on Jeremy Corbyn’s watch.
"Which is why the Party must publish in full on Monday the answers to the eleven questions and the data of the number of antisemitism cases that the Parliamentary Labour Party called for, in the resolution that was unanimously passed a few days ago."
After the motions were proposed, it was revealed that the proposer of one of them, Kenneth Campbell, has called her a "disruptive Zionist" and shared a Facebook post that called Jewish Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge "utterly shameless".
After the motions were withdrawn, Mr Watson took the extraordinary step of writing to party General Secretary Jennie Formby to urge her to suspend the Liverpool Wavertree party.
He wrote: “It is clear to me that Luciana Berger is being bullied. This behaviour by her local party is intolerable.
“The actions of her constituency are not only threating towards Luciana personally but are bringing our party into disrepute.
“I am therefore requesting that you take the necessary steps to suspend Liverpool Wavertree Constituency Labour Party.”
