Shadow ministers Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle said they were “emotional” after seeing their friends portrayed in a play about Jew-hate on Wednesday evening.
Jonathan Freedland’s new “theatrical inquiry”, Jews. In Their Own Words, currently premiering at the Royal Court Theatre, was compiled from real-life interviews with a diverse cross-section of British Jews including former Labour MP Luciana Berger and long-serving Barking MP Dame Margaret Hodge.
Mr Streeting, who has served as shadow health and social secretary since last November, said he, “wanted to see it for my friends [Hodge and Berger] but I also think that as senior Labour politicians, we have an ongoing responsibility to make sure that the fight against antisemitism is at the centre of our politics.”
“For that reason, it was very powerful, and very emotional because it was so visceral at the time. Some of that testimony, we lived through it and we saw what it did to our friends. I still feel haunted by what happened,” stressed the Labour frontbencher, who vice-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism.
He added: “But listening to some of the conversations tonight, I almost feel like the wrong audience is here.
“There are lots of Jewish people and lots of people committed to fighting antisemitism, and they're not the ones who need to hear this.”
Labour shadow ministers Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle outside the Royal Court Theatre (Jeff Gilbert)
Shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Mr Kyle, a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, said that "Even though the Labour Party has been transformed if people still feel they have something to say, it's our job to listen. So as soon as this show was being put together there was no way we couldn't have been here.”
"Wes and I and others have just spent so long trying to understand antisemitism on the left. There are aspects of it that came from a position of people caring in some ways about international issues, and they sort of slipped into it.
“Then there are others who are just malicious.
"These issues are complex, which is why it takes a show like this and other people to help us understand how these things happen, and make sure it can never happen again,” added Mr Kyle, who shares an office with Mr Streeting, and consistently joined him in criticising Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to antisemitism throughout his leadership Her Majesty's Opposition.
Mr Streeting said his own beginnings in student politics where he witnessed campus antisemitism, meant he “recognised from very early on” the forms of antisemitism, often linked to antizionism, that he witnessed during the Corbyn years.
Mr Streeting’s verdict of Mr Corbyn’s ongoing commentary was damning, stating: “There's still no self-reflection [from Mr Corbyn] and there's no reflection on the part of the people who on the left, who continue to push antisemitism to the extent where Jewish people in and outside of public life are on the receiving end of this hatred, as the play shows.”
“It's almost the cold-hearted callousness that I still find astonishing.”
Labour shadow ministers Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle outside the Royal Court Theatre (Jeff Gilbert)
However, Mr Kyle said that there was a noticeable difference in the “tone” of discussion since Sir Keir took on the leadership.
“I'm a member of Parliament in a constituency [Hove] that was affected by antisemitism. In the local party when I was selected as a candidate in 2013, there was an influx of people who were antisemitic when Jeremy became leader, and they had quite a profound influence on discussions.
“Skip forward to now and those people have gone,” he went on, stating that he “will forever be grateful for the way the Jewish community locally supported me.”
"It feels like the difference between night and day,” Mr Streeting added.
Labour shadow ministers Wes Streeting and Peter Kyle outside the Royal Court Theatre (Jeff Gilbert)
“Keir has shown real leadership on this issue and has demonstrated how easy it would've been if his predecessor had chosen to do the same thing.
“It's really important for us to say that, as Keir would want us to, that the job is not done.
"We're not complacent, and I think we know that there remain Jewish people out there who were deeply affected by what was going on in the Labour Party, and who will still be wondering whether or not they will vote Labour in the next election because of it.
“I hope that they can see that the change has been real and meaningful and ongoing.”
