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Mansfield CLP member Roland Laycock insists that we have no problem with #antisemitism in @UKLabour. He reckons it's just a smear campaign and believes that the Jewish people raising concerns about it never criticise austerity or Tory policies. /1 
Roland Laycock is keen to promote the Labour Party, which, as a fellow activist myself, isn't something I would normally criticise. He supports the #PeoplesVote campaign and signed the letter calling for a second referendum on EU membership published in today's Observer. /2
However, I feel that some of Roland Laycock's views run against the values for which our party stands. He is, for example, sceptical the Holocaust affected Jews in the way that's commonly understood. Indeed he thinks Jews started WW2 and that the Germans were its main victims. /3
Roland Laycock regularly shares material from neo-Nazi websites that blame Jews for many of the evils of the last century. The "misanthropy of the Jews" is the description used by one of his favourite sites, the antisemitic Russia-Insider. /4
In Roland Laycock's vivid imagination, Jews get up to all manner of tricks to manipulate society and they appear to be uniquely corrupt. /5
Roland Laycock is concerned about the role that Jews play in the Labour Party and calls for the @JewishLabour Movement to be disaffiliated. He believes there is a "fifth column" operating for the "Zionist lobby" inside the party. /6
I have tried to challenge Roland Laycock about his antisemitic posts on Facebook, but he doesn't respond. I made an official complaint to the Labour Party some months ago, but it's disturbing to see that he's still using his CLP's name and presumably therefore still a member. /7
Roland Laycock and people with such views should not be in the Labour Party. I'm confident Jeremy Corbyn and the overwhelming majority of members would agree with that stance. But it does concern me that some groups in the party continue to insist we have no antisemitism problem.
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