The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has promised to eradicate antisemitism from Labour and appeared to blame the party’s failure to tackle the problem on its former general secretary.

His comments came after Christine Shawcroft, the chair of Labour’s internal disputes panel, was forced to resign when a leaked email revealed she lent support to a council candidate accused of sharing an article denying the Holocaust.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, McDonnell said Shawcroft was forced to resign by the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. “As soon as the evidence was pointed out to her, she stood down at Jeremy’s request, quite rightfully so,” McDonnell said.

But he later rejected suggestions that Shawcroft, a director with the pro-Corbyn Momentum group, should resign from her post on Labour’s ruling national executive committee (NEC).

“It is an elected position and it is up to the electorate to decide whether or not she should be elected again,” he told Sky News.

“Any form of antisemitism will not be tolerated in our party,” McDonnell told Today after Corbyn himself was forced to apologise for supporting a graffiti artist in 2012 who painted an antisemitic mural.

McDonnell implied that the party’s former general secretary Iain McNicol, rather than Corbyn, was to blame for Labour’s failure to introduce measures to tackle the problem.

McDonnell said: “We are bringing forward mechanisms. They should have been implemented ages ago, but they will be now under a new general secretary.”

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McNicol, whom McDonnell did not name, was replaced by Jennie Formby last week.

Asked when Labour would wake up to the problem, McDonnell said: “We woke up to it two years ago when it was pointed out to us, we launched the Chakrabarti report, they [its recommendations] have not been implemented effectively. We have now brought in a new general secretary, they will be implemented.”

McDonnell added: “We will deal with it firmly and severely. We will not accept it, Jeremy Corbyn has made it clear. We are now meeting with the various representative groups of the community. We will be taking their advice, they will assist us in rooting out this problem and we will eradicate it from our party.”

Several members of the NEC were understood to be furious about McNicol being implicated, pointing out that Formby had backed Shawcroft’s appointment to the disciplinary role. They suggested that the process of dealing with antisemitic complaints had been held up by “misplaced loyalty” to the hard left as well as incompetence.

One source close to the NEC said: “It’s disingenuous to blame this situation on the outgoing management. The power of the general secretary to suspend members and undertake disciplinary action was removed by the Chakrabarti report.

“Having to wait for explicit approval from the NEC which only meets every two months has helped create the backlog of investigations. It was Formby who as an NEC member voted for Shawcroft to chair the committee that deals with these matters.”

A Labour source said: “At no stage was John attributing blame towards any one individual for failing to tackle this issue. He made the point that under the direction of the new general secretary the party must redouble its efforts in taking on the scourge of antisemitism.”

Shawcroft said she was “wrong and misguided” to have sent an email calling for Alan Bull to have his suspension lifted as she had not been aware of all the information in the case.



Bull, who was selected to stand in Peterborough, was suspended by Labour last week after he was linked to a series of antisemitic social media posts. He was accused of sharing on Facebook an article headlined “International Red Cross report confirms the Holocaust of 6m Jews is a hoax”, illustrated with a photograph of the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Corbyn has again said the party will be taking further action with Formby as general secretary. In an interview with Jewish News, he said: “I’ve said to our newly appointed general secretary that her first priority has to be the full implementation of the Chakrabarti report and there has to be an appointment of an in-house lawyer, a legal team, to ensure that there is a proper approach to all of these cases and of the – I understand – 70 cases due to be dealt with. They must be dealt with as quickly as possible.”

Asked about calls for David Lammy to be deselected as an MP because he attended a rally against antisemitism in Labour outside parliament on Monday, Corbyn said: “It’s up to the local party, but not for that, no.”

The comments came as the rift between Corbyn and senior Jewish leaders deepened after they demanded he disown supporters who had “vilified” protesters against antisemitism.

In a letter to the Labour leader, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council said it was a disgrace that people who joined a demonstration against antisemitism in the party had been subjected to abuse and insults.