Remarks by Len McCluskey, Ken Loach and Ken Livingstone come as party members vote over tough new rules to tackle hate speech

The row over antisemitism in the Labour party was reignited on Tuesday night as three allies of Jeremy Corbyn suggested complaints about hate speech within the party were motivated by plots against the leadership.

The Unite boss Len McCluskey, the film director Ken Loach and former mayor of London Ken Livingstone told reporters they had not experienced antisemitism in the Labour party, with McCluskey describing it as “mood music”.

The controversy came as party members adopted tough new rules to tackle antisemitism, following a heated debate at the party’s annual conference.

Senior Labour figures had hoped the passing of the rule change, which was personally backed by Corbyn and the party’s ruling national executive committee, would send a strong signal that Labour was prepared to root out anti-Jewish hate speech.

Delegates voted on the change on Tuesday and it passed with 96% of the vote. Momentum, the grassroots leftwing group, told delegates in its daily alert on Tuesday that they should vote in favour of the motion, further boosting its chance of success.

The change, which was first proposed to the NEC by the Jewish Labour Movement, will tighten the party’s stance towards members who are antisemitic or use other forms of hate speech, including racism, Islamophobia, sexism and homophobia.

Speaking after the conference debate, Corbyn said antisemitism was “completely at odds with the beliefs of this party” and that the rule change would send a message. “This is not a nasty party,” Corbyn told Channel 4 News. “Nobody should be abused, whoever they are.”

However, McCluskey, Livingstone and Loach all insisted on Tuesday that the party did not have a problem with hate speech. “I believe it was mood music that was created by people who were trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn,” McCluskey told BBC’s Newsnight, although he said he would condemn any instances of antisemitism.

“I’ve never been at a meeting where there was any antisemitic language or any attacks on the Jewish nation; they would have had short shrift at any meeting that I was at,” he said. Asked why people would make such allegations, McCluskey said: “Because they wanted to bring Corbyn down, it’s as simple as that.”

Loach, an award-winning film director who has been a vocal supporter of Corbyn, said stories of antisemitism had begun emerging after the Labour leader’s election, calling him “a long-time supporter of the Palestinians and the injustice that is done to them”.

Speaking to BBC’s Daily Politics, Loach was asked about a conference fringe event at which a speaker suggested people should be allowed to question whether the Holocaust had happened. “I think history is for all of us to discuss,” Loach said. “The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing, is there for us all to discuss … so don’t try and subvert that by false stories of antisemitism.”

Livingstone, who has been suspended from the party for comments insisting Adolf Hitler was a supporter of Zionism, told TalkRadio that people were “completely distorting the scale of [antisemitism]” within Labour. “Some people have made offensive comments; it doesn’t mean they’re inherently antisemitic and hate Jews,” he said. “They just go over the top when they criticise Israel.”

JLM’s Mike Katz, who was Labour’s candidate for Hendon in the general election, said the group did not want to stifle criticism of Israel. “Let’s be clear: there is nothing wrong with legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and illegal settlements,” he told the conference hall during the debate about the rule change. “You do not need antisemitic language and stereotypes to engage in those debates.”

Delegate Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, who chaired the controversial fringe event on Monday night, spoke against the rule change, saying she was concerned that the wording referenced the “holding of beliefs”, as opposed to expressing them. “Holding them? That’s thought crime, comrades, and we can’t be having it,” she said.



On the morning of the rule change debate, deputy leader Tom Watson pledged the party would investigate the remarks about the Holocaust made by Miko Peled, an Israeli-American author, at a fringe event on free speech and Israel.

Peled, who is not a Labour member, was reported by the Daily Mail to have said: “This is about free speech, the freedom to criticise and to discuss every issue, whether it’s the Holocaust: yes or no, Palestine, the liberation, the whole spectrum. There should be no limits on the discussion. It’s about the limits of tolerance.”

Responding to the row, Peled said: “The Holocaust was a terrible crime that we must study and from which we must all learn. I reject the idea that ‘Holocaust deniers’, foolish as they may be, should be treated as criminals and I doubt that supporters of Israel should be given the authority to judge who is or is not a racist and antisemite.”

Among those who expressed concern about the rhetoric at the conference was Labour councillor Warren Morgan, the leader of Brighton and Hove council, who suggested he would consider barring further conference bookings from the party unless action was taken.

“I will need reassurances that there will be no repeat of the behaviour and actions we have seen this week before any further bookings from the party are taken,” he said.