A LEFT-WING Jewish group has criticised Labour’s plan to formally apologise to former senior officials who sued the party after making claims of anti-semitism during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership as an “insult.

Jewdas, which describes itself as a “radical” and “alternative” Jewish group, spoke out today against the party’s plan to apologise as part of a settlement designed to draw a line under the allegations.

The staffers, described as “whistleblowers” by the Guardian, sued Labour for defamation after a BBC Panorama investigation last year.

No final settlement has been reached, but the newspaper reported today that an agreement was imminent and the apology would be read out in court.

Seven of the eight former Labour staffers who featured in the documentary instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against Labour.

The former employees claimed that senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and had suggested they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.

The BBC Panorama programme, Is Labour Anti-Semitic? made a number of claims about the party’s internal culture for dealing with complaints of anti-semitism.

In a statement when the programme was broadcast, a spokesman called them “disaffected former officials” and said that they had “worked actively to undermine” Mr Corbyn and had “both personal and political axes to grind.”

Some of the former staffers were named in an internal report leaked last Easter weekend that revealed what it called a “hyper-factional” environment, in which hostility and internal sabotage of Mr Corbyn’s leadership hampered the anti-semitism complaints procedures.

Jewdas said: “Paying people who deliberately mishandled complaints about anti-semitism for factional purposes IS NOT good.

“That this is being lauded as a sensible step towards tackling anti-semitism is an INSULT.”