Berger: she and others claimed criticism by the Liverpool Wavertree CLP of her attempts to undermine Jeremy Corbyn were anti-Semitic abuse – but there is no apparent evidence of any anti-Semitism against her by any party member.

Remember Luciana Berger? The former Liverpool Wavertree MP whose opposition to Jeremy Corbyn caused such friction with her local party that she quit, claiming anti-Semitism? The one who went on to form the ill-fated Change UK to challenge Labour?

Now she’s back, after party leader Keir Starmer apologised for the way the party handled her claims of anti-Semitism. He said there had been a “litany of failures”.

Had there?

Well, no. But I’m happy to be corrected, if anybody can produce hard evidence refuting what follows…

Berger was parachuted into the Liverpool Wavertree Parliamentary seat in 2010, against the wishes of local people like actor Ricky Tomlinson and others, who publicly voiced their disquiet that the Labour leadership had chosen a member of the London elite instead of a person with local connections. At the time, the matter was framed purely as an issue of local democracy.

Then Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015 – and Berger joined an organised resignation of shadow front benchers in order to undermine the democratically-elected leader who was widely supported by members in her constituency.

The tension this created – along with concerns about a TV interview in which Berger repeatedly failed to say whether she would be leaving Labour to form a new, centrist party – led to Berger’s CLP inviting her to attend a meeting in 2018 when a motion would be discussed stating, “Instead of fighting for a Labour government, our MP is continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be prime minister.”

The motion was attacked as an example of anti-Semitism by Labour right-wingers, but it clearly wasn’t. And when Berger quit Labour in February 2019, to join the centrist Change UK, the members of Wavertree CLP were proved to be right in their concern.

But they were attacked as anti-Semites nonetheless.

Berger was a victim of anti-Semitic abuse – but it came from outside the Labour Party; four neo-Nazis were jailed for crimes including anti-Semitic abuse and harassment, between 2014 and 2018.

And she has not – to my knowledge; how about yours? – produced a single scrap of evidence to show anti-Semitic abuse against her from within the Labour Party.

Here’s some background information:

Fake accusations against Momentum over Luciana Berger are undermining the fight against anti-Semitism (from July 2017).

Bullies in the Labour Party… are those who lied about Wavertree CLP’s ‘no confidence’ votes on Berger (from February 2019).

With such a poor history, Berger should never be allowed to become a Labour candidate again.

But you can bet that she will.

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