A Jewish lawmaker on Wednesday quit the British Labour Party that she had been a member of for 55 years and condemned its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for allowing anti-Semitism to spread under his leadership.
Liverpool Riverside MP Louise Ellman, 73, announced her resignation in a letter that she also shared on Twitter. A vocal critic of Corbyn and the Labour Party’s handling of anti-Semitic accusations, she said with the “looming general election” in the United Kingdom, she could no longer support voting Labour when it risks Corbyn being becoming prime minister.
“I believe that Jeremy Corbyn is not fit to serve as our prime minister,” she said.
Ellman noted that under Corbyn’s leadership anti-Semitism “has become mainstream in the Labour Party. Jewish members have been bullied, abused and driven out. Anti-Semites have felt comfortable, and vile conspiracy theories have been propagated.”
She noted that “a party that permits anti-Jewish racism to flourish cannot be called an anti-racist party.”
She also condemned Corbyn for spending three decades “on the back-benches consorting with, and never confronting, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and terrorists,” saying he has “attracted the support of too many anti-Semites.”
Ellman said “the Labour Party is no longer a safe place for Jews, and Jeremy Corbyn must bear the responsibility for this. We cannot allow him to do to the country what he has done to the Labour Party.”
She added that she would not join another party, but rather return to Labour when it has a different leader.
