Labour anti-Semitism scandal pushes level of anti-Jewish hatred to record high

LABOUR'S anti-Semitism scandal led to a record number of incidents being reported last year, fresh figures have shown.

The Community Security Trust registered 100 incidents of sick hatred every month - a record number - and says incidents spiked during the party's row over Jewish hatred.

A whopping 1,652 incidents were recorded in the UK in 2018 - an increase of 16 per cent on the year before.

This is the third year in a row new record highs have been recorded by the charity.

That includes abusive behaviour, anti-Semitic graffiti, hate mail, producing sick literature, targeting synagogues and social media bile.

The most common incident was verbal abuse aimed at random Jewish people in public, the report said.

Almost 100 targeted Jewish schools, kids or staff.

148 of those were examples or, or related to arguments over alleged anti-Semitic comments in the Labour party.

In their annual report they again said that the political climate was partly to blame, and it's likely that many incidents weren't even recorded at all.

It claimed: "the months with the highest totals appear to correlate to periods when political and media debate over allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party were at their most intense and most public."

The CST claimed that the media attention on the issues was "likely to have emboldened offenders" but also "encourages victims to report more incidents".

But the report also blamed more violence between Gaza and Israel too - which peaked around May when dozens were killed.

Most of the incidents took place in London or Manchester - the two largest Jewish communities in the UK.

CST Chief Executive David Delew said today: "Now, 2016, 2017 and 2018 are all the worst years on record, but there is a very different dynamic.

"This latest antisemitism is about the condition of Britain today. It cannot somehow be blamed upon anti-Israel hatred, acted out against British Jews. Nor can it somehow be blamed upon British Muslims, as some people might rush to do.

“Right now, we and our communal partners must challenge antisemitic politics and the deliberate excluding of Jews from anti-racist norms."

Last year Mr Corbyn was embroiled in a furious row over anti-Semitism when critics accused him of going soft on the issue.

Labour initially did not accept the full internationally recognised definition of anti-Semitism but eventually the party caved after huge pressure from activists and MPs.

The party boss was also slammed for a video saying Zionists had no sense of "English irony" - leading to him clarifying he meant Zionists in its "politically accurate" sense.

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