• AS a resident of Swiss Cottage ward I fully support Cllr Simon Pearson who has been attacked for participating in a Labour Party demonstration against the adoption in full of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and I welcome the leader of Camden Council, Georgia Gould’s statement that Cllr Pearson has every right to protest whether you agree with him or not.

We are supposed to be a democratic country and one of the hallmarks of democracy is freedom of speech including the right to protest. Freedom of speech is at the very heart of what Cllr Pearson was protesting about because the Labour Party was incorporating the so called “IHRA definition of anti-Semitism” into its code of conduct.

Unfortunately this definition is very woolly and imprecise and has been condemned by a House of Commons select committee and many legal experts including a retired judge and human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC as “not fit for purpose” since it conflates criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism and tends to shut down all debate on the Israel/Palestine question.

Moreover the majority of British Jewish people themselves (181,000 or more out of a total of 263,000), oppose the IHRA definition.

KATHARINE BLIGH
NW6