Hodge attacks CAA for ‘using antisemitism as front’ to attack Starmer. She is/was its patron

Yet another right-wing Labour MP claims antisemitism being used politically, which is an expulsion offence but only for left-wingers

Margaret Hodge has joined the ranks of right-wing Labour MPs who backed the Campaign Against Antisemitism group and have now turned on it after it criticised Keir Starmer for his cynical exploitation of the Holocaust Memorial as a backdrop for a political video.

Hodge even went so far as to claim she was ‘fed up’ of the group ‘using antiemitism as a front to attack Labour’, in other words claiming CAA has a habit of weaponising the issue – and stating that CAA is ‘more concerned with undermining Labour than rooting out antisemitism:

This is, of course, a complete turnaround on Hodge’s support for the CAA when it was attacking on Jeremy Corbyn – including its application to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to investigate Corbyn’s Labour for antisemitism, which led to the EHRC’s widely-misrepresented report on the matter. Misrepresentations, it should be noted, that Ms Hodge also enthusiastically amplified.

And Hodge also enthusiastically supported Starmer’s rule-breaking withdrawal of the whip from his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn – for, you’ve guessed it, Corbyn’s comment following the EHRC report’s publication that some accusations of antisemitism and the reporting of it were politically motivated:

Hodge’s support for the CAA went further. In 2018, she and fellow Corbyn-hater Ian Austin became patrons of the organisation. It is unclear whether she and Austin remain patrons, as the ‘honorary patrons’ section of the CAA’s website has been taken down.

Any mention of the idea that some accusations of antisemitism might be politically motivated has seen Labour members expelled – and, as noted above, was used by Keir Starmer as his pretext for removing the Labour ‘whip’ from Corbyn.

But right-wingers Ruth Smeeth and now Margaret Hodge have done exactly that and it is now, apparently, agreed not that accusations of antisemitism can be and are used as a political weapon, but that the group at the heart of the attack on Corbyn habitually does it.

Skwawkbox does not recommend anyone hold their breath until the two MPs have been disciplined by Starmer or the party. It seems it’s only a crime when a left-winger does it.

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