LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn is to hold an emergency shadow cabinet meeting next Monday to discuss alleged anti-Semitism within the party.
The meeting was called after Labour came under attack from right-wingers within the party over Corbyn’s response to a BBC Panorama TV documentary.
The documentary attacked the Party, levelling all manner of anti-Semitic allegations against it.
Speaking at the Durham Miners Gala last weekend, Corbyn addressed the issue saying: ‘The programme adopted a predetermined position on its own website before it was broadcast,’ adding that it contained ‘many, many inaccuracies’.
However, Labour Party deputy leader Tom Watson came out in support of the documentary.
Watson said the party’s response had failed those who spoke to the programme and ‘breached all common standards of decency … The way that they have been smeared, including by Labour spokespeople, is deplorable,’ he said.
However, at the Gala, Unite union leader Len McCluskey slated Watson for backing up the state attack, and came out unreservedly in support of Corbyn.
McCluskey said: ‘It is only Jeremy Corbyn who seeks to bring this country together. And it is only Jeremy Corbyn who will stand up for this country, instead of toadying to Trump and blundering into more disastrous wars.
‘Two years ago it was a vindication for everyone who stood by Jeremy and our radical manifesto, a fantastic new vision for our country.’
At another heated meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on Monday night the issue blew up.
Rightwing PLP, rightwing chair John Cryer MP announced that a special shadow cabinet meeting on anti-Semitism would be held next Monday, ahead of the regular weekly meeting of the PLP, which, he said, Corbyn would attend.