Labour is riddled with anti-Semites who hide behind Palestine to spread hate, Emily Thornberry admits

LABOUR is riddled with “sickening” anti-Semites who hide their racism behind the Palestinian cause, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s closest allies admit today.

Emily Thornberry warned bigots use political campaigning to spread their hatred - and confessed Mr Corbyn was too emotional to tackle the problem.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary added that Labour’s claims to oppose racism ring hollow for as long as the party refuses to kick out its own anti-Semites.

Ms Thornberry today became the first Labour frontbencher to address the party’s anti-Semitism crisis from the main stage of the party conference in London.

She said: “Let me speak to you from the depths of my heart and my soul and say something I never thought I’d have to say in my lifetime as a Labour member and activist.

“If we want to root out fascism and racism and hatred from our world, and from our country, then we must start, we must start, with rooting it out of our own party.”

The shadow minister praised the Palestinian struggle, but added: “I know as well, and we must all acknowledge, that there are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed.

“Those people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party.”

Shortly before her speech, Ms Thornberry used an interview at a fringe event to criticise Mr Corbyn’s response to the anti-Semitism crisis over the summer.

She said: “I think it’s very very unfortunate and we didn’t deal with it well.

“I can see how it’s happened - Jeremy is to his core, his identity is someone who’s spent all his life fighting racism. It’s been very much what has been his driving force.

“And so for him to be accused of racism, of anti-Semitism just went straight to the core of his heart and really upset him, and I quite understand why.

“He was so upset about it, and it went to the essence of who he was, and he found it very difficult to get past the emotion and to deal with the issue.”

But grilled on the issue today, Mr Corbyn refused to take personal responsibility for the anti-Semitism row.

And he suggested the only thing he regrets is having a string of episodes from his past revealed by the press.

He told Sky News: “Anti-Semitism is totally appalling, wrong, and a scourge on our society, as is, as a matter of fact, any other form of racism.

“I’ve had a lot of things thrown at me over the summer, what I regret is the stuff that’s been thrown at me and the ill-informed nature of it.”

Labour’s anti-Semitism scandal reignited at the start of the summer after the party adopted a definition of anti-Jewish hatred which is less tough than the international standard.

Earlier this month, Labour bosses tightened up their rules - but some Jewish groups say the move is too little, too late.

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