JEREMY CORBYN, the former leader of the Labour Party and now independent Member of Parliament, received a personal invitation to attend the October 1 inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first Jewish and first female president. He accepted.

“What does that tell you?” Corbyn asked about his invitation, entirely rhetorically, when we spoke during his recent People’s Forum. Corbyn will attend the event with his wife, Laura Alvarez, who is Mexican.

The serving British prime minister, Keir Starmer, whose wife is from a Jewish background, won’t be there.

Sheinbaum succeeded her Morena party’s outgoing president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, after winning a landslide election victory on June 2.

Mexico invited heads of state from 105 countries, but only 16 have accepted to date, mostly from Latin America. US President Joe Biden is sending a delegation led by his wife Jill that includes a number of Hispanic US lawmakers.

Corbyn’s satisfaction in sharing today’s celebrations with Sheinbaum is particularly keen given the witch hunt he endured — orchestrated from within the Labour Party and fuelled by the media — to paint him as anti-semitic. Corbyn was also accused of failing to root out alleged anti-semitism within the party, ultimately contributing to his ouster as leader.

A report by Martin Forde KC, looking into the allegations and commissioned by Starmer, found, among other conclusions, that “anti-Corbyn elements of the party seized on anti-semitism as a way to attack Jeremy Corbyn.”

This finding supported revelations in an earlier leaked internal document that showing how factional hostility within Labour, rather than a failure of Corbyn’s leadership, had interfered with party efforts to confront anti-semitism within its ranks.

On assuming the Labour leadership, Starmer set out to purge anti-semitism from the party. Ironically, this has led to the expulsion of numerous Jewish members who oppose Israel’s ruthless assault on Palestinians in Gaza.

Indeed, according to research by Jewish Voice for Labour and as reported on these pages last December, “Jewish members were six times more likely to be investigated and more than nine times more likely to be expelled from the Labour Party for anti-semitism than non-Jewish members.”

Controversy has already swirled around Sheinbaum’s inauguration after Spain said it would boycott because the country’s king, Felipe VI, was not invited. The Spanish monarch had declined to answer Obrador’s earlier request to recognise the abuses Spain committed during the conquest of Mexico and to apologise for them.

Then Ukraine insisted that the Mexican government should arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin, should he turn up. However, neither Putin nor Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, are likely to attend. Sheinbaum said there would be no arrests and also turned down an invitation from Zelensky to visit Kiev.

“Our responsibility is here,” insisted Sheinbaum, whose focus is almost entirely on domestic challenges. “We will attend some international events that we consider important, but we will not travel much.”

The Morena party has focused its attention largely on social welfare, education, health, women’s rights, and equality for indigenous people and Afro-Mexicans. The party has also been outspoken in its opposition to Israel’s ruthless assault on Palestinians, particularly during the current conflict in Gaza.

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.