Former British prime minister Liz Truss has hired a pro-Israel law firm whose largest office is in Tel Aviv and which called Labour “antisemitic” in 2020 to send a cease and desist letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The letter accuses Starmer of making “false and misleading” comments during the 2024 general election campaign that Truss “crashed the economy”, saying the claims are defamatory.
Truss’s mini-Budget in September 2o22 announced £45bn of unfunded tax cuts, sending financial markets into a panic. Less than two weeks later, Truss resigned from the premiership.
She then lost her seat as an MP in the July 2024 election.
The cease and desist letter, first reported on Thursday, was sent by law firm Assersson, which called Labour under former leader Jeremy Corbyn “a hotbed for racism”.
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Founded by British Jerusalem-based lawyer Trevor Assersson, the firm has its headquarters in London but its largest office in Tel Aviv.
Trevor Assersson, the firm’s senior partner, has taken up a number of pro-Israel causes in the UK over the past few years.
In 2024 Assersson produced a highly publicised report attacking the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, accusing it of anti-Israel bias.
The study found that the BBC was 14 times more likely to accuse Israel of genocide than Hamas, alleging a “deeply worrying pattern of bias”.
The BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen, dismissed the findings as “deeply flawed”.
Labelling Labour antisemitic
Assersson previously represented the pro-Israel group Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) in its complaint against the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
CAA, which the Charity Commission is currently investigating, referred Labour to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) over alleged antisemitism.
In November 2020, when Keir Starmer had become leader, the firm labelled Labour “antisemitic” in an article published on its website.
It quoted Trevor Assersson saying: “The Labour Party became a hotbed for racism under Corbyn’s ‘leadership’, directed at members of the UK’s Jewish population.”
He added: “It is to be hoped that the Labour Party can find the strength to throw off its institutional racism, and return to being a party of the people.”
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The article itself said: “Starmer must ensure that antisemitism in the Labour Party, together with those who allowed it to grow, are excised from the party.”
In November it emerged that Britain’s charity regulator, the Charity Commission, was investigating CAA for calling the Labour govenrment’s partial arms ban on Israel “obscene” in September 2024.
Assersson has a further history of taking pro-Israel cases.
In 2021 the law firm brought proceedings against David Miller, a professor at Bristol University, accusing him of antisemitism.
Miller was fired by the university for expressing anti-Zionist views.
“We commend both the students, our clients, for taking the action, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism for supporting them,” Assersson said at the time.
In 2024, however, a judge ruled that Miller was unfairly dismissed and subjected to discrimination – a significant loss for Assersson.
Starmer strikes back
Now the firm is targeting Prime Minister Starmer, who has hit back.
On Thursday afternoon, his official spokesperson said: “You’ve got the prime minister’s language which he absolutely stands by in relation to the previous government’s [economic] record, and you don’t have to take it from the prime minister.
“I think you can ask people up and down the country what the impact of previous economic management was on their mortgages, on inflation, and I think you’ll get similar answers.”
Truss has maintained that she is a victim of a conspiracy.
