It is an allegation which has swirled around the Labour Party ever since Jeremy Corbyn took up the reins as leader.

Now Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has become the latest public figure to accuse the party of harbouring an anti-Semitic element within its ranks. 

Writing in the Times newspaper, Mr Mirvis stoked the flames of the long-running row by saying that the Labour leadership’s handling of anti-Semitism was “incompatible” with British values, and that the overwhelming majority of Britain’s Jews were “gripped with anxiety” ahead of the General Election on December 12, warning “the very soul of our nation is at stake” if Labour wins the General Election.

He added that Mr Corbyn’s supporters have “hounded parliamentarians, members and even staff out of the party for challenging anti-Jewish racism”.
But Mr Corbyn has long denied that his party is institutionally biased against Jews, and can point to his long history as an active anti-racism campaigner in Parliament while Labour has traditionally been the party which has spoken up for minorities. 

However, the Labour leader has acknowledged that anti-Semitism occurred in “pockets” within the party and wider movement, and there has been long-running criticism about his attempts to get to grip with the problem.   

The issue first came to the attention of the wider public after Mr Corbyn took over from Ed Milliband as leader in 2015, and the Labour Party was reinvigorated with a huge influx of new members, many from the far left wing of the political spectrum.

A sizeable element were vocal critics of Israel and who believe the UK should take a firmer line with the Middle Eastern country regarding its policies towards the Palestinians and its treatment of the Palestinian people, especially the building of settlements on occupied territories they were driven from during the years of bloodshed in the region in the latter half of the 20th century. 

The strength of the left’s support for Palestinian statehood, which Jeremy Corbyn has championed for decades, contrasts with the more nuanced position taken by many of his predecessors.

As the balance of power within Labour changed after Mr Corbyn’s appointment, attention quickly focused on what activists and elected representatives were saying – and had said in the past – on social media and elsewhere about Israel and Jewish people. There were claims that anti-Semitic tropes were being widely propagated and a number of incidents attracted a great deal of attention.

High-profile suspensions over alleged anti-Semitic comments include MP Naz Shah, the ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone and MP Chris Williamson, an ally and friend of Mr Corbyn, while in May 2016, the vice-chair of Momentum, Jackie Walker, was investigated by the party over private comments she made on Facebook exaggerating the role of Jews in the Atlantic slave trade

In an attempt to deal with the growing criticism, a report into the issue by Baroness Chakrabarti was commissioned in 2016, which subsequently found that “the Labour Party is not overrun by anti-Semitism”. But this was condemned as a “whitewash” by critics.

The pro-Corbyn Momentum group said the problem is “more widespread in the Labour Party than many of us had understood even a few months ago”.

In a comment piece in the Guardian last year, Mr Corbyn accepted there is a “real problem that Labour is working to overcome” and said the party had a responsibility to “root out anti-Semitism”.

The Labour leader, like many on the left of the party, has a long history of supporting the Palestinian cause and criticising the government of Israel for human rights abuses.

But some of those who share Mr Corbyn’s political sympathies have crossed the line from attacking the Israeli government to smears aimed at Jews – including Holocaust denial.

Last year the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Jewish Leadership Council used an open letter to claim that Mr Corbyn is “repeatedly found alongside people with blatantly anti-Semitic views, but claims never to hear or read them” and “rightly or wrongly, those who push this offensive material regard Jeremy Corbyn as their figurehead”.

Mr Corbyn was also condemned by former chief rabbi Lord Sacks for comments he made criticising British Zionists for not understanding “English irony”, although an ally said that the Labour leader’s words had been misinterpreted.

The party has faced further issues over the subject of anti-Semitism. 
Veteran Labour MP Frank Field resigned the party whip, while Jewish MP Luciana Berger quit the party to join Change UK and is now a Liberal Democrat candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, a constituency with a strong Jewish tradition.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched a formal investigation into whether the party “unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish”.

The human rights watchdog said it had contacted Labour after receiving a “number of complaints” about allegations of anti-Semitism.”