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Harriet Harman enrages Andrew Neil by recounting anti-Semitic joke during live BBC broadcast

The Labour MP was trying to recount the unacceptable insistences of racism she has come across in the past

Caroline Mortimer

Friday 03 November 2017 16:10 GMT

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Harriet Harman recounts anti-semitic joke provoking backlash from Andrew Neil

Harriet Harman has been criticised by Jewish groups for repeating an anti-Semitic joke on the BBC.

The Labour party deputy leader was speaking on Andrew Neil’s This Week where they were discussing whether it was ever acceptable to make bad-taste jokes when she repeated an anti-Semitic joke she had protested against in the past.

She said: “I’ve long been accused of being a humourless feminist and I’ll give you two examples that I’ll protest about because they were offensive and hurtful.

“So, this was a Guy's Hospital rag magazine back in the day, and people like Andrew say that these things are perfectly all right.

“One was ‘How do you get a hundred Jews into a mini? One in the driving seat, 99 in the ashtray’ and that is not funny.”

Mr Neil reacted with fury at the comment and said: “All right, well we’ll stop with that one example and we won’t bore with the minute silence that you would dare to think that I would think about that because you have no knowledge of that at all.”

She then tried to defend herself but he told her to be quiet.

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

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1/14Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Israel and Palestine

The simple fact in all of this is that Naz made these comments at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians; and there’s one stark fact that virtually no one in the British media ever reports, in almost all these conflicts the death toll is usually between 60 and 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli. Now, any other country doing that would be accused of war crimes but it’s like we have a double standard about the policies of the Israeli government

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Antisemitism in the Labour Party

As I’ve said, I’ve never heard anybody say anything antisemitism-Semitic, but there’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as antisemitic. I had to put up with 35 years of this

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Naz Shah

It’s completely over-the-top and rude, but who am I to denounce anyone with all of that. It was wrong. I don’t think she is antisemitic, it was incredibly rude but I don’t believe she is an antisemite. When the NEC investigation is finished they'll say it was rude and over the top but they won’t find any evidence that she actually hates Jews. We’ve got to investigate all these charges and the context in which they are made. If she is antisemitic like the other three or four members we’ve found who are antisemitic, she’ll be expelled

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On other alleged antisemites in Labour

That is part of the classic antisemitic thing about an ‘international Jewish conspiracy’ – that is the reason we need to have an investigation. I’ve got an open mind. I’ve seen nothing to suggest to me that she is antisemitic. I wouldn’t have supported her if I [thought] she was antisemitic

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On whether what Hitler did was legal, as stated by Naz Shah

That’s a statement of fact – Hitler, I’m sure, passed all those laws that allowed him to do that … it’s history … literally, Hitler was completely mad, he killed six million Jews. She’s not saying it’s legal to kill six million Jews: what they were doing in that country allowed them not just to kill six million Jews, kill all the communists, kill all the leftists like me, my father almost died when a Nazi sub sank his boat. I have no sympathy with Hitler

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On another alleged antisemite in Labour

No, that is, and that’s why she’s been suspended or expelled. What I’ve said is that in 47 years of the party in all the meetings I’ve been in I’ve never heard anyone say anything antisemitic. There are bound to be in a party of half a million people you’ll have a handful of antisemites, you’ll have a handful of racists. You’ve managed to dig out virtually every antisemitic comment that Labour members have made out of half a million people. I’ve never met any of these people. There’s not a problem. You’re talking about a handful of people in a party of half a million people. Jeremy Corbyn has moved rapidly to deal with them

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On Jeremy Corbyn’s response to the allegations

He met with Naz and she agreed she would stand down while the investigation is going on. He called her in to see her. There’s been a huge investigation of virtually everything that anybody put on the internet … many of these people are quite new and recent members of the party that joined in the big influx. 300,000 new people came in

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On his meeting a man accused of antisemitism in London

This is the man who called for Muslims around the world to donate blood after the attacks of 9/11 when he came to London I went with him to the Regent’s Park mosque where he said no man should hit a woman and you should not discriminate against homosexuals. So I can’t equate what I heard him say… he made no antisemitic statement while he was here in London. I don’t investigate people. I’ve simply said what I believe to be true which is that Naz was not antisemitic. She was completely over the top, very rude, but that does not make her an antisemite

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On John Mann’s comments

He went completely over the top. I was actually doing a radio interview at the time that he was bellowing that I’m a racist antisemite in my ear. I’ve had that with John Mann before a few weeks ago screaming that I was a bigot down the phone. I’m not an apologist for anyone who makes antisemitic statements. What I’m saying is don’t confuse antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government policy

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On calling a Jewish journalist a “concentration camp guard” whilst Mayor of London

I can’t tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying ‘I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic’. We won the case

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On claims about Hitler and Zionism

I can’t tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying ‘I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic’. We won the case

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On John Mann

I’d simply say to John Mann go back and check. Is what I say true, or is it not? The BBC, you’ve got a huge team of researchers, it will take just an hour or two to go back and confirm. I was asked a question, I answered it. I have never in 45 years since I won my first election, I have never lied. I have always answered the question

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On raising the issue if Hitler

It lays you open to people smearing and lying about you. I’ve always answered the questions put to me and that simple fact is we’ve had a handful of people saying antisemitic things in the Labour Party, they’ve been suspended, some of them are on their way to being expelled, some of them have been expelled already

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said

On people calling for him to be suspended

All my usual critics – but the simple fact is I agree with them; there is no place for antisemitism in the Labour party. For them to suggest I am antisemitic is a bit bizarre considering we worked with Jewish groups and put on exhibitions about the scale of the holocaust, we worked with Jewish groups to tackling the scale of antisemitism back in the 1970s. I’ve always opposed every form of racism whether it’s against black people or Jews. I’m going to stay in the Labour party and continue to fight against all forms of racism and discrimination as I have my entire life

Mr Neil is has been vocal in the past about the need to fight anti-Semitism and recently addressed the Holocaust Education Trust where he spoke of how it was becoming more insidious and how society needed to be even more vigilant.

Writing on Twitter after the programme was aired, the presenter said: “What was wrong was 1) Even to tell that so called joke on live TV. 2) Claim I would like the joke. Appalling on both counts”.

He rejected claims he had overreacted to Ms Harman’s, saying: “Really? How would [you] have handled being accused of liking a vile anti-Semitic slur?”

But Ms Harman defended herself on Twitter by posting an extract from her recent autobiography, A Woman’s Work, where she recounted seeing the anti-Semitic joke, along with another racist one about a Pakistani man, which she complained about to the hospital and referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She wrote: “The South London Press ran an editorial condemning me for overreacting and being humourless. But the Jewish community and local black and Asian organisations were deeply appreciative when the hospital apologised.”

Ms Harman has been the MP for Camberwell and Peckham in south London since 1983 and her constituency includes Guy's Hospital.

But Simon Johnson, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said it was still a "staggering error of judgement" to repeat it on live television.

He told The Independent: “I cannot recall being so disappointed in a politician. Harriet Harman must surely know better than to repeat a vile holocaust joke, irrespective of the point she was trying to make. She must apologise and do so quickly. It is a staggering error of judgement.”