Supporters and opponents of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used the issue of antisemitism within the party as a “factional weapon”, the Forde Report claimed.

Published on Tuesday, it said Corbyn was fundamentally wrong to suggest that antisemitism in Labour was “overstated for political reasons”, with no evidence that it was “fabricated”.

Current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer commissioned the report, led by Martin Forde QC, in the wake of the leak of a document, The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014–2019, which contained private WhatsApp messages that exposed deep factionalism in Labour’s efforts to combat antisemitism.

That leaked 860-page document found “no evidence” of antisemitism being handled differently from other complaints and blamed “factional opposition” towards Corbyn for hampering efforts to tackle the issue.

The Forde Report’s foreword stated: “The evidence clearly demonstrated that a vociferous faction in the party sees any issues regarding antisemitism as exaggerated by the Right to embarrass the Left.

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