A government led by Jeremy Corbyn would pose an existential threat to Jewish life in the UK, a joint editorial published by the country’s three most prominent Jewish newspapers has claimed.

The Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph each produced similar front pages for their Thursday editions attacking the Labour party’s decision not to fully absorb an internationally accepted definition of antisemitism into its code of conduct, and its wider record on the issue since Corbyn became leader in 2015.

In their joint editorial, they said the party was until recently the natural home for the Jewish community, but that Labour had “seen its values and integrity eroded by Corbynite contempt for Jews and Israel” and now faced being seen as institutionally racist.

The papers said: “The stain and shame of antisemitism has coursed through her majesty’s opposition since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015.” They produced the joint editorial “because of the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government.

“With the government in Brexit disarray, there is a clear and present danger that a man with a default blindness to the Jewish community’s fears, a man who has a problem seeing that hateful rhetoric aimed at Israel can easily step into antisemitism, could be our next prime minister.”

This is the single most astonishing front page we’ve run at @JewishChron in my decade here. It is totally without precedent. Our paper has been published since 1841. @JewishNewsUK and @JewishTelegraph are our rivals - in name, in business, and on stories pic.twitter.com/peRUPRnqIX — Marcus Dysch (@MarcusDysch) July 25, 2018

Responding on Wednesday evening, a Labour spokesperson said such a government posed “no threat of any kind whatsoever to Jewish people”, and that their security was a priority.



“We understand the strong concerns raised in the Jewish community and are seeking to engage with communal organisations to build trust and confidence in our party. We know there is a huge amount of work to do,” they said.

Concern has been expressed about the refusal of the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to accept the full text of the working definition of antisemitism produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The document provides a definition and 11 examples. The former is accepted by Labour, but not all of the latter.

Labour said its code of conduct “expands on and contextualises its examples to produce robust, legally sound guidelines that a political party can apply to disciplinary cases”.

Labour’s NEC objects to the example that defines “claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour” as antisemitism. The party said it was concerned about creating a code that could be “used to deny Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel and their supporters, their rights and freedoms to describe the discrimination and injustices they face in the language they deem appropriate”.

There was support for the three newspapers’ view within the Labour party on Wednesday evening.

I really hope that every single moron who has tweeted at me dismissing concerns about antisemitism in the last week or two reflects on this sorry state of affairs. Of course they won’t - but the Shadow Cabinet and NEC should know better. How can anyone remain silent now? — Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) July 25, 2018

Unprecedented and very upsetting. And fairly easy to begin resolving. Starting with the NEC accepting the IHRA definition. https://t.co/qY6vcIkqQ6 — Anna Turley MP (@annaturley) July 25, 2018

The Labour MP Ian Austin tweeted that the move by the newspapers was unprecedented and that every member of the party “should be ashamed.

Simon Johnson, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “This is quite something. First, a letter from 68 rabbis from all shades of observance. Now the three mainstream community papers unite.”



The three papers’ editorial said Labour faced a “binary choice: implement IHRA in full or be seen by all decent people as an institutionally racist, antisemitic party”.

The Labour peer Melvyn Bragg said in a letter to the Times that Corbyn had failed to tackle antisemitism within Labour effectively. “The virus of antisemitism is growing in the UK and Corbyn is in a strong position to stamp it out without any equivocation,” the former South Bank Show presenter said.

“Jeremy Corbyn’s feebleness on this matter is a disgrace to the Labour party and shames its traditional creed of tolerance, as well as grossly insulting some of our fellow citizens.”

The Labour MP Margaret Hodge is facing disciplinary action from the party after a confrontation with Corbyn in the House of Commons over the issue, in which she called him an “antisemitic racist”.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, suggested on Wednesday that Corbyn had asked party officials to resolve the complaint about Hodge amicably. He also suggested Hodge’s anger had been based on a “complete misinterpretation” of Labour’s new code of conduct on the issue.

