A report from an influential group of MPs has criticised NUS president Malia Bouattia for showing signs of racism – prompting her hard-Left allies to tell them to take it back and base their opinion on different facts.
Bouattia, who has courted controversy since her election this spring, was dragged over the coals for inflammatory statements about Jews in the student movement.
She was brought to task by MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee – who said her words “smacked of outright racism”.
150 student leaders telling Jews what anti-Semitism is.
Engaging in both anti-Semitism denial and victim blaming.
Shameful pic.twitter.com/5t5k8kEvEU
— Jack Mendel (@Mendelpol) October 16, 2016
The comments in question include her description of the University of Birmingham as a “Zionist outpost” because it has a large Jewish society – a comment she has admitted was poorly worded, but refuses to withdraw or apologise for.
She was held up as part the UK’s antisemitism crisis, alongside Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his discredited shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti.
After the report was released on Sunday, Bouattia said it was “never my intention” to be antisemitic, and that it has “no place… in the student movement, and in society” though, again, she came short of apologising.
Jewish students have been saying this for months. @MaliaBouattia has failed repeatedly to address these concerns https://t.co/Jz82ejg5v9
— Liron Velleman (@vellstells) October 16, 2016
Her allies in the NUS were even less cowed – and accused select committee members of being out to get Bouattia.
An open letter published online said: “we believe this report’s selective and partisan approach attempts to delegitimise NUS, and discredit Malia Bouattia as its president.”
They added: “We demand a revised report that is impartial and contains factual evidence.”
