Ex-UK Labour party leader Ed Miliband. Photo: Reuters / Toby Melville.
Former UK Labour party leader Ed Miliband wished “best of luck” on Twitter on Thursday to a candidate recently caught up in an antisemitism scandal.
Posting a picture of himself with two Labour activists on Twitter, Miliband tweeted, “Out on the #labourdoorstep in Peterborough today with two of the best organisers in the Labour Party. Best of luck to @LisaForbes.”
Out on the #labourdoorstep in Peterborough today with two of the best organisers in the Labour Party. Best of luck to @LisaForbes pic.twitter.com/R8XUDhlJU1
— Chaos With Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) June 6, 2019
Forbes, the Labour candidate in Peterborough, was found to have “liked” and praised two virulently antisemitic posts, one a rant about “Zionist Slave Masters” and another that claimed the Mossad created and funded ISIS and other Muslim extremist groups.
The writer of the posts, Ismail Ibn Saeed, said in one, “Unfortunately our leader Theresa May feeds off this rhetoric to keep her Zionist Slave Masters agenda alive.”
In another rant, Saeed wrote that the Mossad helped establish ISIS and other Islamist groups, citing alleged “evidence in hand of the funding and creation of such extremists by the CIA and Mossad supported by British Imperialism.”
In response to the post, Forbes wrote, “I have enjoyed reading this thread so much. So much that trys [sic] to divide us, but there is far much more that unites us all.”
After the posts were made public, Forbes apologized for “not calling out these posts,” saying, “Regardless of whether I am elected, I will deepen my understanding of antisemitism so I can act as an ally, challenging it wherever it occurs.”
In response to the scandal, Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl, Chief Executive of the Jewish Leadership Council Simon Johnson and Chief Executive of the Community Security Trust David Delew said in a joint statement, “We are fed up hearing that Labour opposes antisemitism while repeatedly hearing excuses that its members accidentally missed the racism that was staring them in the face.”
After far-left anti-Israel MP Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015, the party has been wracked by antisemitism scandals. Earlier this year, several prominent MPs left the party and formed an independent faction, citing institutionalized antisemitism in the party as one of the main reasons for the move.
