Keir Starmer faced calls to rebuke one of Labour’s biggest donors today after ‘morally repugnant’ comments he made about the anti-Semitic terror attack on Bondi Beach.
Green energy tycoon Dale Vince, who has given millions to Sir Keir Starmer and his party, lashed out on social media in the wake of the atrocity on the iconic Sydney beach that left 15 people dead.
He criticised Benjamin Netanyahu for a rebuke of his counterpart Antony Albanese and Australia’s support the creation of a Palestinian state, in which the Israeli PM said anti-Semitism was ‘a cancer (that) spreads when leaders remain silent’.
Mr Vince wrote: ‘Nothing to do with Israel committing genocide in Palestine then?
‘Netanyahu wants anti-Semitism to be a thing, it validates him – he acts to make it so.’
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and other politicians on the right leapt on his comments.
‘A morally repugnant statement,’ she said.
‘Will Keir Starmer condemn his big financial backer? Staying silent implies he sees nothing wrong.’
Green energy tycoon Dale Vince, who has given millions to Sir Keir Starmer and his party, lashed out on social media in the wake of the atrocity on the iconic Sydney beach that left 15 people dead.
He criticised Benjamin Netanyahu for a rebuke of his counterpart Antony Albanese and Australia’s support the creation of a Palestinian state, in which the Israeli PM said anti-Semitism was ‘a cancer(that) spreads when leaders remain silent’.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and other politicians on the right leapt on his comments.
Mr Vince later moved to clarify his remarks, saying: ‘My words on this subject were not intended to excuse or legitimise terrorism, or any form of racism – what happened at Bondi beach is an atrocity.
‘My words are aimed at the intervention of Netanyahu who in my opinion overlooks the impacts of his own terrorism.
‘If anti-Semitism is rising in the world today then surely on any rational analysis, the biggest single cause of that will be the genocide in Palestine. I condemn all acts of violence and all forms of racism.’
Sir Keir today said that the attack, whose victims included rabbis and a young girl, was ‘an appalling terror attack’ that that left Jews everywhere feeling ‘even more insecure today that they did before’.
