London – A member of Labour’s ruling NEC has been suspended pending investigation after branding antisemitism claims “total lies” in a secretly-recorded rant.
Pete Willsman will be banned from NEC meetings while facing a party probe after he was condemned by MPs – in the second such row in two years.
According to a 90-minute recording, handed to LBC and later the Mirror, Mr Willsman branded antisemitism claims “total lies” that were “whipped up”.
He added the 68 rabbis who warned of “widespread and severe” antidemitism in Labour were “obviously organised by the Israeli embassy” and their claim was “fucking rubbish”.
He boasted he was “Corbyn’s protector” and “the spider at the centre of the web” – and claimed “Jeremy stuck up for me” during his last antisemitism row last year.
Asked if Jeremy Corbyn would be Prime Minister, he replied: “The rich control the papers, the rich control everything else, and the rich know he’s going to make them pay taxes. So they move heaven and earth… [unclear].
“One of these things about antisemitism is they’re using that to whip people up, they use anything, any lies, it’s all total lies and they just whip it up.
“I’ll tell you, this is off the record. It’s almost certain who is behind all this antisemitism against Jeremy. Almost certainly, it was the Israeli embassy.
“Because they caught somebody in the in the Labour Party, it turns out they were an agent in the embassy.
“The people that are in the Labour Party doing it are people that are linked, one of them works indirectly for the Israeli embassy… my guess would be they’re the ones whipping it up all the time.
“Which is what they would do, isn’t it? Course they would.”
A suspension letter was sent to Mr Willsman hours after the tape emerged on Friday morning.
A Labour spokeswoman confirmed: “Peter Willsman has been suspended from the Labour Party, pending investigation.”
