Nick Ferrari Tackles Labour Activist Who Denies Anti-Semitism Problem

12 February 2019, 07:54 | Updated: 12 February 2019, 08:45

This Labour activist insisted that the party didn't have a problem with anti-Semitism - and claimed that he had "unmasked" its Jewish MPs.

Both Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have admitted the party needs to act over anti-Semitism. And yesterday, General Secretary Jenny Formby revealed they had expelled 12 members over the scandal.

But Glyn Secker, the Secretary of Jewish Voice for Labour, told Nick Ferrari that not only was there no wave of anti-Semitism, there wasn't even a ripple.

He said: "I've done a very careful analysis and they have unmasked Hodge, Mann and the rest of them."

When Nick challenged him on what way they have been unmasked, Mr Secker claimed: "The claims there's been this wave of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Take these 673 case - two-thirds of them were not members of the Labour Party.

"It's one-hundredth of one percent. These figures show there's no wave, there's not even a ripple."

Nick asked him why, if there is no problem, MPs such as Luciana Berger needed a police guard to attend the Labour Party Conference and Mr Secker's only response was: "They are ratcheting up these things.

"There was no physical threat to anybody."

The conversation got very fiery as Nick held Mr Secker to account. Watch the interview at the top of the page.

Last week, during a phone-in with John McDonnell on LBC, a caller insisted that the anti-Semitism scandal was a "smear".

But the Shadow Chancellor insisted that simply wasn't true. He said: "I’ve seen the threats made against some of our Jewish members and MPs so it isn’t a smear campaign and we have to face up to it.

“Where there is evidence in our political party, the Labour Party, which we’ve always prided ourselves on being anti-racist, we’ve got to stamp it out.

“When you say ‘it’s a smear campaign’ that belittles what’s happening in terms of us saying there is a problem here and the action we’re taking against it.

“We’ve got to root it out, having one anti-Semite in the Labour Party is not good enough.”