Angela Rayner has said Labour would suspend “thousands and thousands of members” if it had to over anti-Semitism.
The party’s Deputy Leader said members needed to “get real” about the problem following an incident in Nottingham where a Jewish member felt they had to leave a constituency party meeting.
Local parties have been ordered not to debate motions calling for former leader Jeremy Corbyn ’s suspension from the party to be overturned, after he lost the whip for saying the scale of anti-Jewish hate in Labour had been “dramatically overstated”.
Mr Corbyn has been readmitted as a Labour member by the party’s ruling body but he is facing an investigation over whether he can sit again as a Labour MP.
Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome condemned the incident at her local party on Friday, describing the “atmosphere and tone” of the meeting as “wholly unacceptable”.
Ms Rayner expressed anger at the incident as she appeared at the Jewish Labour Movement’s (JLM) annual conference today.
“Our members need to get real about this, our Labour members. If they don’t think anti-Semitism is within the Labour Party and that there’s problems now, then there’s really no place for them in the Labour Party,” she said in comments reported by LabourList.
Ms Rayner said: “If I have to suspend thousands and thousands of members, we will do that.
“Because we cannot and we will not accept an injury to one, because an injury to one is an injury to all.”
Keir Starmer told a separate JLM event that his predecessor’s comments on anti-Semitism after the publication of damning EHRC report were “as bad as you could get”.
The Labour leader said: “I can’t tell you how disappointed I was with Jeremy Corbyn’s response because the words he used, what he said coming from the former leader of the Labour Party in response to that report were just about as bad as you could get.
“Everything that has followed in the last few weeks follows from those words. "
He added: “That has exacerbated the pain and the hurt and we’re in a position that I did not want to be in.”
Lawyers for Mr Corbyn have already written to Labour bosses demanding he is reinstated as a party MP.
The letter reportedly criticised the handling of Mr Corbyn’s case and the lack of a specific timescale when the suspension took place.