LABOUR MPs have hit out at the “sinister” actions of trade union chiefs as the anti-Semitism row within the party showed no signs of abating.
After Jeremy Corbyn denounced as “beyond excessive” the comparison - made by Lord Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi - of some of the Labour leader’s remarks to Enoch Powell’s incendiary 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech, a rally heard backbenchers criticise comments by union leaders.
Dame Louise Ellman told the Jewish Labour Movement meeting at conference that it was "disgraceful" that the anti-Semitism row was still going on.
She said: "Len McCluskey, the powerful General Secretary of Unite who spoke about the Jewish community showing 'truculent hostility'; truculent hostility when we speak up against anti-Semitism being displayed against us, what's that from a major trade union leader?"
She also highlighted PCS union chief Mark Serwotka's suggestion that Israel was behind the anti-Semitism row.
"For major trade union leaders to not only smear the Jewish community and Jewish people for speaking out against anti-Semitism but then trying to blame them for it, we are entering into very dangerous waters.
"They are playing with fire and I call on them to withdraw those appalling statements," said the Liverpool Riverside MP.
Midlands MP Ian Austin told the rally: "Let's have no more of this offensive nonsense that people like me are only complaining about these issues to undermine Jeremy Corbyn, that it has been weaponised to undermine him."
He went on: "The truth about Jeremy is that he is much angrier with the people complaining about anti-Semitism than he is with the people responsible for it."
The MP for Dudley suggested the party leader had to "stop thinking he is the victim in all of this and he has got to properly explain and apologise for his role and responsibility in the development of this crisis".
His colleague Wes Streeting told the rally that the really troubling thing about anti-Semitism within the party was the bystanders who chose to look the other way and continued to do so.
"And, worse still, the people who through their words and their actions actively create the conditions in which anti-Semitism can be allowed to fester. Yes, Len McCluskey, I'm talking about you describing anti-Semitism as mood music.
"And yes, Mark Serwotka, I'm telling you as a general secretary with Jewish members that your remarks the other week at the TUC Congress have no place in the Labour Party and no place in the Labour movement."
Earlier, Mr Corbyn insisted he was an “anti-racist and will die an anti-racist,” adding: “Anti-Semitism is a scourge in any society, I have opposed it all my life and will continue to oppose it all my life.”
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