PRESS regulator Ipso is being urged to launch a standards investigation into the Jewish Chronicle over “systemic” breaches of its editors’ code of practice.

In recent years, the publication has been rapped by the Independent Press Standards Organisation on several occasions over smear stories against Labour members. 

Last month the regulator upheld a complaint by Wirral councillor Jo Bird over “significant inaccuracies” the paper printed about her and journalist Marc Wadsworth was awarded substantial damages over “entirely untrue” claims about him. 

In a letter today, Ms Bird called for Ipso to open a standards investigation — a probe the regulator can undertake if it has serious concerns about the behaviour or actions of journalists — into the paper.

“With 28 recorded breaches of the editors’ code and four libel defeats in just three years, it is clear that the paper’s editorial standards are shockingly low, and Ipso’s actions to date have made no difference,” it reads. 

The group said the seriousness of breaches by the paper is “attested to in Ipso’s own rulings, while the sheer number of breaches and libel defeats taking place at a small publication that appears only weekly proves the problem is systemic.”