Calls for Labour MP to lose party whip over alleged anti-Semitic tweet

A Labour MP is facing calls for him to lose the party whip over an alleged anti-Semitic tweet in which he referred to a "run on silver shekels".

The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism called on Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, to eject Barry Sheerman, the MP for Huddersfield.

Mr Sheerman had already apologised after he suggested there was a "run on silver shekels" in an apparent reference to a rumour about two Jewish businessmen missing out on peerages in the latest round of elevations to the House of Lords.

He deleted the post and said he was "deeply sorry that my clumsy tweet has caused offence", claiming it was an "attempt at irony talking about 30 pieces of silver". He initially said it was "misrepresented by some comments" on Twitter.

But the Campaign Against Antisemitism said he should face disciplinary action for use of "anti-Semitic tropes".

A spokesman for the group said: "Barry Sheerman's first reaction on hearing that two prominent Jewish businessmen supposedly missed out on peerages is to think about 'silver shekels', alluding in one fell swoop to both classic and modern anti-Semitic tropes about Jews corrupting politics with money and being more loyal to Israel than their own countries."

Mr Sheerman later named the businessmen he was referring to as Philip Green and Richard Desmond, who are both Jewish.

In a statement to his local Labour party, he said he was responding to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's honours list and chose the businessmen's names at random.

"I was so angry I was intending to liken the places in the Lords as a '30 pieces of silver' type of reward," he wrote. "This alone is an unpleasant thing to say, but I tried to be too clever and looked up the currency that might have been used 2,000 years ago, and found information suggesting it was the shekel.

"It never entered my head when I was making that comment that the two people I mentioned were Jewish."

Mr Sheerman added that he would be "taking a rest" from Twitter.

A Labour Party spokesman said: 'Barry has deleted the tweets and apologised. He deeply regrets the offence caused."