Derby North – A key ally of British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who was suspended from the party for saying it is “too apologetic” over antisemitism has been readmitted.
A party ethics panel warned the lawmaker, Chris Williamson, for saying earlier this year that when it comes to Labour’s antisemitism problem, its deniers “have backed off too much, we have given too much ground, we have been too apologetic.”
Labour suspended Williamson in February pending an ethics review.
Williamson is one among dozens of Labour members who have been suspended over their antisemitic statements in recent years.
WATCH: Chris Williamson tells a Sheffield Momentum meeting that Labour has been “too apologetic” about antisemitism… pic.twitter.com/zxtKdHQPvw
— Liz Bates (@wizbates) February 26, 2019
Corbyn himself has been accused of holding antisemitic views by senior UK Jewish leaders. Corbyn has also been criticized for calling Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends” and for outright refusing to condemn those two terrorist organizations despite being urged to do so by local Jewish groups.
Much of the criticism against Corbyn is over his playing down the antisemitism in his party and alienating Jews. A report released in October of 2016 determined that the Labour party’s leadership is failing to seriously confront the antisemitism among its ranks.
Corbyn insists he is not an antisemite. In an interview with the BBC in September of 2018 he described antisemitism “as a scourge in any society, I have opposed it all my life…I have spent my whole life opposing racism in any form and I will die fighting racism.”
