'You did nothing and you left it for people like me to lead that fight and, candidly, you should be ashamed', says ex-MP at JLM hustings
February 12, 2020 10:04
Former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth has attacked the party's deputy leader candidates to their faces for doing nothing to help their Jewish colleagues over antisemitism from party members, calling their silence a "disgrace".
Ms Smeeth, who lost her seat in December's disastrous election defeat for her party, singled out some of the candidates standing for the deputy role, saying they had dismissed her and even "shouted at me for raising those issues".
She demanded to know why they had left "Jewish women having to lead this fight by themselves".
Absolute hero @RuthSmeeth calling out those who left Jewish women to fight alone, and the candidate(s) who shouted at her when she talked about antisemitismpic.twitter.com/U8O3IwfZad
She reminded the candidates, who include Corbynite MPs Dawn Butler and Richard Burgon, that antisemitic abuse led MPs Luciana Berger and Dame Louise Ellman to quit the party over the racism, and that the election result has left only Dame Margaret Hodge, Jewish Labour Movement's (JLM) new parliamentary chair, as the party's only Jewish female MP.
"I find it very difficult. I look forward to hearing other peoples' comments over what they did or not do over the last three years," Ms Smeeth said at the JLM hustings in Manchester on Tuesday as the five candidates listened in silence.
"But you know that I stood up at every Parliamentary Labour Party meeting and called out antisemitism and asked for help and didn't get any.
"In fact there have been times when I was dismissed, where colleagues, including some of the people standing for election, shouted at me for raising those issues, shouted at me in my own office for riaisng those issues.
"The idea it should be Jewish women having to lead this fight by themselves, because that's what happened with notable exceptions, is simply a disgrace.
"So I'm very interested in knowing where you were. I'm interested in knowing why you were silent. I'm very interested why it was left to Luciana, and then me, and then Louise and now Margaret, who is alone."
"And no one did anything. So this your responsibility to fix. But more than anything you did nothing and you left it for people like me to lead that fight and, candidly, you should be ashamed."
One of the candidates, Dawn Butler, was invited to reply and said: "It's an example of the hurt and the pain and nobody can take that away. It's absolutely right we should not be in this position.
"It shouldn't be left to individuals".
But Ms Smeeth asked: "But the question is what did you do?" Ms Butler said: "I think I explained".
The chair then moved on.
Ms Smeeth had previously declared she would support MP Ian Murray for deputy leader.
"Too many of my colleagues thought that it would be too difficult to stand publicly with me. Too many sent nice text messages but wouldn’t speak out against the racism we were seeing daily in our party," she wrote for LabourList in January.
"Too many were happy to hide behind the Jewish women who were having to lead the fight alone rather than help shoulder the burden. Too many abandoned us when we needed them.
"Ian Murray was not one of those people. His personal private support, his interventions within the PLP and his public statements made sure that I wasn’t alone. That solidarity really was more than a word."
Mr Burgon also tried to clarify his controvesial comments that "Zionism is the enemy of peace".
He told the hustings this was "crude and oversimplified" and said now understood "the phrase Zionism does not just mean Netanyahu... it means anybody who believes in a state of Israel. That includes, of course, people who are campaigning for peace."
