Dame Louise Ellman at LFI conference stall > Ian Vogler photography, Jewish News.
The highlight of Labour’s 2021 conference was the return of Dame Louise Ellman to Labour.
- Dame Louise, a former LFI chair and MP for Liverpool Riverside, resigned from Labour in October 2019 in protest at the culture of antisemitism that had developed under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
- She announced on the second day of Labour conference on Monday that she had decided to “return to her political home”.
- In a statement, Dame Louise said that she was “confident that, under the leadership of Keir Starmer, the party is once again led by a man of principle in whom the British people and Britain’s Jews can have trust”.
- “Whilst there remains a great deal more to do to tackle antisemitism in the party”, she continued, “I am encouraged by the steps already taken and the progress made so far”.
- Starmer has made tackling antisemitism a priority of his leadership, which had seen him sack Rebecca Long-Bailey for sharing an article containing an antisemitic conspiracy theory online, suspend Corbyn for refusing to fully accept the results of the EHRC report into antisemitism, and proscribe far-left factions that have similarly denied the party’s problems with antisemitism.