Jeremy Corbyn’s backbenchers have rounded on the failure of the party to tackle antisemitism in a blistering three hours that ended with a Labour MP calling closing remarks by the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, worthy of horror.

The antisemitism debate was called by the government, a move that often blunts opposition anger. Instead, furious speeches from many Labour MPs will threaten the Labour leader’s efforts to show that he is a “militant opponent” of antisemitism.

Almost every Labour MP who spoke described in powerful terms the depths of the abuse they and Jewish friends and colleagues were experiencing.

Luciana Berger, who has received antisemitic death threats, warned that while antisemitism was growing everywhere, the problem was worse within the Labour party.

With Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, sitting beside her, Berger said: “ Anti-racism is one our essential values and there was a time not long ago when the left actively confronted antisemitism.

“One antisemitic member of the Labour party is one member too many ... It pains me to say this in 2018 that within the Labour party antisemitism is now more commonplace, is more conspicuous and is more corrosive.

She received a standing ovation for her speech. Labour’s Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North, was also cheered when he called on his party’s leadership to expel Ken Livingstone, who claimed Hitler was a Zionist, from the party to show it was taking antisemitism seriously. Livingstone has been suspended from the party for two years.

Another Labour backbencher, Joan Ryan, said she had just been in Poland to take part in the March of the Living visiting the places “where history’s greatest shame was committed”.

“When I first became an MP 21 years ago, I never imagined that some in my party would suggest that this horror should be a matter for debate. [Would he join me in saying] shame on them, and shame on any who fails to speak out against them.”

Among several MPs cheered and applauded by colleagues for their speeches, Ruth Smeeth, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, criticised the “poison” of antisemitism that was “engulfing” part of her own party and wider political discourse.

Dame Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking, described how she had seen a battered suitcase with her uncle’s initials on it when she visited Auschwitz and how she had “never felt as nervous and frightened as I do today” about being Jewish.

“It feels that my party has given permission for antisemitism to go unchallenged. Antisemitism is making me an outsider in my Labour party. Enough is enough.”

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John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw – who chairs the all party group on antisemitism, criticised those on the left who claim that calling out antisemitism is a way of attacking Corbyn.

“Those who say it is a smear raising this issue need to publicly apologise and publicly understand what they are doing,” he said.

“Where this stuff ends is what happened in Copenhagen, what happened in Brussels, what happened in France repeatedly including four weeks ago … it is because they are Jewish that’s where this ends and we know where history takes us.”

The communities secretary Sajid Javid opened the debate accusing Corbyn, who was sitting in the Commons for almost every speech, of displaying a “worrying lack of leadership and moral clarity” on antisemitism.

Javid urged the Labour leader to “once and for all” clarify his opposition to antisemitism as the Commons took the highly unusual step of debating the issue.

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Corbyn is holding talks next week with two leading Jewish organisation, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies, although a proposed roundtable discussion with community leaders is in doubt after mainstream invitees objected to the inclusion of an anti-Israel Jewish group.

In a move to underline how it has responded in the month since a demonstration by the two organisations outside parliament, the new general secretary Jennie Formby emailed every Labour MP on Tuesday night to set out progress since she began work a fortnight ago.

“Jeremy and I are determined to eradicate the stain of antisemitic attitudes in our party, and this will be a central priority in my role as general secretary,” she said in email.

But her words were almost immediately undermined according to some Labour MPs by the closing remarks of the shadow home secretary, who devoted more than half her speech to addressing the concerns of the Haredi community of ultra-orthodox Jews in her Hackney constituency. Abbott also quoted a rabbi who had suggested that antisemitism was part of a wider social discontent.

Louise Ellman, who had made a powerful speech in the debate, said afterwards “I was appalled. It was a grave misjudgement.” Another Labour MP, Wes Streeting, told MPs that he feared the wider Jewish community would be “horrified by the response from our front bench to this debate today.”

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, concluded: “Labour is a noble and honourable party and it is absolutely wrong that this corner of antisemitism has been allowed to flourish. [Corbyn] has an obligation to take action. We expect nothing less.”