A WEST Oxfordshire district councillor has resigned from the Labour Party after labelling it ‘institutionally anti-Semitic’.

Merilyn Davies, who has represented Freeland and Hanborough since May 2018, said she still supported her former Labour colleagues but had tired of the national party.

It is understood she was infuriated after a video featuring former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown opposing anti-Semitism posted in a closed Witney Labour Facebook group was removed.

Ms Davies said: “I could not have been prouder to be elected, a year ago, as a Labour and Co-op councillor for Hanborough and Freeland.

“But in that year, my party has changed, and whilst I know my former Labour councillors at West Oxfordshire District Council share my values and commitment to our communities, I have come to the conclusion to stay in the party would make me complicit in the antisemitism and climate of hate and fear now generated across CLPs.”

She added: “I believe the Labour Party is now institutionally anti-Semitic. It is not just those who generate it who are to blame but those that stand by silent while they do. I can no longer be silent. I will be louder.”

When Ms Davies won Freeland and Hanborough, it had not been held by Labour for at least 20 years.

In the video released on Monday, Mr Brown said he had become an affiliate member of the Jewish Labour Movement. He added the party had ‘let the Jewish community and itself down’ over recent years.