A group of peers, including Alan Sugar, have written to the Metropolitan police to report antisemitic abuse on Facebook pages backing Jeremy Corbyn.

The letter, to the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, came from a group of cross-party peers, drafted by Lord Polak, who is honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel.

The letter says the messages on some pro-Corbyn Facebook pages “go well beyond what can reasonably be considered as free speech, and we believe those which incite violence should urgently be investigated to establish whether they were made with serious intent”.

An example given by the peers was the Facebook group called Supporting Jeremy Corbyn & John McDonnell, which allegedly carried a post saying: “Adolph [sic], you should have finished the job.”

Another cited was the Facebook group Jeremy Corbyn Leads Us To Victory, which had pictures of journalists at the New York Times and CNN, with the Star of David pasted on to those they believed to be Jewish.

The peers who have signed the letter included the crossbencher Lady Deech, a former member of the Jewish Leadership Council, and Labour’s Lord Turnberg and Lord Beecham, as well as the former Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile. Ros Altmann, the former Conservative pensions minister, has also signed it.

Lord Sugar, who this week was criticised by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, for tweeting a made-up picture of Corbyn attending a Nazi rally, doubled down on Twitter on Thursday, tweeting a derogatory poem about the Labour leader that called him a “dangerous fool who is antisemitic”.

Sugar, a Jewish peer and former Labour member and donor until he left the party in 2015, has been highly critical of Corbyn’s leadership, particularly over the party’s handling of antisemitism. “I am happy to put my name to this letter. If I didn’t know better, I would say Corbyn has deliberately aggravated the situation by associating himself with known haters,” he told the Daily Express.

The peers’ letter says such hate speech “not only stirs up racial hatred which threatens the very fabric of community cohesion throughout London and the UK, but also poses a possible physical threat to the Jewish community”.



A Met spokesman said: “The Metropolitan police received correspondence addressed to the commissioner’s office on 4 April and it will be reviewed.”

Separately it was revealed on Thursday that Joshua Garfield, a Labour council candidate in Newham, had resigned his position as a London Momentum officer, saying he felt “unsafe and untrusted” as a Jewish member of his local group. He said antisemitism had escalated in recent weeks as the issue had come under media scrutiny.

He added: “I cannot work alongside individuals who seek to silence the legitimate concerns of Jewish Labour members, or who remain silent in the face of blatant racism. Denying that antisemitism exists within the Labour party, or in its affiliated organisations, factions, and supporters, is misguided, ignorant and offensive. While some may seek to weaponise the issue, something cannot be weaponised if it doesn’t exist. Our Jewish comrades need solidarity, not faction-based infighting.”

Garfield said he still supported Corbyn’s leadership and would run as a councillor in the May elections in the Stratford and New Town ward.

Momentum’s main governing body released a statement this week saying it had acknowledged that antisemitism within Labour was not a rightwing smear and was more widespread than many had previously believed.

Its national coordinating group said that antisemitism “manifested itself in varied, nuanced and subtle ways”, though some MPs and activists then raised concerns that the grassroots group did not have sufficient control of its local divisions or social media pages to adequately tackle the problem.

On Wednesday it was announced that the two largest Jewish bodies had agreed to meet Corbyn to discuss his efforts to tackle antisemitism, which Corbyn said would be held according to an agenda proposed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Jewish Leadership Council.