Labour only launched crackdown on anti-Semitism to stop Jeremy Corbyn being criticised, union baron admits
Unite boss Len McCluskey said the rules needed to be tougher to the attacks stopped
LABOUR only tightened up its anti-Semitism rules to try and stop Jeremy Corbyn being criticised, the party's top union backer suggested tonight.
Unite boss Len McCluskey said the rules needed to be tougher so that "the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn were eased".
And he said that when Labour adopted a tighter definition of anti-Jewish hatred the party was fighting on "enemy territory".
Mr McCluskey made his comments at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on the fringes of Labour's annual conference in Liverpool.
He suggested the party only adopted its new definition of anti-Semitism - the same as that used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance - because it was being so heavily criticised by Jewish groups and others.
The union baron said: "The debate about the examples, the IHRA definition - I know this caused concerns amongst comrades on the left.
"The truth is that we were getting sucked in almost like the Charge of the Light Brigade - cannons to the right and left and in front of us, sucked in to a debate on our enemy's territory.
"It was important to make sure that the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn were eased."
But he insisted Mr Corbyn was right to push for an additional statement which declares that it's not anti-Semitic to call the state of Israel racist.
Mr McCluskey said: "Jeremy Corbyn's demand or belief that those examples needed to be contextualised or clarified - time will come when people will say Jeremy Corbyn was right.
"If anybody believes for one moment that those examples are going to silence us from supporting the Palestinian cause or calling Israel what it is, an apartheid state, they are very much mistaken."
At the same meeting Hugh Lanning, head of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and a close friend of Mr Corbyn, suggested Labour's anti-Semitism crisis was invented by pro-Israel activists.
He said: "What they are trying to do is shut down on Palestine, and make sure that freedom of expression on Palestine can't be voiced."
The anti-Semitism scandal reached new heights over the summer after party bosses initially refused to adopt the full IHRA definition - claiming it might stop activists criticising Israel.
The party caved earlier this month and toughened up its rules - but Mr Corbyn was slammed for trying to add an extra document which said dubbing Israel "racist" is not anti-Semitic.
