The general secretary of one of Britain’s largest trade unions has suggested Israel “created” the row over antisemitism in the Labour Party to hide its own “atrocities”.
Mark Serwotka, who leads the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), said he was “not a conspiracy theorist but”, and then argued that antisemitism in the party is “a story that does not exist” and hinted Israel had fuelled to deflect attention from its "atrocities".
A recording of Mr Serwotka’s remarks, made at a fringe event at this week’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference in Manchester, was published by the Independent on Friday.
He said: “In a year when dozens of Palestinians including children were gunned down – unarmed innocent civilians – by the Israeli military, in a year when the Americans are cutting off aid ... isn’t it a vile world when, instead of being on the front foot, denouncing these atrocities, demanding an independent and sovereign state for the Palestinian people, we have had a summer of asking ourselves whether leading Labour movement people are in any way antisemitic?
