CONTROVERSIAL Labour candidate Luke Akehurst, a pro-Israel lobbyist who has been parachuted into a safe seat, has doubled-down on a claim that the United Nations is antisemitic.
The Oxford-based Labour executive, who has been selected to stand in North Durham, told The Metro newspaper that he was “happy” to call the UN antisemitic amid criticism over his past comments.
It comes as Akehurst faced controversy for his comments on Israel and Palestine after Labour announced his candidacy – which was approved by the national executive committee (NEC) on which he sits.
Akehurst deleted more than 2000 social media posts before his candidacy was announced. However, controversial tweets – in which he supports Israel’s right to keep settlements deemed illegal under international law, claims that injured people in a video of the aftermath of an attack on a Palestinian hospital are crisis actors, and calls the UN antisemitic – remain live.
Another controversial post, in which Akehurst suggested that Jewish people are “politically black” was deleted on Thursday.
Asked by Metro about his social media activity, Akehurst stood by his comments.
Yes
— Luke Akehurst (@lukeakehurst) October 31, 2022
On calling the UN antisemitic, he said it was not unusual “to believe that the United Nations is very, very biased against Israel and that some of that bias could be motivated by antisemitism from some member states … because there’s countries that express antisemitic sentiments towards Israel. Like, Iran will bring motions against it".
He added: “That’s not a position that everyone in the Labour Party would share, but it is one that I expressed in my previous job and I’m happy to articulate it.”
Akehurst has also claimed that the charities Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are "both incredibly biased against Israel".
Akehurst had been the director of the lobby group We Believe in Israel since 2011, but he told Metro he had now resigned his position to focus on his candidacy to be an MP.
He told Metro that he had deleted so many tweets because he had set out to erase all “62,000 tweets that I’ve ever made”, but realised it would take too long.
He added: “I didn’t target particular ones to delete. It just did them in chronological order.”
However, the post about Jewish people being “politically black”, which has been deleted, is from 2018. Other, more recent, posts remain live.
In the case of his tweets claiming a video filmed in Gaza and shown on Sky News had been “staged”, the lead post from November 2023 has been deleted, but his replies – which were made on the same day – remain live.
Akehurst defended his comments to the Metro, saying that suggesting Jewish people are “politically black” was “quite common as a position that people would take in discourse about race”.
“When I was an activist in student politics, people of Chinese origin or Jewish origin or Gypsy or Irish origin would describe themselves as politically black,” he added.
Akehurst further insisted that he was sympathetic towards the plight of the Palestinian people.
“The idea that I’m not sympathetic to people suffering on both sides in a really horrific conflict is terrible,” he said.
“That’s an accusation that I refute. I want the war to end and I want a two-state solution the same as everyone in the Labour Party does.”
Labour did not respond to The National’s request for comment.
