About 40 Labour MPs and peers marched in support of their Jewish colleague Ruth Smeeth on Wednesday before she gave evidence at an expulsion hearing against an activist accused of berating her at the launch of Labour’s antisemitism inquiry.
MPs including the shadow environment secretary, Sue Hayman, the former shadow Northern Ireland secretary Owen Smith and the Jewish Labour movement chair, Luciana Berger, formed a protective ring around Smeeth as she entered the hearing in London.
The Labour activist Marc Wadsworth will have his case heard by the party’s national constitutional committee, a quasijudicial body that has the power to expel members. The hearing comes 22 months after the first complaint was made against Wadsworth, who challenged Smeeth at a the launch of Shami Chakrabati’s inquiry into antisemitism, accusing her of working “hand in hand” with the media.
Labour Against the Witch-Hunt, a campaign group set up to protest against expulsions, turned out to support Wadsworth at the hearing in Westminster. Several people shouted: “Free Palestine,” as the MPs walked past.
Berger said the MPs who had joined Smeeth were “looking for action” against antisemitism. “Warm words are nice, but in and of themselves they are not enough, and that’s why we’re here with our colleague Ruth Smeeth. She has an incredible amount of support,” she said.
MPs said they had decided to support Smeeth because she had initially been told by the party she would be responsible for her own security walking to the hearing.
Labour MP Wes Streeting, who organised the delegation to accompany Smeeth, said: “I was proud to see so many Labour MPs and peers from across the party – including shadow ministers – accompanying Ruth this morning in a show of friendship and solidarity. But no victim of abuse should ever have to walk through a protest against them to give evidence to a hearing. It is an appalling state of affairs.”
Other MPs accompanying Smeeth included prominent backbenchers Stella Creasy, Jess Phillips, and Margaret Hodge, alongside Smeeth’s fellow Stoke-on-Trent MP Gareth Snell. Also there were fthe ormer child refugee Lord Dubs and the chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Trust, Karen Pollock.
Creasy said other MPs were likely to need similar support at future hearings. “No one should go through something like this in the movement they dedicate their lives to fighting for – sadly more MPs may be likely to need support in many more hearings like this in the coming months,” she said.
Labour MP Chris Williamson, a former shadow cabinet minister, also attended the hearing as a witness supporting Wadsworth.
Speaking outside the hearing, Wadsworth said he was not antisemitic and that he had endured “almost two years of trial by media”. He added that much of the reporting around his case had been incorrect. Asked whether he thought he would get a fair hearing, he said: “I reserve my view on that.”
Smeeth will be cross-examined by Wadsworth’s legal counsel, which he has crowdfunded. The charges against him, which he denies, are that he brought the party into disrepute, rather than charges of antisemitism, which was not a specific charge in the Labour rulebook at the time of the alleged offence.
Before the hearing, Labour attempted to respond to continued criticism from Jewish leaders – who expressed disappointment at the outcome of a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday – by setting a July deadline to deal with the majority of complaints over antisemitism.
The meeting resulted in renewed criticism of his leadership on the issue.
The party has now pledged to complete most outstanding investigations, including the high-profile cases of Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker, by July. A team of lawyers is already working on a backlog of 80 other cases.
There was more controversy on Wednesday morning over reports that Williamson, a Corbyn ally, was planning to share a platform with Walker, who was suspended over allegedly antisemitic comments in 2016.
The shadow secretary of state for international trade, Barry Gardiner, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that people were “innocent against proven guilty”, but added: “My own view, my personal view, is that Chris is wrong to share a platform with somebody who has expressed the views that she has.”
The chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, Jonathan Goldstein, and the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, said Tuesday night’s two-hour meeting with Corbyn and others from the Labour party, including the general secretary, Jennie Formby, had failed to address longstanding issues, even though they had been set out well in advance.
Goldstein, in an interview on the Today programme, accused Corbyn of a personal lack of leadership, and a refusal to take on a small part of the Jewish community that claims that many of the allegations are fabricated.
“There is a group and they comprise 2-3% of the Jewish community who are vociferously going round the community arguing there is not a problem, in his name, and arguing that it is all a smear,” he said.
Gardiner acknowledged that the party had been slow to act, but said action was now under way.