Margaret Hodge said the eruption of online hate that was directed her way after she identified Corbyn as an antisemite … was “horrible.”

By Algemeiner Staff

Long-time British parliamentarian and Labour Party member Margaret Hodge saidthat Labour still has a long way to go before winning back the faith of the Jewish community, and recounted the moment she realized former party leader Jeremy Corbyn was an antisemite.

Hodge, who is retiring from politics, attracted renown and — from Corbyn’s supporters — vitriol after she publicly called Corbyn an antisemite outside the House of Commons.

“I’ve known Corbyn since the ‘80s,” Hodge told i News. When Tom Bower, one of Corbyn’s biographers, in 2015 “asked me ‘Is Corbyn antisemitic?’ I said ‘no.’ I believed that he couldn’t be — until the evidence started to mount.”

She finally decided to speak out after Corbyn campaigned to weaken an official definition of antisemitism.

When she heard the news, “I was pretty furious,” Hodge said. “I was standing there with two young men on either side, both of whom were hostile to Corbyn and I said, ‘I am going to tell him he is an effing antisemitic racist.’”

But “the last thing I said to myself was, ‘Don’t swear, that will only undermine your argument.’ So, I called him an antisemitic racist but without the f-word.”

Hodge said the eruption of online hate that was directed her way after she identified Corbyn as an antisemite — a view shared by the overwhelming majority of British Jews — was “horrible,” though support from her local party, particularly Muslim members, got her through.

“I’d never talked about my Jewish identity because it had never been part of my politics,” she said while recounting a speech to her constituents. “So, I just thought, well, I’ve got to just say it how it is and how we’ve got there. And I got a standing ovation.”

Hodge said that Keir Starmer, who became Labour’s leader after Corbyn led the party to a massive electoral defeat in 2019, is making progress in the party’s fight against antisemitism, describing him as a “bit higher up than basecamp.”

“I think we are close to the bottom in terms of winning back the trust of the Jewish community — we are much higher up in terms of reforming the Labour Party,” she said.

Nonetheless, she noted, Corbyn’s supporters within the party “are leaving in their droves.”

A poll released last month found that over 90 percent of members of the Jewish Labour Movement believe that Starmer is serious about purging antisemitism within the party, while 88 percent said Labour made “positive changes” against antisemitism in the past year.

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While Britain’s Jewish Labour Movement has been affiliated with the Labour Party since 1920, it is refusing to back its current leader due to an ongoing anti-Semitism scandal.

By World Israel News Staff

Britain’s Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) has announced that it won’t campaign for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in this year’s upcoming general elections.

“Fighting racism, prejudice and intolerance is at the heart of our Labour values. It is the failure of the leader and his supporters to live these values which has led us to take this stance,” said JLM in a statement on Thursday.

“This crisis of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party stems from a failure of leadership from Jeremy Corbyn. Time and time again, the Party has not engaged in good faith to try to implement the actions that we believe are necessary to tackle anti-Jewish racism,” the statement said.

JLM  has been affiliated with the Labour party since 1920.

Instead of Corbyn, JLM opted to endorse MP’s Ruth Smeeth and Dame Margaret Hodge who are fighting to keep their seats.

Earlier this month, former Labor MP Louise Ellman left the party after serving in it for 55 years because of the prospect that Corbyn may win the elections.

“We cannot allow him to do to the country what he has done to the Labour Party,” she said. “The Labour Party is no longer a safe place for Jews, and Jeremy Corbyn must bear the responsibility for this.”

Ellman noted that under Corbyn’s leadership anti-Semitism “has become mainstream in the Labour Party. Jewish members have been bullied, abused and driven out. Anti-Semites have felt comfortable, and vile conspiracy theories have been propagated.”

In September, former Labour MP John Mann resigned from the party to protest Corbyn’s refusal to adequately address anti-Semitism.

“I’m not prepared to stand as an MP with Corbyn as leader. I have told him to resign for the good of the country and for the good of the Labour Party,” Mann said.

U.K.’s general election is tentatively scheduled for December 12.

In a poll taken by YouGov on October 21, the conservative party led by Boris Johnson is polling at 37%, while Corbyn’s Labour coming in at 22%, followed by Liberal Democrats at 19%, Brexit Party at 11%, Greens at 7%, the SNP at 3%, Plaid Cymru at 1% and “other” at 1%.

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Dame Margaret Hodge, a long-time leading Member of Parliament for the UK’s Labour party who is outspoken on anti-Semitism in the party, is facing a campaign to oust her from office.

Video Text Credit: Benjamin Kerstein/ The Algemeiner

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