LABOUR members must mobilise against attacks on freedom of speech, a campaigner told the Morning Star yesterday after the party leadership doubled down on its incendiary decision to suspend Jeremy Corbyn.

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a founding member of Jewish Voice for Labour, criticised deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner for her comments in support of the party’s decision to withdraw the whip.

Mr Corbyn was suspended after he responded to Thursday’s publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report into the handling of anti-semitism complaints.

The Islington North MP said that “one anti-semite” in Labour “was too many” but that the scale of anti-semitism in the party under his leadership was “dramatically overstated for political reasons.”

In a BBC Newsnight interview, Ms Rayner condemned him for making the comment, adding that she supported the decision to suspend him.

She told the BBC: “To suggest that it’s a small number [of anti-semites] in the Labour Party, whilst that might be true, [is unacceptable because it fails to] understand the hurt and distress that people are feeling today.”

Within hours of the EHRC report, Ms Rayner was one of more than a dozen Labour MPs targeted in a 72-page complaint by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, addressed to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and party general secretary David Evans.

The CAA accused the MPs of anti-semitism. Sir Keir has pledged to set up an independent disciplinary process to investigate the complaints.

Ms Wimborne-Idrissi accused Ms Rayner of “capitulating entirely” to a “mobilising campaign with the aim of destroying the party.”

She told the Star: “Jeremy Corbyn was expressing a view based on his own experience. Saying that he cannot say it because it’s inconvenient is deadly. I was outraged to hear that.”

The fight to defend legally-enshrined freedom of expression within Labour is critical, Ms Wimborne-Idrissi said, ahead of addressing a rally in defence of Jeremy Corbyn yesterday night, hosted by Radical Alliance.

She said: “This is the time to stand up and reject limits on our freedom of speech and oppose the silencing of the former Labour leader over a publicly-available report.”

Ms Wimborne-Idrissi added that people “flooding out of the Labour Party” over Mr Corbyn’s suspension is “dangerous” in a two-party political system.

She added: “People are feeling so demoralised that they will give up the right to organise. We are on a slippery slope.”

Her comments came after seven Labour-affiliated trade unions – Aslef, the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, Communication Workers Union, Fire Brigades Union, National Union of Mineworkers, the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association and Unite –released a joint statement expressing “serious concerns” over Mr Corbyn’s suspension. 

They called on Sir Keir, Mr Evans and the NEC to “work with us as affiliated unions to repair this damage.”