The steering committee of Momentum is seeking to remove its vice-chair, Jackie Walker, after widespread criticism of comments she made about Holocaust Memorial Day.

The Guardian understands her removal from the post is likely to be confirmed when the committee meets on Monday. A spokesperson for the leftwing grassroots movement, which was set up to support Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party, confirmed members wanted her to go.

“Members of Momentum’s steering committee are seeking to remove Jackie Walker as vice-chair of the committee,” said the spokesperson.

Walker has faced calls to resign after she criticised Holocaust Memorial Day at a Labour party antisemitism training session, and took issue with the definition of antisemitism.

“In terms of Holocaust Day, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all people who experienced Holocaust?” she can be heard telling organisers in a recording of the event.



Holocaust Memorial Day is intended to commemorate all victims of the Nazi Holocaust and other genocides, including the atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Walker said that was not how she viewed the event. “In practice, it’s not actually circulated and advertised as such,” she said. “I was looking for information and I still haven’t heard a definition of antisemitism that I can work with.”

The veteran activist had previously been suspended from the Labour party after posting during a Facebook discussion that Jews were the “chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade”. She was readmitted to the party after an investigation.

Jeremy Newmark, the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, has said Walker should resign from her position in Momentum.

In a statement issued on Wednesday night, Walker said: “In the session, a number of Jewish people, including me, asked for definitions of antisemitism. This is a subject of much debate in the Jewish community. I support David Schneider’s definition and utterly condemn antisemitism.

“I would never play down the significance of the Shoah. Working with many Jewish comrades, I continue to seek to bring greater awareness of other genocides, which are too often forgotten or minimised. If offence has been caused, it is the last thing I would want to do and I apologise.”

Speaking to Channel 4 News on Thursday night, Walker repeated that she had not intended to offend but said she did not believe she should resign. “As far as I am aware, the Holocaust Memorial Day is celebrating genocides that happen after the Nazis. Bosnia, Cambodia, they were all after the Nazis. Of course the Jewish Holocaust was an awful and extraordinary event and Jewish people should have a day to celebrate that.

“But as a mixed-race person who is African and Jewish, I was making the point that why is the Cambodian genocide, which was after the 1940s, included and the African holocaust is not?” Walker said the criticism should be seen through the prism of the “political differences underlying it”.

Manuel Cortes, the general secretary of the TSSA union and a strong backer of Corbyn, called on Walker to resign from the Labour party immediately. “I am asking Jackie that, in the interests of unity, she resigns at once from our party and also as vice-chair of Momentum,” he said. “If she doesn’t, both the Labour party and Momentum need to act to get rid of her at once. Furthermore, TSSA will seriously reconsider our union’s support for Momentum if she is still in post by this time next week.”