The left lays claim to a proud history of confronting prejudice and bigotry. Standing up to Oswald Mosley’s fascists. Support for the anti-apartheid movement. And more recently, facing down the BNP in Barking.

So it is profoundly depressing, as a party member, to see what has been happening with the Oxford University Labour Club this week.

To recap. Alex Chalmers, a co-chair of the group, has resigned, citing some members’ horrible attitudes to Jews. Some of the allegations made are that several people in the club supported Hamas’s tactic of firing rockets at innocent civilians; that one committee member argued any Jew refusing to denounce Israel should be shunned; and that another claimed that it is not anti-semitic to believe in an international Jewish conspiracy.

This isn’t an isolated incident on the left. Ken Livingstone has consistently alienated Jewish people over the years, as Jonathan Freedland outlines here. George Galloway refused to debate with an Israeli student, and declared his Bradford constituency an “Israel free zone”, where even Israeli tourists would not be welcomed. A Momentum organiser was expelled from the Labour Party late last year after suggesting that certain companies exploit their workers because “they have Jewish blood”.

There is a tendency to shrug things off by claiming that it is not anti-semitism, that it arises because people care about Palestine. No. No, no, no. Of course it is possible to question the Israeli government without being anti-semitic, but are you really going to defend any of the above examples on those grounds?

Is it supporting Palestine to say that all Jews are rich and so won’t vote Labour? Is it a critique of Israeli government policy to shout “filthy Zionist” at someone just because they are Jewish? Does concern for Palestinians mean you should refuse to speak with all Israeli citizens?

This type of behaviour has nothing whatsoever to do with support for Palestine. It is anti-semitism. It is bigotry. It is racism. And we should treat it as seriously as we would any other kind of prejudice.

I want my party to stand up and say, once and for all, that this is unacceptable. Jewish people currently feel like they cannot support Labour, and I find that heartbreaking. A party that has fought against disgusting bigotry throughout its history now seems to be losing its moral compass.

I wasn’t going to write this blog. Other people will write better articles on the subject, and I didn’t feel like I could add anything to the debate. But, one thing I can do is to be another voice; to be another party member who stands up and says that this is unacceptable, and that I do not wish to be associated with it. And that is important in itself.

Those of us who categorically condemn this must speak out. I don’t want my Labour Party to be a racist party. Take your hateful bigotry elsewhere.