Speaker invited to Derby Transformed festival says he was “disinvited” after “calling out” his “shameless provocations over antisemitism”.

A speaker invited to Corbynite ultra Chris Williamson’s Derby Transformed festival says he was “disinvited” after “calling out” his “shameless provocations over antisemitism”.

The extraordinary claim was made in a tweet by Dan Hancox, a politics and music writer. Tweeting on the day of Chris Williamson’s Derby Transformed festival, modelled on Momentum’s “The World Transformed” event at Labour conference, he said that “I was disinvited at the absolute last minute, after calling out Chris ‘total liability’ Williamson’s shameless provocations over antisemitism”.

Cry me a river. Dan why not give me a call, I’m one of the main organisers of the event and I don’t think this is true. This smacks of vain opportunism but hopefully it’s just crossed wires. — lewis bassett (@le_bassett) September 1, 2018

Williamson’s Communications Officer Lewis Bassett replied to Hancox but did not deny his claims, saying “cry me a river … this smacks of vain opportunism but hopefully it’s just crossed wires”. When Hancox insisted “your colleague Jyoti … disinvited me on Tuesday night”, Bassett attempted to take the conversation off Twitter, saying “follow me to direct message … your tweet is unhelpful”.

Hancox may have reprimanded Williamson about antisemitism privately, as he does not appear to have made any public condemnations of him on the issue. He has previously defended Jeremy Corbyn from charges of antisemitism.