U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is “unfit for the office” and voters should study their conscience before backing him in the December 12 general election, according to Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth Ephraim Mirvis.
Writing in the Times, Mirvis said an “overwhelming majority” of British Jews are “gripped by anxiety” over the outcome of the election, with the rabbi condemning what he called the “utterly inadequate” response of the Labour leadership to anti-Semitism cases and the departure of Jewish MPs and staff from the party.
Mirvis branded Corbyn’s insistence that Labour is “doing everything” it can and has investigated every case of anti-Semitism “a mendacious fiction.” He also calls into question Corbyn’s past associations and warns that “a new poison — sanctioned from the top — has taken root in the Labour Party.”
“How far is too far?” Mirvis asked in the highly critical article. “How complicit in prejudice would a leader of Her Majesty’s opposition have to be to be considered unfit for office? Would associations with those who have incited hatred against Jews be enough? Would describing as ‘friends’ those who endorse the murder of Jews be enough? It seems not.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said on Twitter: “That the Chief Rabbi should be compelled to make such an unprecedented statement at this time ought to alert us to the deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews.”
Former Labour MP Luciana Berger, who quit the party earlier this year over what she said was its failure to deal with anti-Semitism, called the intervention by the chief rabbi “unprecedented and devastating,” adding: “I left @UKLabour earlier this year because I could no longer remain in a party which today betrays the very values — of equality and antiracism — that led me to join it in the first place.”
The Labour Party responded Monday night by stating that Corbyn “is a lifelong campaigner against anti-Semitism and has made absolutely clear it has no place in our party and society and that no one who engages in it does so in his name.” A party spokesperson added that a figure of 130 outstanding anti-Semitism cases, cited by Mirvis, is “inaccurate” and called his claim that there are thousands more unresolved “categorically untrue.”
Rabbi Julia Neuberger, speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today program on Tuesday morning, said: “If Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour party … come to power, then I think this comfortable place to live may feel less comfortable … What I think is critical is that people will feel increasingly uncomfortable and will look for ways of either moving or having a place somewhere else or whatever they can possibly do to mitigate what feels oppressive, uncomfortable, dangerous.”