UK: Jeremy Corbyn just doesn't get it over antisemitism, says former aide

Via TheJC:

A former close aide to Jeremy Corbyn has claimed that the Labour leader has a crippling blind spot over antisemitism in the party.

Harry Fletcher, who was Mr Corbyn’s media and strategy adviser from 2015-16, said the Labour leadership had an “inability to understand why they’re perceived as antisemitic”.

In a piece written for the Sunday Times, he said: “Jeremy believes he is completely non-discriminatory. He would never be hostile to someone in the street. But he is, if you like, antisemitic along the institutionalised lines of the Metropolitan police in the 1990s, when they messed up the Stephen Lawrence investigation”.

He added that he had told Mr Corbyn “to say again and again” that he supported the Jewish community.

But “he just couldn’t see it at all", and became angry when attacked for his failure to deal with the issue.

Mr Fletcher, a Westminster insider with 25 years' experience, said some party activists believed the criticism of Mr Corbyn over antisemitism was sparked by his views on Israel.

“But it wasn’t,” the former aide said. “It was about discrimination. Jeremy did have an antipathy towards Israel. But the criticism he received was because of a pattern of behaviour that was perceived by the Jewish community as antisemitic.”

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