Allegations and incidents of antisemitism within the British Labour Party have involved members and affiliates of the party. These incidents have spanned various periods and have involved stereotypes, conspiracy theories, and offensive language. Labour has faced criticism for its handling of such incidents, including its disciplinary measures and the prevalence of certain antisemitic tropes within the party. There has also been debate over current definitions of antisemitism, including whether criticism of the State of Israel constitutes a new antisemitism. The Labour Party has publicly condemned antisemitism and taken steps to address concerns, but the issue remains a subject of ongoing debate and controversy.
Following Jeremy Corbyn's election as party leader in 2015, allegations of antisemitism within the party grew. In response, Corbyn established the Chakrabarti Inquiry, which said that the party was not "overrun by anti-Semitism or other forms of racism" but that there was evidence of ignorance and sometimes toxicity within the party. The inquiry made 20 recommendations. In 2017, Labour Party rules were amended to categorise hate speech, including antisemitism, as a disciplinary matter. A commissioned YouGov poll in 2017 found that Labour supporters were less likely to hold antisemitic views than Conservative Party or UK Independence Party supporters. A study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research that same year reported that those on the left-wing of the political spectrum were no more antisemitic than the general population and less antisemitic than those who were right-wing, and also stated those of the left-wing were more likely to be critical of the State of Israel. In July 2018, the governing body of the Labour Party adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism for disciplinary purposes, with modified examples related to criticism of Israel.
In May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched an inquiry into whether Labour had "unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people" because they were Jewish. In April 2020, the new party leader Keir Starmer announced that an internal report on Labour's handling of antisemitism claims would not be submitted to the EHRC as evidence. Following this, the internal report was leaked. The report said Corbyn's team had inherited a lack of processes and systems for handling antisemitism, and that hostility towards Corbyn's team by senior officials from Labour's right-wing had contributed to mistakes, confusion and difficulties handling cases. Later that month, the Labour Party's governing body commissioned the barrister Martin Forde to lead a new independent review. In October 2020, the EHRC published its report, finding 23 instances of political interference and concluding that Labour had breached the Equality Act in two cases. In 2022, the Forde Report was published and said the issue of antisemitism was being used as a factional weapon. The report also said that senior figures in Labour hostile to Corbyn and his supporters had slowed down the leadership in dealing with antisemitism and other forms of racism.
20th century Second Boer War and "Jewish finance"
In the late 19th century, antisemitism was widespread in Britain. This intensified during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) and came to include the labour movement, dismaying socialist Jews. Liberal MP John Burns' was prone to antisemitic outbursts when airing his views on the war, and labour movement figures opposed to the war, such as Henry Hyndman, blamed "Jewish capitalists" for starting it, which angered other members of the Social Democratic Federation. Liberal journalist J. A. Hobson wrote that the gold mines in South Africa were "almost entirely in their [the Jews'] hands", and Labour Party founder Keir Hardie stated that Jewish financial houses were part of a secretive imperialist cabal that promoted war. According to Denis Judd and Keith Surridge in The Boer War: A History, the Independent Labour Party, the Trades Union Congress, and Robert Blatchford's The Clarion blamed "Jewish capitalists" for being "behind the war and imperialism in general".
Palestine
Antisemitic attitudes were not prominent in the 1980s Labour Party. Paul Kelemen ascribed the shift in Labour's views to Israel's increasingly right-leaning politics and to the left's opposition to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He found no evidence that antisemitism played a role in the left's changing perceptions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in that period. Daniel L. Staetsky, stated that in the 1980s, parts of the political left assumed pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel positions, and faced accusations of antisemitism within Labour.
2000–2015
"Israel lobby" accusations In 2003, Labour MP Tam Dalyell claimed, referring to the Israel lobby in the United States, that "there is far too much Jewish influence in the United States" and that "a cabal of Jewish advisers" was directing American and British policy on Iraq, stating that six of seven hawkish advisers to President George Bush were Jewish, close to Ariel Sharon's Likud, and also singling out Michael Levy, chief fundraiser for Tony Blair and his Middle East envoy for nine years. Eric Moonman stated he did not think that Dalyell, a close associate of Richard Crossman, was antisemitic, but that his language could be taken as supportive of such views.
