Labour was last night accused of trying to silence an MP who stood up to Jeremy Corbyn over his failure to tackle anti-Semitism in the party.
Dame Margaret Hodge was threatened with disciplinary action last week for calling the Labour leader an anti-Semite and a racist.
Now her lawyers have written to the party to describe the disciplinary threat as a ‘veiled attempt to silence’ a dissenting voice.
Labour is accused of trying to silence Dame Margaret Hodge who stood up to Jeremy Corbyn
And the MP stood by her criticism of her leader, saying she had always disagreed with those who called him an anti-Semite but ‘people have to be judged on what they do and not what they say’.
Last night Mr Corbyn sparked further anger after he failed to turn up to a crunch meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party to discuss the party’s anti-Semitism problem.
The row erupted last week when Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee, decided against adopting the internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism in its code of conduct. Dame Margaret said after last night’s meeting that it ‘would have been much better’ had the Labour leader attended so he could have understood the depth of anger in the party.
‘I am deeply depressed,’ she said. ‘This is the party I joined more than 50 years ago as a natural home for Jews.
‘We can’t even start on the long journey of regaining the trust of the Jewish community without accepting the international definition.’
Labour launched an investigation into Dame Margaret after she confronted Mr Corbyn in the Commons. The MP was reported to have called him a ‘f****** anti-Semite and a racist’, but in the legal letter she denied having sworn.
‘This is vehemently denied, and our client is aware of multiple witnesses who can testify that she did not swear,’ the letter from her law firm, Mishcon de Reya, said. ‘Any allegation our client was abusive is false.’
Dame Margaret, who lost family members in the Holocaust, stood by her actions in confronting Mr Corbyn.
She told the BBC’s Today programme: ‘I think what has happened over the last months… is just a bridge too far.’
She said she had received a wave of anti-Semitic abuse since the Commons clash, including being told she was ‘under the orders of my paymasters in Israel’.
She said she received a disciplinary letter within 12 hours of speaking to Mr Corbyn.
‘Think how long it has taken for the Labour Party to respond at all to any of the allegations of anti-Semitism,’ she added.
In a letter to Labour’s general secretary, Mishcon de Reya said the party had failed to explain the allegation against the MP or the rule that had been breached.
It added: ‘Your threat to suspend our client if she repeats this non-particularised conduct appears to be a veiled attempt to silence her.’
The law firm accused Labour of ‘sloppiness’ in its handling of the case and said it could only assume that the rule Dame Margaret is being investigated over is one that relates to actions deemed to be grossly detrimental to the party. It said it was ‘perverse’ that the same rule used to deal with anti-Semitism in the party was now being invoked against Dame Margaret ‘for voicing her concern that anti-Semitism has not been properly dealt with’.
Dame Margaret told the BBC she ‘blew her top’ when she found out Labour would not be adopting the international guidelines on anti-Semitism. She added: ‘I thought, rather than do what politicians usually do, and talk each other down behind our backs, I would go and confront him.’ Asked why Mr Corbyn was not at the PLP meeting, a source said: ‘Jeremy was never scheduled to attend.’
How the party watered down anti-hate code
The party has angered many Jewish members by failing to fully adopt the internationally accepted definition of anti-Semitism in its code of conduct.
While Labour explicitly endorses the general working definition from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, it controversially omits four examples given by the IHRA of what anti-Semitism is in practice.
These are: Accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country, claiming that Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour, requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations and comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis.
The omissions are seen as significant because Labour’s code includes a list of other examples of anti-Semitic behaviour copied word-for-word from the IHRA’s own document.
Labour MPs such as Dame Margaret Hodge and peers are expected to demand the adoption of the full internationally accepted definition when the