“The idea that Labour has transformed overnight is wishful thinking,’’ said Ian Austin, who left the party last yer over Jeremy Corbyn’s antisemitism. ”Extremists of the hard left within the party have not gone away.’’ ‘’It needs resolute action to make Labour   again a mainstream party,’’ he said.

 

‘’I don’t think that antisemitism within the Labour Party will simply disappear with Jeremy Corbyn,’’ thinks Ian Austin, an MP who had left the party last year to show the disgrace under the former leader, to seat as an independent.

Austin was asked his opinion about new Labour leader Keir Starmer.

‘’He will be judged on his acts and not his words,’’ he told a webinar organised by the American Jewish Committee on this topic.

Starmer, who was elected to replace Jeremy Corbyn,  has vowed to wipe out the ‘stain’ of anti-Semitism from the Labour Party. ’’I will tear out this poison by its roots,’’ he said.

During the tenure of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party became institutionally antisemitic, was investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and caused almost half of all British Jews to consider leaving the country. The Conservatives of Boris Johnson beat the Labour in the December general elections.

But some, like Ian Austin, are questioning the choice of the Labour Shadow Cabinet selected by Keir Starmer.

‘’Lisa Nandy, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has supported the right of return of the Palestinians and has spoken in support for an arms embargo against Israel.

“The idea that Labour has transformed overnight is wishful thinking,’’ said Austin who explained that ”extremists of the hard left within the party have not gone away.’’ ‘’It needs resolute action to make Labour   again a mainstream party,’’ he added.

Joan Ryan, another MP who left the party over its institutional antisemitism, affirms that Starmer made a good start but she believes that ‘’you cannot fight antisemitism unless you fight anti-Zionism,’’ as she denounced the party’s hard left obsession against Israel.’’

Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has analysed the records of every member of the new Shadow Cabinet in the first research of its kind. ‘’The deepest stain on the records of each of the new members is their overall inaction during the years of Mr Corbyn’s leadership despite the Party’s descent into racism,’’ it said.

‘’They were bystanders when several Jewish colleagues were hounded out of the Party, and they stood by too when principled colleagues made the difficult decision to leave the Party because they could not countenance campaigning for someone with Jeremy Corbyn’s record on antisemitism to become Prime Minister.’’

“Some of Sir Keir’s appointments to his Shadow Cabinet are inconsistent with his pledge to tear antisemitism out of the Labour Party ‘by its roots’. This research shows just how deep those roots go and how much they have rotted his Party, and no amount of pruning can disguise how much work lies ahead,’’ said Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism.

“Our research suggests that Sir Keir may already be making factional compromises instead of showing zero tolerance, but he will find his honeymoon short-lived if he delays the hard decisions and actions that are necessary,” he added.