Thread by @Steve_Cooke

1/ Middlesbrough's independent councillor Lee Garvey is telling porkies. He claims he was a Labour member when he posted antisemitic comments in 2015. But the first was published after he'd already backed anti-Labour candidates in elections held that year.
gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-…

2/ Lee also claims he "made the point that the focus on antisemitism was disproportionate to the amount of abuse that Muslim people face, but those parts of the conversation have been left out". That's not true either. Here's the full thread from 5/4/2018. He made no such point.

3/ The context was a discussion about antisemitism in the Labour Party started by ex-councillor John McPartland. I cited a local activist I'd reported for antisemitism to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and whom I knew was also the subject of a complaint in the party.

4/ That person (who died recently, hence my redacting his name) intervened in the thread to deny antisemitism and make counter-accusations. He called in Lee Garvey as a character witness, only for Lee to make several antisemitic comments himself.

5/ If Middlesbrough's executive mayor Andy Preston is arranging for Cllr Garvey to receive "sensitivity training", as reported by @mathilde_frot in @JewishNewsUK, that is a positive development. However, Lee still denies his comments were racist. jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/middlesbrough-…

6/ So, it's not just his 'sensitivity' that needs working on. Lee Garvey needs to understand that his rants about the Rothschilds, claims about Jewish power and portrayal of Jews as Nazis are deeply antisemitic.

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