UK Jews slam Labour move to re-admit member suspended for anti-Semitism

Board of Deputies of British Jews questions the Labour Party’s decision to re-admit Jackie Walker, who was suspended from the British party for claiming that Jews were “chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade.”

“We find it remarkable that Jackie Walker has been readmitted to the Labour Party without any disciplinary sanctions and by a process completely lacking in transparency. We are very disturbed by the way she has reacted with unrepentant and defiant statements. Her position promotes the myth that Jews played a leading role in the slave trade,” says Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush.

“Ms Walker also appears to think that Jews are somehow undeserving of the solidarity that minorities should generally rightly expect when they face racism. It is unhelpful and regrettable to suggest that the victimhood of one diminishes the victimhood of the other, whether that is racism against black people, anti-Muslim hatred or, as in this case, antisemitism,” he adds.

Walker, vice chair of Momentum, a hard-left group loyal to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was suspended earlier this month after her comments were brought to the party’s attention by The Jewish Chronicle. She was allowed back into the party this week following an investigation, a Labour spokesperson said.

In a post to her Facebook page in February comparing the African slave trade to the Holocaust, Walker wrote: “As I’m sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews,” the Jewish Chronicle reported earlier this month.