Countdown presenter and TV personality Rachel Riley has endured a widespread backlash over the past 24 hours, after she doctored an image of an anti-apartheid protest to criticise Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and his alleged relationship with Nelson Mandela.

Rachel Riley, Jeremy Corbyn and “the erasure of anti-apartheid efforts”

She had printed the words “Jeremy Corbyn is a racist endeavour” onto a t-shirt which featured an image of the politician. In the frame, it shows Corbyn during a mass demonstration against the oppressive regime in the 1980s, being marched off by the police. Riley has been accused of “erasing” the history of the struggle, but instead decided to double-down on her claims throughout Thursday.

I didn’t feel comfortable knowing my workplace was to be full of racists tonight. I don’t endorse Boris, but I do endorse #NeverCorbyn. Please see my pinned thread if you still don’t understand why. #LeadersDebate #LabourAntisemitism https://t.co/X93TcqOGjX pic.twitter.com/m8yZimVnHY — Rachel Riley 🍊 (@RachelRileyRR) November 19, 2019

Was Corbyn “snubbed” by Nelson Mandela?

The Oxford graduate may have been duped by a few unsubstantiated reports, however. Referring to a Daily Mail article which loosely plucked content from a book published in 2018, Rachel Riley claimed that Nelson Mandela snubbed a meeting with the protest group Corbyn lead because ‘they weren’t part of the mainstream cause’.

The suggestion spread like wildfire across social media, but the truth behind the matter tells a different story. Martin Plaut of The New Statesman managed to debunk these claims, but did acknowledge that there was a modicum of substance behind the story – it was just conflated to frame Jeremy Corbyn at the centre:

“There’s no indication that Jeremy Corbyn wrote to Mandela or received a “snub”. The authors point out that the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group, which was behind the South African embassy protests, did indeed write to Mandela. Sadly, for them, they received neither acknowledgement nor reply.” “Although there certainly was bad blood between the African National Congress and the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group (CLAAG) due to disagreements on what protests should focus on, Corbyn himself isn’t the story. He was an insignificant backbench MP, it was highly unlikely that he could court Madiba.”

Meanwhile, Madiba’s grandson has previously explained how the family saw Corbyn as a man “at the forefront” of the anti-apartheid movement, which strongly contradicts the idea that the family held him in any negative esteem

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Riley has also got it in the neck for completely brushing over the apartheid cause itself. The removal of the initial message held on the placard has been branded as “insensitive” by some social media users.

She has been a long-time critic of the Labour leader, accusing him of anti-semitism on a frequent basis. Corbyn dismissed the allegations during a TV debate on Tuesday evening, against his opposite number Boris Johnson. The Conservative Leader is looking to hold on to his position as Prime Minister during the December elections.