Senior Labour Party figures are fighting back against charges there is anti-Semitism in the party's ranks ahead of Thursday's vote for a new mayor of London and other posts.
Labour legislator Diane Abbott said today the party is being unfairly attacked by its political enemies while union leader Len McCluskey said the controversy is being exploited by Labour's rivals.
"It is a smear to say that the Labour Party has a problem with anti-Semitism. It is not fair on ordinary Labour Party members," Abbott said. "Two hundred thousand people have joined the Labour Party. Are you saying that because there have been 12 reported incidents of hate speech online, that the Labour Party is somehow intrinsically anti-Semitic?"
Abbott, who helps set the party's international development policies, spoke on the BBC's widely viewed Andrew Marr talk show as the debate over Labour's attitudes dominated political news in the final days of electioneering. The airwaves were filled with commentators debating whether the frequent criticism of Israeli government policies from Labour members had crossed over into anti-Semitism.
The issue flared up in the last week when Labour legislator Naz Shah was suspended for posting anti-Israel material before she was elected to Parliament. That prompted former London Mayor Ken Livingstone to defend her by saying that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had been a Zionist early in his political career.
Livingstone was quickly suspended from his role on the party's executive council, but his provocative comments led Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn to set up an independent review of anti-Semitism and other racism within the party, which was soundly defeated in last year's general election by Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives.
Labour Party mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan, who is leading in pre-election polls, said the comments have made his path to victory tougher.
"I accept that the comments that Ken Livingstone has made make it more difficult for Londoners of Jewish faith to feel that the Labour party is a place for them," he told The Observer newspaper.
