Attacks on Jewish people have hit record levels amid high-profile claims of anti-Semitism within Labour, a report said yesterday.
A charity said it followed ‘unprecedented publicity’ over incidents involving Jeremy Corbyn’s party.
Coverage of anti-Semitism within Labour was ‘likely’ to have emboldened offenders while making victims more aware of reporting incidents, it said.
The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitic abuse, recorded 1,382 hate crimes in Britain last year – 3 per cent more than in 2016.
It was the highest figure since statistics were first kept 34 years ago. There was also a 34 per cent increase in violent anti-Semitic assaults – surging from 108 to 145 over the past 12 months.
A report by the charity said attacks also included verbal abuse in public, damage and desecration to Jewish property such as daubing swastikas on synagogues.
A charity said it followed ‘unprecedented publicity’ over incidents involving Jeremy Corbyn’s party
The CST said there was ‘no obvious single’ cause for the record total. Previous highs were temporary and were caused by reactions to specific ‘trigger events’, such as the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2014.
But a sustained rise across 2017 was due to the cumulative effect of a series of factors that had created an ‘atmosphere of anti-Semitism’, said the report. These included high-profile allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, said the CST. It followed accusations that Mr Corbyn had failed to do enough to stamp out attacks on Jewish people.
The party has been engulfed in claims of anti-Semitism under his leadership following a spate of attacks on Jewish people and supporters, including Labour MPs.
Mr Corbyn has faced repeated questions about his links with figures from Hamas and Hezbollah. At last year’s party conference a fringe event speaker said they should be able to question whether the Holocaust took place.
Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended by the party in April after a string of inflammatory comments. The CST said publicity ‘may help to explain’ why 142 anti-Semitic incidents were reported the same month – the second highest monthly total in 2017.
The report said: ‘Allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which were widespread in 2016, have continued into 2017. Therefore, anti-Semitism has attracted public debate and been reported on extensively in the national media, while being a point of argument and contention amongst Labour Party supporters.’
David Delew of CST said: ‘Hatred is rising and Jewish people are suffering as a result.’ He said prosecutions need to be ‘more visible and more frequent’.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd welcomed the report but added: ‘Even one incident is one too many.’ Shadow communities secretary Andrew Gwynne called the findings ‘extremely concerning’. ‘Hate has no place in our country and we must root out anti-Semitism whenever and wherever it takes place,’ he added.
Stephen Silverman, of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said the rise was ‘due to the spread of anti-Semitic conspiracy myths originating from Islamists, the far-Left and the far-Right which society is failing to address, as evidenced by the ongoing disgraceful situation in the Labour Party’.
Mr Corbyn has insisted he will not tolerate anti-Semitism.
Red Ken sparks new storm over Hitler
Labour has faced repeated accusations of failing to tackle anti-Semitism under Jeremy Corbyn.
Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone was suspended from the party – but not expelled – for saying Hitler had supported Zionism in the 1930s before he ‘went mad and ended up killing six million Jews’.
Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour party
There were further calls for him to be expelled this week, after he made further claims about the Nazi leader during a broadcast timed to coincide with International Holocaust Memorial Day.
He told Iranian state-owned channel Press TV that Hitler had worked with Zionists to move Jewish people to Israel, but then ‘changed his policy and went for genocide’.
Mr Livingstone denied his comments were anti-Semitic. But there were calls for him to be expelled from the party by John Mann, Labour’s chairman of the all-party group against anti-Semitism.
Labour MP Naz Shah was also suspended after she shared anti-Semitic posts on Facebook about the forced transportation of Jewish people from Israel to the US as a ‘solution’ to the Middle East conflict.