Jeremy Corbyn reignites anti-Semitism row by kicking out leading Jewish donor for comparing supporters to ‘Nazi stormtroopers’
Michael Foster – who has given the party more than £700,000 – was banned from voting in the leadership election
LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn reopened the party’s anti-semitism row last night by kicking out a leading Jewish donor.
Michael Foster – who has given the party more than £700,000 – was banned from voting in the leadership election after accusing supporters of the hard left leader of behaving like “Nazi stormtroopers.”
In August Mr Foster blasted a “divisive, aggressive holier-than-thou cadre of hard-Left socialists” supporting Mr Corbyn through his hard-left Momentum supporters group.
He added: “In the midst of this, something is rotten. You are either with them, or you are labelled as being against them and so excluded, briefed against, often threatened and intimidated.”
“If you are like me, a Jewish donor to Labour, you are smeared as a Blairite conspirator, plotting to falsely use the accusation of anti-Semitism to damage the Left.”
He added: “Criticise Corbyn by using the free press and within hours 11,000 people petition the National Executive Committee for your suspension.
“The coward NEC then takes away your democratic right both to free speech and to vote and you are excluded from the Party. There is no due process.”
RELATED STORIES
Mr Foster was informed he was being suspended because of “the urgency to protect the party’s reputation” in a letter from General Secretary Iain McNicol last week.
Last night Mr Foster told the BBC: “The methodology of the hard left in Britain, the political hard left in Britain, is very much following a well-worn path.
“It is an imitation of all the 20th and 21st century extreme political parties, where they attempt to infiltrate bona fide parties by taking over an acceptable ideology and then forming a party within a party - such as Momentum.
“And here I referenced the methodology of the National Socialists, but could have easily referred to Mao and the Red Guard or Saddam Hussein and the Revolutionary Guard.”
Mr Foster’s suspension had been called for by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell who complained: “No action has been taken against Michael Foster, the Labour party member who abused Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters and staff as Nazi stormtroopers”.