What Lisa Nandy must do to reassure Britain’s Jews

Lisa Nandy is the best candidate for Labour leader. That’s what I said last week and since then, she’s been endorsed by the Jewish Labour Movement (good) and backed calls for the Israel-ending ‘right of return’ (less good). So was I wrong to back Nandy?

I’m not so sure. My argument for Nandy wasn’t of the Liz-Kendall-should-be-queen-of-everything variety. It was an acknowledgement that good governance requires an effective opposition. It reflected my view that Nandy is the candidate best placed to hold the Conservative government to account.

But, yes, it was also a contention that Nandy’s speeches and proposals for addressing anti-Jewish racism were strong and impressive. They struck me as having the strongest chance of bringing Labour’s anti-Semitism under control. I was by no means wide-eyed about Nandy and her pro-Palestinian politics. For the past six years she has been the parliamentary chair of Labour Friends of Palestine, an organisation which had to apologise in 2017 for tweeting: ‘Labour two-state solution will end the occupation — our solution will be the final solution’.