Labour Investigating Nandy For Antisemitism
Multiple complaints of antisemitism have been lodged with the Labour Party over Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy's recent comments, where she described it as 'a racism that punches up and not down'.
It is understood that Labour's Disputes office is investigating a number of complaints, including one from a Labour member, seen by the Prole Star, which reads:
"Antisemitism is a serious issue, and the Labour Party is right to take a zero-tolerance approach. That is why I was so shocked to hear the Shadow Foreign Secretary on Radio 4 claim that "antisemitism is a form of racism that punches up and not down". No form of racism punches up, and I was horrified that Lisa Nandy so brazenly invoked the antisemitic trope of Jews always being in positions of power and controlling the world. This is all over social media, bringing our party into disrepute"
The complaint is one of several known to have been submitted in the weeks since the radio programme aired and was widely shared on social media. Nandy was one of the MPs mentioned in a letter to Keir Starmer from the Jewish organisation Jewdas, who published the text after their communication was ignored by the Labour leader.
Offensive to the Jewish community by referencing the unacceptable antisemitic view of Jews as a wealthy, powerful elite, Nandy's remarks have been equally offensive to other BAME communities who felt the idea of 'punching down' depicted them as being somehow beneath the racists attacking them.
Nandy, who is Chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, has also been criticised in recent weeks after a group of leading British Palestinians, many of them Labour members, asked for a meeting with Keir Starmer to discuss their concerns that the party's approach to antisemitism was preventing them raising the real abuses by the Israeli state faced by occupied Palestine on a daily basis. Starmer said he was 'too busy' to find time for a meeting and referred the group to Nandy - who also declined to meet them.
At the time of writing, Lisa Nandy has not been suspended from the Labour Party, unlike Jeremy Corbyn, which has led to many members questioning whether Labour's 'zero-tolerance' policy is impartially applied to all...
Recording of Lisa Nandy's interview on Radio 4's PM programme on 29 October.