In 2010, Labour MP Martin Linton alleged that a malevolent Israel lobby operated in the UK, saying "There are long tentacles of Israel in this country who are funding election campaigns and putting money into the British political system for their own ends", while his Jewish fellow Labour MP Gerald Kaufman said that right-wing Jewish millionaires had large stakes in the Conservative Party. Community Security Trust spokesman Mark Gardner responded: "Anybody who understands antisemitism will recognise just how ugly and objectionable these quotes are, with their imagery of Jewish control and money power." In 2015, Kaufman said that "Jewish money, Jewish donations ... [and] support from the Jewish Chronicle" had led to "a big group of Conservative MPs who are pro-Israel whatever (its) government does", referring to the Conservative Friends of Israel; Corbyn condemned Kaufman's remarks at the time as "completely unacceptable".
2005 In 2005, Labour politician Ken Livingstone was accused of antisemitism after he asked Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold if he had been "a German war criminal". When the reporter said he was Jewish, Livingstone said "Just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?" and asserted that he (Finegold) worked for the "reactionary bigots... who supported fascism" at the Daily Mail. The Evening Standard was then a sister paper of the Mail, which had been supportive of fascism in the 1930s.
Election In the run-up to the 2005 United Kingdom general election, Labour, under Tony Blair, tested posters which TBWA, Labour's advertising agency, later said originated from Campaign Director Alastair Campbell. One depicted the faces of Conservative Party leader Michael Howard and Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin, who are Jewish, superimposed upon flying pigs. The slogan was "The Day Tory Sums Add Up" and the poster illustrated the adynaton, when pigs fly, used for something that never happens. A second poster was of Howard swinging a pocket watch on its chain with the slogan "I can spend the same money twice!" somewhat suggestive of stage hypnosis, where the subject is persuaded to accept false suggestions as true. In 1997, Conservative backbencher Ann Widdecombe had suggested Howard, whose father was born in Romania, had an image problem in that he had "something of the night about him". Labour strategists leapt at this by then depicting Howard as a Dracula figure swinging a hypnotic watch. The pose was said by The Jewish Chronicle to be reminiscent of fictional Jewish, criminal, characters, such as the moneylender, Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice and the master pickpocket, Fagin, from Oliver Twist. The posters were not used and Labour denied any antisemitic intent. They prompted protests from some Jewish groups but the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BDBJ) declined to raise the issue.
Corbyn's backbench record Jeremy Corbyn was a patron of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and had campaigned extensively for Palestinian rights during his 32 years as a Parliament backbencher.
In August 2015, as Corbyn emerged as a front-runner in Labour's leadership election, The Jewish Chronicle devoted its front page to seven questions regarding Corbyn's associations with those it described as "Holocaust deniers, terrorists and some outright antisemites", although Corbyn said he met with them in his search for Middle East peace. These included his relationship with Islamist militant organisations Hezbollah and Hamas, organisations that Corbyn called "friends" (although he has stated he disagrees with their views); and his failure to object to what The Jewish Chronicle described as antisemitic banners and posters at London Quds Day rallies supported by the organisation, Stop the War Coalition, of which Corbyn was national chair from 2011 to 2015. Two of the questions related to "Deir Yassin Remembered", an organisation commemorating the massacre of over 100 Palestinian villagers in 1948 and founded by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Up to 2013, Corbyn and Gerald Kaufman, a Jewish Labour MP, attended "two or three" of the group's annual events. Corbyn has said that this had taken place before Eisen had made his views known publicly, and that he would not have associated with him had he known. It was reported that Eisen's views were known in 2005 and that he had written an essay on his website in 2008 entitled "My life as a Holocaust denier".
2016 Shah, Livingstone and Walker comments In April 2016, after it was revealed that Labour MP Naz Shah had, during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict and before becoming an MP, shared a graphic of Israel superimposed on the U.S. with the caption "Solution for Israel-Palestine conflict – relocate Israel into United States", adding the comment, "Problem solved". She was suspended pending investigation, but reinstated after agreeing to apologise for bringing the party into disrepute. By May 2016, Labour had suspended 56 members for statements alleged to be antisemitic, pending investigation; these accounted for 0.4% of the parliamentary group, 0.07% of Labour councillors, and 0.012% of the Party membership. The graphic was created by American political scientist Norman Finkelstein, who described the controversy as "obscene". Referring to those on the Labour right allegedly using the scandal to undermine Corbyn, Finkelstein asked "What are they doing? Don't they have any respect for the dead? ... All these desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position. Have they no shame?"