Still rumbling on tonight...
A Jewish Labour MP has said the moment she found out she faced investigation for confronting Jeremy Corbyn over anti-Semitism made her think about "what it felt like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s".
Former minister Margaret Hodge, who faced disciplinary action for calling the Labour leader an anti-Semite, told Sky News "it felt almost as if they were coming for me".
"It's rather difficult to define but there's that fear and it reminded me of what my dad used to say," Ms Hodge said in her first major interview since the investigation was dropped.
"He always said to me as a child: 'You've got to keep a packed suitcase at the door Margaret, in case you ever have got to leave in a hurry.'
"And when I heard about the disciplinary, my emotional response resonated with that feeling of fear, that clearly was at the heart of what my father felt when he came to Britain."
A Labour spokesperson said Mr Corbyn is "determined to tackle antisemitism" and that the Nazi Germany comparison "is so extreme and disconnected from reality, it diminishes the seriousness of the issue..."
Ms Hodge, who was born in Egypt after her parents fled Nazi Germany, said that she was a secular Jew, but that her religious background is "what defines me".
She said the action against her felt like "bullying" and that there was a concerted "purge of people who disagree with Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters".
On anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, Ms Hodge added she had "never seen it like this" - and warned against the "cult of Corbyn".
"I think it's a bit scary," she said from her north London home.
"We've got the growth of populism, whether it's Trump, whether it's Boris Johnson, and now whether it's the cult of Corbynism which allows these attitudes to emerge. That's what scares me.
The rest:
https://news.sky.com/story/margaret-hod ... y-11474295Labour antisemitism row continues: Unite boss accuses Jewish leaders of 'truculent hostility'
Len McCluskey has accused Jewish leaders of showing “truculent hostility” towards Labour, as he called for the party to draw a line under the antisemitism row by adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance guidelines in full.
The Unite general secretary’s backing for the full IHRA definition, with all its examples, in Labour’s new code of conduct, will tip the balance on the party’s national executive committee, which is due to discuss the issue at its next meeting on 4 September.
“Clearly, it would have been far better for the party to have adopted at least 10 of the 11 IHRA examples in their original wording,” McCluskey wrote in an article for the Huffington Post.
“Not doing so – and particularly without adequate consultation – was insensitive and bound to lead to misunderstanding, and also served to distract attention from the real issues at stake. It would be for the best if all 11 were now agreed, so the party can move on,” he went on.
McCluskey also lashed out at the response of the Jewish community in recent months, accusing them of “refusing to take ‘yes’ for an answer”, as he listed a series of commitments made by Corbyn in tackling antisemitism.
“I therefore appeal to the leadership of the Jewish community to abandon their truculent hostility, engage in dialogue and dial down the rhetoric, before the political estrangement between them and the Labour party becomes entrenched,” he says.
The rest:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -hostility