• FOURTEEN Jewish Labour Party members from around the country, including Hampstead & Kilburn and St Pancras & Holborn constituencies, wrote jointly to every Camden Labour councillor before the council meeting that adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism asking for the discussion to be postponed (Backing for anti-Semitism definition, April 27).

We said, “We do not think it is appropriate to discuss potentially controversial issues now that a general election has been called and the unity of Labour should be crucial to all of us. We therefore respectfully ask that the discussion and vote on this issue be postponed until after the election.”

Our request was ignored.

Worryingly, Hugh Tomlinson QC’s strongly worded legal opinion challenging the definition was not discussed, and evidence presented to the council that the definition had already resulted in closing down free speech was brushed aside.

The 2016 Commons home affairs select committee wanted to introduce caveats to the definition but was ignored also. The definition was adopted unanimously.

Sir Stephen Sedley, highly respected former Court of Appeals judge, has made it clear that the definition “gives respectability and encouragement to forms of intolerance which are themselves contrary to law”.

Councillors promised to safeguard free speech, and monitor and review the adoption of the definition in six months’ time. Their insistence on using it to police “the risk of causing offence”, in other words something other than anti-Semitism, doesn’t fill us with hope. But we intend to hold them to account.

MICHAEL COLEMAN
SAM WEINSTEIN
Hampstead & Kilburn
Labour Party Members