Eddie Izzard has urged Jeremy Corbyn to put the antisemitism issue to bed, warning that Labour is losing the “perception argument”.

The comedian, who recently won a seat on the party’s ruling national executive committee, said Labour risked not being ready to attack the government and its Brexit plans because of infighting over an international definition of antisemitism.

“We shouldn’t be getting caught in this antisemitic definition row,” Izzard told the Guardian. “If there is ever a time to adopt the full IHRA definition and be in step with the Jewish community, the rabbis, go with the mainstream, rather than say we wish to adjust, that meeting was the time. And we didn’t.”

Izzard said Corbyn should take the matter in hand. “I’d like him to be strong on putting this to bed, because his heart is in the right place, he’s a decent guy and this is getting swirled and swirled,” he said. “Doing things like this will make it keep swirling.”

The comedian won his seat on the NEC after the resignation of Christine Shawcroft because of emails she sent defending a councillor who had posted Holocaust denial material.

Izzard said he was saddened that the party was “hammering each other … we should be saying: ‘Hey, look over there, there’s the enemy, the extreme rightwing, this hard and vicious Brexit.’”

He said Labour had agreed it would reopen discussions with Jewish groups, but that he regretted that a new code of conduct had been approved despite warnings from Jewish groups about the omission of some of the working examples from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

These include accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than their own nations and claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.

Labour has argued that the removed examples were already covered in the wider, new code of conduct and denied that the party had rewritten the definition, It said the code had been strengthened to be practical for a political party.

Izzard said the changes had sent the wrong message. “The message I feel should have been sent was that we are with the mainstream on this, everything else can be done from here on, that was the time to do it. We are losing the perception argument,” he said. “This is a classic thing in the Labour party … and it is going to make it very hard now.”

Izzard, who must stand for re-election for the NEC this summer despite having claimed his seat only after Shawcroft’s departure in March, said he wanted to spend his time there making the case for a second referendum on Brexit.

“The vast majority of our party wants Jeremy to take a stronger line. I’m pushing for that,” he said. “The leave campaign – the Farages, the Johnsons – never had a plan, they had to make up this plan, we know that now. It was done on a lie, an untruth.”



He said there were “huge numbers” of party members saying they wanted the chance to stop Brexit or re-run the vote.

Overnight, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, ruled out backing a second referendum, saying Corbyn would “do as instructed” by the 2016 EU vote.

Izzard said he could not predict whether a second vote would end up being Labour’s position. “I want it to be,” he said. “My hunch is a referendum is inevitable, and that we have to let the people decide.

“Jeremy knows what he believes in, he has kept his position quite standard. We get into multiway arguments in the left, we’re a broad church, and he tends not to want to impose, he lets that play out and then unfortunately that means the message gets out muddy. But it’s up to him to take the line he wants to take.”

Izzard said he was running for the NEC without the support of any Labour faction, though he has previously been endorsed by party centrists, such as the Labour First pressure group. NEC meetings were “a bit like big Christmas family get-together crossed with dentistry”, he said.

“I’m always saying, eye on the prize, it’s the election, it’s government, being in control. We can only get power by being a broad church.”