Rebecca Long-Bailey: I should have called out Labour member who blamed 'Israeli lobby' for election defeat

Rebecca Long-Bailey has admitted she should have called out a Labour member who blamed the "Israeli lobby" for the party's election defeat.



The leadership hopeful said she wished she had been more "direct" in her criticism of the man, who made the comments at a party event in Liverpool she attended.

He also directly criticised Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who is Jewish, and anti-semitism campaigner John Mann.

The man said: "The people who prevented Jeremy Corbyn from becoming leader most are people like Margaret Hodge, John Mann, Tom Watson and they are all members of the Israeli lobby."

Asked on the Andrew Neil Show why she had not criticised the man when she responded to his remarks, Ms Long-Bailey said: "In my response I thought at the time that I’d been implicit in explaining why this particular gentleman was wrong. But with retrospect I should have called that out directly."

She added: "I should have challenged that specific element of that gentleman’s contribution directly and I wish I’d done that because it was an anti-semitic statement to make.

"And this is why we need to have education within our party, we need to call out incidents such as this, and we need our members to understand that making statements like that, it is shrouded in conspiracy theories. Indeed, I’ve been accused of being a member of the Israeli lobby in recent months."

Elsewhere in the interview, Ms Long-Bailey also admitted that she worked on NHS Private Finance Initiative contracts while practicing as a lawyer.

She had claimed in 2015 that she “became a solicitor for the NHS to help defend our health service".

But Mr Neil said she had in fact "worked for a senior lawyer in that department who helped draw up PFI contracts which handed ownership of NHS hospitals to a Luxembourg investment vehicle".

Defending her actions, Ms Long-Bailey said "you couldn’t not work on PFI if you were doing an NHS estate".

And she added: "In terms of those PFI contracts, if you were granting a lease to a GP, a pharmacy or any other local community organisation, any new health centre or new hospital was comprised of a PFI deal.

"So all of the leases out of that for 30 years, Andrew, would be subject to those PFI terms, insidious PFI terms, that meant they were paying far above market value for those services."

KEIR STARMER

In a separate interview, Mr Neil also pressed Keir Starmer - the bookies' favourite to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as leader - on who is bankrolling his campaign.

Sir Keir has come under pressure for not publishing a list of every donation he has received above £1,500, like Ms Long-Bailey and the third candidate in the contest, Lisa Nandy.

Asked why he had not, he said: "I’ve got a compliance team in place who are checking that every donation is in accordance with the rules.

"Once they’ve done that they pass it to the parliamentary authorities for them to publish it. So two lots have gone up, another lot is again with the parliamentary authorities as of today.

"I’m following the rules so that everything can be published."