A CRIMINAL investigation has been opened into allegations of Labour Party members posting anti-semitic messages on social media.

The party itself is not under investigation, but the focus will be on 45 cases of messages posted online by Labour members, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said today.

One of the messages read: “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all.”

Board of Deputies of British Jews vice-president Amanda Bowman claimed that anti-semitism is “deeply embedded” in the party and blamed Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, claiming that he has “done close to nothing to address it.”

She called on him to “apologise for his personal failings to confront racism.”

Speaking to the Star, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) secretary Glyn Secker said party procedures against anti-semitism are working because Labour’s team of lawyers are examining the allegations one by one.

He added that JVL welcomes Ms Dick’s statement that the Met will not investigate statements that have offended some people merely by criticising Israel or zionism but instead will look at concrete violations of race relations legislation.

Messages threatening violence should have been reported directly to the police rather than waiting months for LBC radio to hand the file to the police, Mr Secker said in reference to the claim by anti-Corbyn Labour MP John Mann, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on anti-semitism, that some messages made such threats.

On the dossier of incidents being investigated, Mr Secker said: “It looks to us as if this is rehashed material, most of which is from social media with no evidence showing they are Labour members.

“We don’t deny that there are instances of anti-semitism [but they] are far and few between. They should and have been dealt with properly now that the disciplinary process has been overhauled.”

“It looks as if this is another attempt to reignite this whole fomentation of anti-semitism to attack Corbyn and discredit legitimate criticism of Israel.”

Mr Secker said zionist groups and the pro-Israel lobby are “not happy” that the row over anti-semitism has died down since Labour’s national executive committee voted to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-semitism and its examples and Mr Corbyn put down a “red line on freedom of speech” to criticise Israel. 

JVL is consulting lawyers over racist anti-semitic slurs against the group, he added.