The leader of a third major trade union has called on Labour to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

The call from Paddy Lillis, the general secretary of shopworkers’ union Usdaw, comes after similar interventions by Unison and the GMB and intensifies pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to rethink Labour’s antisemitism code of conduct.

The Labour party leader was also facing fresh questions about a 2014 visit to a Palestinian cemetery in Tunisia, after claims that photographs showed him holding a wreath near the graves of those responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

The visit hit the headlines during last year’s general election campaign, when Labour said Corbyn had been paying his respects at a memorial to those killed by an Israeli airstrike on Palestine Liberation Organisation offices in Tunis in 1985.

But the Daily Mail said that its own visit to the Martyrs Cemetery had shown the memorial was 15 metres away from the spot where Corbyn was pictured in photographs held in the Palestinian embassy website archive.

The newspaper said the photographs were taken in front of a plaque honouring three men, including the founder of the Black September organisation which carried out the Munich attack.

Labour sources insisted Corbyn had already provided a full answer about his presence in the cemetery, when he said last year: “I was in Tunisia at a Palestinian conference and I spoke at that Palestinian conference and I laid a wreath to all those that had died in the air attack that took place on Tunis, on the headquarters of the Palestinian organisations there.

“And I was accompanied by very many other people who were at a conference searching for peace.”



Lillis, who is a member of Labour’s ruling national executive committee, told the Jewish News he was shocked to find the party mired in allegations of racism.

“Jeremy Corbyn has clearly stated that there is a problem with antisemitism in the Labour party and he is right in his determination to tackle it,” said the Usdaw chief.

“If we are to do that, it is essential that the party regains the trust of Jewish communities. As a first step we should immediately amend the code of conduct to adopt the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, including the examples.”

Calls for the full adoption of the IHRA text have also been made in the past few days by the GMB’s general secretary, Tim Roache, and Unison’s Dave Prentis.