Date set for meeting between community leaders and Jeremy Corbyn
Representatives from the Board and JLC will have face-to-face meeting with the Labour leader on 24 April
Justin Cohen is the News Editor at the Jewish News
Community leaders are set to hold their first face to face talks with Jeremy Corbyn for two years on 24 April.
The meeting comes in the wake of the unprecedented Enough is Enough demonstration against anti-Semitism in Labour last month and the party’s handling of it.
Corbyn has agreed to an agenda for talks set out by the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council, including their proposal that current and future disciplinary cases be concluded in a set period of time. Ken Livingstone’s case is get to be concluded a year after a second investigation was opened. They also called for the IHRA definition with all examples of contemporary antisemitism to be circulated to all local parties and for officials to be prevented from sharing a platform with suspended members, or face suspension themselves.
After the demo was called last month, Corbyn apologies for the hurt caused by antisemitism in the party, acknowledged some cases had not been dealt with swiftly enough and listed some modern-dat examples of antisemitism.
Writing in the Observer, Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush and JLC chair Jonathan Goldstein, said: “Last month’s protest was a necessary moment of catharsis, as painful for Labour as it was for our community, but we cannot now return to “business as usual”.
“We need this to be a genuine turning point and will do everything we can to make it so. We can achieve this together if Corbyn can fulfil his pledge to be our “militant ally” in the fight against antisemitism and demonstrate his understanding that what is now needed is firm action and not just words.”
New Labour General Secretary Jennie Formby – whose first priority is said to be implementing the Chakrabarti report in full – is to attend the meeting.
The Board and JLC had set as a condition of talks that Corbyn condemn the targeted of MPs that attended the rally against antisemitism – something which he did in his interview with the Jewish News.
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