British Jewish TV Presenter Rachel Riley Sues Labour Party Official Over ‘Appalling Distortion of the Truth’
by Shiryn Ghermezian
Rachel Riley during an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News. Photo: Screenshot.
Rachel Riley, host of the UK television show “Countdown,” is suing a staff member of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party over a Twitter post that the latter wrote in March, the UK’s Sunday Times reported on Sunday.
Riley is seeking 50,000 euros, which is $55,992, from the Labour party’s head of complaints, Laura Murray, plus legal costs, court documents revealed.
When Corbyn was egged during his visit to a mosque in March, Riley, 33, retweeted a post by left-wing commentator Owen Jones that said: “If you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi. Seems fair to me.”
Riley added, “Sound advice.”
In response to Riley’s post, Murray tweeted, “Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for visit my mosque day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer. Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi. This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.”
Riley said Murray’s tweet about her, which the Labour staffer subsequently deleted, was an “appalling distortion of the truth.” She explained that her tweet should not be interpreted to mean that Corbyn was a Nazi and deserved to be egged, according to The Jewish Chronicle.
The Algemeiner reported in March that Riley hired Mark Lewis, a lawyer who has repeatedly criticized the Labour party’s approach to claims of antisemitism, to pursue legal action against those who have targeted her with with libel or harassment over her efforts to call out antisemitism in Corbyn’s party.
