• TODAY, on Yom HaShoah, I spent the day canvassing for the Labour candidates for Hampstead Town and Belsize wards.

It’s hard to describe the examples of pain and hurt expressed by some life-long Labourites on the doorsteps, fellow Jews who are feeling genuine alarm because of an ugly minority of Jew-haters (who are) attempting to hang on to decent members’ coat-tails and use centuries’-old “dog whistles” (the innuendo of the casual bigot) in a shameful bid to hijack the party.

Anyone who believes that this is some invention or fake conspiracy theory concocted by those who wish to bring down the current national leadership is deluding themselves.

As Howard Jacobson sagely observed: “Jews know what anti-Semitism is and what it isn’t. To invent it would be a sacrilege”.

How does one tell someone who is feeling the foul breath of anti-Semitism on their neck they should keep the faith and stick with the party?

Remind them that the core values that first attracted so many of us to it, the principles of equality, respect and 100 per cent intolerance of prejudice and bigotry, are alive and well in Camden?

Because they are – the truly outstanding candidates I am canvassing for embody everything that is the opposite of Jew-hatred and its ugly sister, Islamophobia; the leader of the council (along with her friend, my MP, Tulip Siddiq) couldn’t be any clearer – there is no place for haters and poison-mongers and their ilk in the Labour Party.

If elected, each one of our councillors will fight tooth and nail for the time-honoured Labour values of inclusivity and the spirited defence of religious and cultural minorities.

I am not prepared to run away from my party and leave it hostage to a vociferous cabal of opportunistic hijackers; now is the time to stand firm and back these candidates whose values I share and support – and help them gain election so that they can effectively fight prejudice from within and in the wider community.

I hope others will do the same with their postal votes and on polling day.

HAROLD HORWITZ
NW3