Jewish Labour leader cheered for plea to stamp out anti-Semitism

The vice-chair of the Jewish Labour Movement was given a standing ovation after he urged the party to "root out" anti-Semitism, in an impassioned speech to conference On Tuesday (27 September).

Mike Katz said it made him "weep" that Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) had failed to include tougher rules around racism in its latest package.

The governing body's decision mean Katz will have to wait a year before the regulations are introduce on the back of the Shami Chakrabarti report.

"Conference, I don't want to be here because I wish there hadn't been an upsurge in anti-Semitic, Islamophobia, misogynistic and homophobic vile hate speech in our party. Even here, in our exhibitions and in our fringe, I'm sad to report," Katz said.

"Jeremy [Corbyn] has said it, Tom [Watson] has said it, we've all said it – there is no place for this in our party. We must root it out. Against this backdrop, is there any wonder that support for Labour among British Jews is said to be as low as 7%."

He added: "The leadership had acted and we welcome that. So I have to say, conference, we are beyond disappointed, we are dismayed, that the NEC didn't put this forward in their package of rule changes so that we can sort this now."

The Chakrabarti report concluded Labour was "not overrun" by anti-Semitism. But the "independent" investigation was criticised after Corbyn nominated Chakrabarti for a peerage.

The human rights lawyers' recommendations included advising Labour members to "resist using Nazi and Holocaust metaphors", distortions and comparisons in debates about Israel-Palestine in particular.

Former Mayor of London and Corbyn ally Ken Livingstone remains suspended for the party for claiming that Hitler was a Zionist.

A Survation poll for the Jewish Chronicle paper, of more than 1,000 British Jews in May, showed that just 8.5% of the respondents would vote for Labour in a general election.