Labour must root out supporters with a 'despicable hatred of Jewish people', says Emily Thornberry

Shadow foreign secretary confronts Labour’s antisemitism crisis head-on – telling delegates it must be beaten just as 'we beat the Blackshirts'

Labour must kick out supporters with a “despicable hatred of Jewish people” just as it “beat the Blackshirts”, Emily Thornberry told the party’s conference in Liverpool today.

The shadow foreign secretary reminded delegates of past victories over racism and fascism, as she said the most urgent battle was “rooting it out of our own party”.

Tackling Labour’s antisemitism crisis head-on, Ms Thornberry likened the need to act to when, in 1937, the fascist leader Oswald Mosley “tried to speak in this great city and was forced out without saying a word”.

“We must all acknowledge that there are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed,” she said.

“Those people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party the same way Oswald Mosley was kicked out of Liverpool.”

The speech came two days after one Labour MP warned the fallout from the continuing antisemitism row could cost Jeremy Corbyn the next general election.

Delivering her keynote conference speech – soon after scores of Palestinian flags were waved during a debate on the Gaza Strip – Ms Thornberry said: “We all support the Palestinian cause.”

“I stand here with no hesitation when I condemn the Netanyahu government for its racist policies and its criminal actions against the Palestinian people,” she added.

But she also warned: “Let me speak to you from the depths of my heart and my soul and say something I never thought I’d have to say in my lifetime as a Labour member and activist.

“It is simply this: that if we want to root out fascism and racism and hatred from our world, and from our country, then we must start, we must start, with rooting it out of our own party.”

In a powerful speech, seen by some as a marker for a future leadership bid, Ms Thornberry also called for an end to online abuse scarring political debate.

“We must start with uniting our own party, and ending the pointless conflicts which divide our movement, which poison our online debate, and which distract us from fighting the Tories,” she said.

And she argued Mr Corbyn could provide the global leadership currently missing as “our world leaders shrug their shoulders”.

“That is why governments like ours continue to sell arms to Saudi Arabia even when it is proven that those weapons are being used to murder innocent children in Yemen.

“That is why the war in Syria too remains so intractable and destructive, with the dozen major countries involved not striving to stop it, but playing their own lethal power games with other peoples’ lives,” she said.

“That is why North Korea can happily continue developing their bomb, Iran can keep Nazanin jailed for a third year, Myanmar and Cameroon can slaughter their own citizens at will, Russia can act with impunity not just in Syria but in Salisbury, and Donald Trump can tear up treaties it took other leaders years to agree.”

Ms Thornberry warned of “a global free-for-all”, adding: “The leadership to fix it is simply not there. But conference, it’s here in this hall, it’s here on this stage, it’s here in Jeremy Corbyn.”