Labour: Sir Keir Starmer’s antisemitism purge takes a hit after he appeared at a meeting which included a call to punish ‘Israeli racism’

2861
Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign public meeting at St Pancras Community Centre on 25.03.15. Speaker Keir Starmer. Picture: Polly Hancock - Credit: Archant

Sir Keir Starmer’s bid to be the man to rid Labour of antisemitism was challenged last night over his appearance at a meeting which included a call to punish ‘Israeli racism’.

The Mail Online reported that the Labour leader, then the party’s candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, spoke at an event organised by the Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

He was pictured in front of a banner declaring “Kick Israeli Fascism out of Fifa”, supporting a campaign to suspend Israel from the world footballing authority over claims that it banned the free movement of Palestinian players for training and matches.

The Labour leader spoke at a 2015 meeting of the Camden Palestine Solidarity Campaign which backs a boycott of Israeli goods to try through boycotting to change the countries policy on its treatment of Palestinians.

Sir Keir Starmer, then his party’s candidate for the local Holborn and St Pancras seat, was pictured against a banner proclaiming ‘Kick Israeli Fascism out of Fifa’.

Anyone else would have had a suspension email pinging in the early hours for standing on a platform that proclaimed Isreal racism.

Embarrassingly for the Labour leader, details of the meeting emerged on the eve of today’s key vote at the Labour conference on instituting a new complaints process for anti-semitism cases and other complaints.

Labour said last night Sir Keir had never supported a boycott of Israel and had also never supported the campaign to expel the country from Fifa.

The party also denied that it was implementing a ‘foreign flags ban’ at the Brighton conference. 

However, as evidence shows, he had no issues with standing on the same stage with people and a giant flag that did.

#Lab21

Support Labour Heartlands

PLEASE HELP US KEEP GOING AD-FREE

HELP US GROW.

This is a "Pay as You Feel" website.
This blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
You can have access to all of our online work for free. However if you want to support what we do, you could make a small donation to help us keep writing and staying ad-free.
The choice is entirely yours.