Ed Miliband denies purge against Labour left after Keir Starmer’s decision to fire minister

Leader was ‘right’ to sack shadow education secretary over ‘significant’ error of judgement in retweeting interview containing antisemitic conspiracy theory

Ed Miliband has denied a purge is taking place against the Labour left under Keir Starmer’s leadership.

The shadow business secretary was speaking days after Starmer sacked left-wing darling Rebecca Long-Bailey from his shadow cabinet to howls of protest from Corbynite MPs.

Miliband rejected suggestions that Long-Bailey’s dismissal was an “overreaction”.

Starmer took “the right decision” to remove the former leadership contender after she made a “significant error of judgement” in retweeting an interview in The Independent with actor Maxine Peake containing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, he insisted.

Ms Long-Bailey’s removal as shadow education secretary and replacement with the former chair of Owen Smith’s 2016 campaign to oust Jeremy Corbyn has been seen in some quarters as the start of a move by Starmer to drive the left out of positions of influence in the party.

Asked if a purge of the left was taking place, Mr Miliband told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show: “No, of course it isn’t.”

The former party leader told Marr: “I heard something in your paper review about how Keir wants to purge these people. He’s not about purges, I know the guy.

“He’s a principled guy, he’s a guy with integrity, he wants to change this country and he wants to change this country by unifying the Labour Party but also not having the Labour Party mired in issues which, frankly, provide a stain on us.”

Mr Miliband said “nothing” would be done in response to individuals like former shadow chancellor John McDonnell expressing solidarity with Long-Bailey over the issue.

Starmer is not going to “expel everybody in the Labour Party who says this”, he said.

Mr Miliband said Ms Long-Bailey is a “very decent person” but had created a problem by sharing “false criticism” of Israeli defence forces by linking them with the restraint techniques which caused the death of George Floyd.

The shadow business secretary told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “The problem is that over the centuries when calamitous things have happened, Jews have been blamed and that’s why there was an anti-Semitism issue in relation to this, and that’s why I believe Keir took the right decision.”

Mr Miliband said he did not think Ms Long-Bailey was antisemitic.

But he said: “The problem about the interview – and I’ve met Maxine Peake, who I think is a perfectly decent person and she’s apologised, and I think that’s significant – was it’s the casualness of it that is in the way the problem.

“A terrible thing happens to George Floyd and the Israeli defence force is somehow singled out. I think Britain has had exchanges with American police forces but Britain wasn’t singled out.”

Shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds said “antisemitic warning lights” should have been “flashing” when Ms Long-Bailey read Ms Peake’s link between the events in the US to Israel.

It was “not something that could be ignored” by Starmer, who was right to sack Long-Bailey, he said.

“We deserve no more chances with the Jewish community to win back trust that has been lost and Keir promised zero tolerance – that has to mean zero tolerance and for that reason, yes, I’m afraid that change had to be made,” said Mr Reynolds.

He told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “If anyone can’t understand what the problem is with an article like that – and I think it is important to say Maxine Peake has apologised for any reference that was given within that interview – throughout time there has been a strand of antisemitism which has been about blaming Jewish people for all the problems in the world.

“A modern incarnation of that is simply replacing Jews with Israel – that’s in the Labour Party’s own guidance that we send out on antisemitism.

“If someone is looking at the terrible scenes in America and somehow trying to change the blame for that to Israel, the antisemitic warning lights should be flashing to anyone who sees that in print or hears something like that.”

Mr Reynolds said he “gasped” when he saw his shadow cabinet colleague had shared it.

“It caught my breath – I assumed perhaps it hadn’t been read and an apology was forthcoming,” he added.

“I don’t know exactly why it is still up there on Twitter but there’s no doubt it is an antisemitic theory and we promised zero tolerance, and that has to be what we practise and preach.”