General election: Health secretary booed at hustings for attacking Jeremy Corbyn's 'antisemitic attitude'
Matt Hancock said he was committed to ridding politics of the antisemitic attitude of Jeremy Corbyn at a hustings.
Monday 2 December 2019 20:50, UK
The health secretary has spoken out after being booed for accusing Jeremy Corbyn of having an antisemitic attitude.
Matt Hancock was filmed answering questions from potential constituents in Haverhill, Suffolk, on Friday evening when he was questioned about the Conservatives' commitment to 50,000 more NHS nurses over the next 10 years.
The policy has been criticised widely already because it came to light that the number included around 18,000 existing nurses and was a commitment to retaining them.
Though Mr Hancock answered the question, saying the Conservatives had committed to increasing the number of nurses, he then went on to say: "There is one thing I am more passionate about ridding from our politics than anything else and that is the antisemitic, outrageous, racist attitude of Jeremy Corbyn."
He added that "anyone standing for a racist party shouldn't be standing for parliament".
As Mr Hancock made the comments he gestured behind him to the other candidates in the West Suffolk seat, which include Labour's Claire Unwin and the Lib Dems' Elfreda Tealby-Watson.
The Green Party candidate is Donald Allwright.
Some members of the audience erupted into boos when Mr Hancock mentioned antisemitism, while someone who appeared to be one of the organisers moved to take the microphone away from him.
Mr Hancock gave him back the microphone in one of the clips, which also caught an audience member as they shouted about Islamophobia in the Conservative Party.
Karen Soons, a Suffolk councillor, said: "Well done @MattHancock and @DanielKorski we must call out this hatred. I was in the room when this happened and some of the audience's behaviour was utterly despicable and shameful."
She then went on to accuse Neil Holloway, a local Labour Party member, of signalling and then "erupting" over the comments from the health secretary.
Mr Holloway responded by tweeting: "I stood up to object to the chair that my question was being ignored I recognised about 2 people at the meeting , but don't know them, so I don't know who I signaled to I've only ever been to 2 branch meetings , hardly a hard left activist I'm pretty upset at these accusations."
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Daniel Sugarman, the public affairs officer for Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: "I've seen many Jews extremely angry at Labour candidates at hustings so far this election campaign. I haven't seen anything CLOSE to the vitriol the Tory candidate for West [Suffolk] gets here for just mentioning Labour antisemitism. The cries of "liar"...
"The people responsible for this are those who have denied this antisemitism problem, called it a smear, falsely claimed it was being done to "silence criticism of Israel", & those who have shared such lies. You've whipped up this mob against us. We will never forgive you for it."
Keren David, the associate features editor at Jewish Chronicle, said: "This is so horrible. Actually makes me (for the first time) consider if I should leave the UK."
Mr Hancock retweeted one message praising him and said: "I'll call out antisemitism wherever I find it."
Mr Corbyn has previously called antisemitism "vile and wrong" and declared it "will not be tolerated in any form whatsoever" under a Labour government.
The Conservative Party and the Labour Party have been contacted for comment.