Katy Balls Katy Balls

Jeremy Corbyn’s Israel comments prompt a fresh outbreak of Labour civil war

On a day when the Conservative party leadership has been thrown into disarray, there ought to be an opportunity for Labour to turn the Tory chaos to their advantage. Instead, today is shaping up to be one of Corbyn’s most catastrophic days as leader yet.

At today’s anti-Semitism inquiry press conference, Corbyn managed to throw the party into another anti-Semitism row after he appeared to compare Israel to Isis:

‘Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations’

His team have since taken steps to downplay any such interpretation — explaining that he was simply trying to say that people should not be held responsible for the actions of organisations around the world on the basis of religion or ethnicity. However given that Labour is already on a sticky wicket on the issue, putting Isis in the same sentence as Israel was never a wise idea.

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