Chief Rabbi tells Jeremy Corbyn to stop denying Labour's anti-Semitism problem as party braces for election disaster 

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Jeremy Corbyn is under fresh pressure over his handling of Labour's anti-Semitism row after the Chief Rabbi condemned denials that there is a problem.

Ephraim Mirvis warned that the party had a 'severe' issue and called for 'decisive action' to tackle it.

He also said the 'worst mistake' would be to dismiss the controversy as a political attack on the leader - as Mr Corbyn's allies have repeatedly suggested.

The intervention came as the race row widened with less than 24 hours to go until the polls open in key elections.

Jeremy Corbyn on the campaign trail for Labour yesterday. He has urged restive MPs to focus on attacking the Tories rather than trying to unseat him

Labour's London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan was accused of being unfit to take over City Hall after footage emerged of him describing moderate Muslims as 'Uncle Toms'.

He used the term during a 2009 interview with Press TV, saying: During a discussion about Muslim voters, Mr Khan said: 'You can't just pick and choose who you speak to. You can't just talk to Uncle Toms.'

Mr Khan's team said he 'regretted' using the phrase, used against black people to suggest they are subservient to whites.

A spokesman said: 'This was a bad choice of phrase and Sadiq regrets using it.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis

'As communities minister at the time, Sadiq was talking about the need to engage with all parts of the community to tackle extremism and radicalisation - as he has pledged to do as mayor.'

But Paul Scully, MP for Sutton and Cheam, said: 'Once again, Sadiq Khan has shown he doesn't have the judgment to be Mayor of London.

'He's deeply hypocritical on race issue when it suits his political purpose. Labour must show they won't put up with attitudes like this in the party. 

The Labour anti-Semitism row has so far seen Mr Corbyn forced to suspend his close ally Ken Livingstone for suggesting that Hitler was a 'Zionist', and Bradford MP Naz Shah for Facebook posts about relocating Israel to the US.

Mr Corbyn has repeatedly denied there is a 'crisis' or a major problem, but has set up an independent inquiry led by former Liberty chief Shami Chakrabarti.

Today the leader defended his stewardship of the party and urged rebellious MPs to focus their fire on the Tories.

'There will be some who are resistant to it, and those who honestly or otherwise will believe it won't work or can't work. But politics in this country must change - and people are demanding it,' he wrote in an article for the i newspaper.

'Our focus this spring and summer must be campaigning hard against Tory plans to force schools to become academies - removing power from parents and communities.'

However, Mr Mirvis said Labour had a 'severe' problem with anti-Semitism that would get worse if the party's inquiry into the issue was used as 'sticking plaster' to placate voters.

'If this inquiry turns out to be no more than a sticking plaster, designed to placate and diffuse until after the elections this week, the problem will surely get worse and not better,' the Chief Rabbi wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

'Jeremy Corbyn has stated that his party 'will not tolerate anti-Semitism in any form', and I very much hope that this inquiry will deliver on that pledge and be followed by decisive action.

'All political parties share in the responsibility to rid our society of anti-Semitism but we cannot achieve that objective with political posturing or empty promises of action never to be fulfilled.' 

Shadow cabinet minister Diane Abbott has insisted it is 'a smear to say that the Labour Party has a problem with anti-Semitism'.

Unite union leader Len McCluskey has also claimed Mr Corbyn is the victim of ''a cynical attempt to manipulate anti-Semitism for political aims'' that was ''got up by the right-wing press aided and abetted by Labour MPs''.

Mr Mirvis warned it would be a mistake to treat the problem as a 'political attack'.

He wrote: 'There are many people, from all sectors of our society, who are demanding more responsibility, particularly from our politicians, for stamping out racism and anti-Semitism. The Labour Party has a long and proud history of doing precisely that.

'Yet, comments from senior and long-standing members of the party, both Jewish and not, show just how severe the problem has now become.

'Everyone agrees that there must be no place for anti-Semitism in our politics and I welcome the inquiry recently announced by the party's leadership. And yet, I would sound an urgent note of caution.

'In recent days, we have heard anti-Semitism in the Labour Party described variously as 'a smear' and as 'mood music' being manipulated by political opponents of Jeremy Corbyn.

'There has been nothing more disheartening in this story than the suggestion that this is more about politics than about substance. The worst of mistakes, in trying to address this problem would be to treat it as a political attack which requires a political solution.' 

Labour backbencher Louise Ellman said the Chief Rabbi was 'quite right' to intervene in the row.

'I think we need a great deal more education about what antisemitism is,' she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'Criticising the government of the state of Israel is absolutely legitimate. 

'But when the world’s only Jewish state is demonised, treated in a way no other state is, when people talk about conspiracy theories, they talk about Jewish power and Jewish control, indeed applying to Zionism exactly the same untruths that are applied to Jews in straightforward antisemitism, we are moving into antisemitic territory. 

'And that has to be understood. I don’t think it is understood at the moment.'

Sadiq Khan during his interview for Press TV in 2009 when he described moderate Muslims as 'Uncle Toms'