LABOUR’S newest MP made some “pretty terrible mistakes” and must work hard to prove she’s not anti-Semitic, the shadow health secretary has said.
Jon Ashworth’s comments add to the pressure on Labour HQ to suspend Lisa Forbes, who won the Peterborough by-election just last week.
Ms Forbes ‘liked’ a social media video expressing solidarity with victims of the Christchurch terror attack which also accused Theresa May of a “Zionist slave masters agenda”.
After the Jewish Labour Movement called for to have the Labour whip suspended, Jeremy Corbyn defended her as a “good woman” and “not a racist in any way whatsoever”.
On Sophie Ridge on Sunday on Sky News, Mr Ashworth said: “I have known Lisa Forbes for a few years. I don’t believe she’s anti-Semitic.
“I think she’s made some pretty terrible mistakes, terrible mistakes that she’s apologised for.
“I think Lisa now has to show and understand the upsets that she’s caused in the Jewish community, and she has to work with the Jewish communities to demonstrate to them that she’s not anti-Semitic, and liking those Facebook posts was a genuine mistake.
“She said she hadn’t read the text properly. I believe her. But I do believe now she’s got to work hard to show people, to show the Jewish community and colleagues in Parliament that she’s not anti-Semitic, and she’s prepared to engage with the communities to demonstrate that.”
On the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner said Ms Forbes had been “careless”.
Referring to the row over Tory leadership hopeful Michael Gove, he said: “If Michael Gove can be forgiven for class A drug use, I think Lisa Forbes can be forgiven for liking a [post] that she didn’t read.”
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