Labour’s candidate for Colchester, Tina McKay, has claimed that there is “evidence” Anti-Semitism is being used as a plot against Jeremy Corbyn. Commenting on an Essex University Labour Students post which decried Labour Party’s woeful record on dealing with anti-Semitism, McKay said she “would dispute” the student group’s claims that “Anti-semitism isn’t treated as a real issue.” She went on to say:

“There have been individuals who have said that it has been used as a plot, there is evidence of what they said being true.”

This comes during the week in which over 200 University of Essex students voted against the establishment of a Jewish Society at the university. Dr Maaruf Ali, a lecturer who shared anti-Semitic posts on Facebook including Holocaust denial, campaigned against the establishment of the society writing “the Zionists next want to create a society here at our university”. Labour’s candidate wading in to a student Facebook thread to say anti-Semitism is being used to smear Jeremy Corbyn, the week that Jewish students at the university have had to face this kind of abuse is beyond excruciating…