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 country’s 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 promoted that idea.
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