Margaret Hodge: Corbyn's Actions Are Racist And He Needs To Say Sorry

7 February 2019, 11:30

Dame Margaret Hodge has accused Jeremy Corbyn of being racist and insists he needs to say sorry to the Jewish community.

The Labour MP has been an outspoken critic of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and has been forced to report a number of online trolls to the police.

Mr Corbyn has admitted there is a problem with pockets of anti-Semitism in the party and insists they have made progress in rooting it out. But speaking to Nick Ferrari, Ms Hodge told LBC she hasn't seen any evidence of this.

When asked what Mr Corbyn should be doing, Ms Hodge said: "I think it's pretty straight-forward. I get very fed up at being told 'Shut up Margaret, we ought to be focussing on austerity, on Brexit'.

"This will carry on being a cancer at the heart of the Labour Party until the leadership takes action. They can stop it being an issue.

"They should be transparently dealing with the, we think, thousands of complaints of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. One's not good enough. Every single one has to be rooted out.

"I think an apology wouldn't go amiss."

Nick asked what he should apologise for, pointing out that it was not Mr Corbyn making the offensive comments. But Ms Hodge insisted: "He is the leader of a party and through what he has said on the definition of anti-Semitism, on much of the stuff we've seen of his statements elsewhere, where he's been pictured, all the evidence leads me to my view of him that he has crossed that line and is now demonstrating in the actions that he is being anti-Semitic and therefore himself being racist.

"He may not believe it. I know that Jeremy says he spent his life fighting racism. So have I, that's why I came into politics.

"I've just seen too much evidence about the way he behaves, what he does, which doesn't convince me to change my mind."