A veteran Labour activist has been expelled by the party for claiming anti-Semitism allegations against Jeremy Corbyn supporters had been “whipped up” by the Israeli Embassy.
Pete Willsman was a member of Labour’s ruling national executive council (NEC) when he was suspended in 2019.
He had been recorded telling American-Israeli author Tuvia Tenenbom that critics of Corbyn were using claims of anti-Semitism to “whip people up,”
Willsman said: “It’s almost certain who is behind all this anti-Semitism against Jeremy... Almost certainly it was the Israeli embassy. Because they caught somebody in the Labour party – it turns out they were an agent in the embassy.
“The thing is that the people that are in the Labour party doing it are people who are linked… one of them works indirectly for the Israeli embassy.
“I wouldn’t want to be bothered to find out anyway but my guess would be they are the ones whipping it up all the time.”
He was previously handed a warning by then Labour general secretary Jennie Formby after he accused rabbis speaking out over anti-Semitism crisis of being “Trump fanatics”.
HuffPost UK has learned that Willsman has now been expelled by the party.
Mike Katz, national chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, said: “Pete Willsman was a member of Labour’s ruling NEC when he attacked Rabbis from across the UK Jewish community by smearing them as ‘Trump supporting fanatics’.
“It’s about time he was expelled. This anti-semitic behaviour has no place in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.”
