Jewish UK Labour Leader: Party Slow to Probe Anti-Semitism Charges

The Times of Israel reports: A Jewish Labour group has criticized the UK opposition party for failing to deal with a number of incidents of anti-Semitism, saying that Labour did not appear serious about tackling anti-Semitism in the party’s ranks.

Jeremy Newmark, the head of the Jewish Labour Movement, said the lack of action in dealing with the recent cases raises concerns over whether the party has internalized the findings of a report on anti-Semitism in Labour, The Guardian reported Saturday. That probe, which was led by Labour Peer Shami Chakrabarti, was criticized by the British Jewish community for downplaying anti-Semitism within the party.

“We remain seriously concerned about what is now a vast backlog of cases involving alleged anti-Semitism that appear to be stuck in the system, in some cases for over a year,” said Newmark, according to The Guardian. “That is not a good indicator of the party having embraced Shami Chakrabarti’s imperative to adopt a gold standard in dealing with antisemitism.”