Publicist says concerns over Corbyn’s support for painting were repeatedly brushed aside

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Labour party brushed off a formal complaint about Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent endorsement of an antisemitic mural more than a year ago, emails from the party suggest.

Sam Shemtob, a music publicist and Labour supporter who voted for Corbyn as leader, repeatedly raised concerns about Corbyn’s 2012 Facebook post backing the Los Angeles-based street artist Mear One, over a painting featuring numerous antisemitic tropes.



After the party ignored Shemtob’s social media comments about Corbyn’s post he lodged a formal complaint in February 2017.

In an email to the party, under the subject line “antisemitism complaint”, Shemtob accused Corbyn of endorsing Nazi-style propaganda. He told the Guardian that if the party had acted to address his concerns it could have avoided the current row.

Shemtob’s complaint in 2017 came after a Labour councillor, John Clarke, shared a tweet by a neo-Nazi containing slurs against Israel and the Rothschild family.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jeremy Corbyn has since conceded there is a problem with antisemitism in the Labour party. Photograph: AP

It claimed Corbyn’s 2012 Facebook comment created a climate for such antisemitism to flourish. It said: “Given the similarity between the mural Mr Corbyn endorsed and Mr Clarke’s tweet, which suggested the world is ruled by a Jewish family, I think it’s hard to ignore the link, nor the possibility that Mr Corbyn’s post inadvertently endorses this sort of thinking in his party.”

It said both posts were offensive and urged the party to take action.

Labour said it took complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously, adding that the issue could not be discussed “due to data protection issues”.

When Shemtob asked in March 2017 what steps the party had taken to withdraw Corbyn’s endorsement of the mural, it said it could not give running updates on the issue. A year later he heard no more until the row about the mural resurfaced last week.

It is understood that the party decided not to investigate the complaint because it decided Corbyn’s post did not amount to a breach of Labour’s rules.

In an email to the Guardian, Shemtob said: “As a politician with aspirations to be prime minister, there’s an onus to be careful and responsive. I accepted that the party were looking into it, though it was was a little odd that they weren’t planning on responding in a material way on its progress.

“This could be a good opportunity now to address these issues positively, for those in charge to review their processes and put measures in place that deliver on their commitments.”