It was incredibly impressive to see so many communal organisations come together in unity to make a stand.

The entire community should be extremely proud of North West Friends of Israel, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council for all their hard work in putting this unfortunate and extremely necessary event together.

However, hearing so many Labour MPs apparently standing in solidarity with our community, while still remaining members of the Labour Party and telling the community not to lose its faith in it, left a very bitter taste.

All the Labour MPs spoke about the evils of antisemitism and rooting it out in very general terms, but very few explicitly expressed contempt towards — or blame on — Jeremy Corbyn and those who surround him.

Even fewer said what they will be doing to end his malign influence over their once-proud party.

Corbyn and his friends did not invent antisemitism, but they have been the catalyst for its reinvigoration over the last three years.

The fringe hard left, who terrify Jewish students on campus, picket Jewish shops and pretend that antisemitism is a lie, is now not the fringe. It runs Her Majesty’s Opposition party and sits on its front bench.

This group of extremists is not going to apologise and it is not going to change, particularly its leader, who, after 40-plus years of activism and friendship with those who support hatred and destruction, will never have a sudden and magical epiphany and do a U-turn.

His personal intervention in trying to dilute the IHRA definition at the Labour NEC should have been the last straw to clearly demonstrate this to any remaining doubters.

It is time for the good people of the Labour Party to get off the fence. They’ve heard the message loud and clear from across our community and can no longer keep saying they abhor antisemitism while still campaigning to put Corbyn in government.

They either have to support him and his views, or take decisive action against them, either by publicly doing whatever they can to remove him from office, or by defecting en masse to a new centre-left party, thus rendering him and his cronies an insignificant minority.

Nice words from people who want our votes are no longer enough. It’s time for actions and courage on their part; otherwise we’ll all be back in Cathedral Gardens in six months’ time, regretting the fact that we wasted the occasion on Sunday, politely applauding platitudes from them that meant absolutely nothing.

Benjamin Black,
Didsbury,
Manchester.

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