Pete Newbon was a Northumbria University academic and a director of infamous pro-Israel smear campaign ‘Labour against Antisemitism’ (LAAS). Newbon became infamous after he posted an image of then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reading to children. The book in the image had been doctored to make it appear that he was reading an infamous antisemitic text, instead of Jewish author Michael Rosen’s popular ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ children’s book.
After Rosen objected to the antisemitic photoshopping, Newbon catastrophically tried to sue him. Newbon himself was being sued — along with two associates — by lawyer and writer James Wilson for endangering Wilson and his family by falsely portraying him as a danger to children. Wilson, who had been targeted by the trio after opposing their anti-Corbyn smears, ultimately won substantial damages in his lawsuit.
Lionised liar Pete Newbon
Pete Newbon died by suicide before either case came to a conclusion. Since then, his Israel-fanatic supporters have tried to turn him into some kind of Zionist ‘saint’, naming an ‘award’ after him — ‘won’ by some of the worst figures of the Israel smear industry. Alongside this lionisation, they tried to blame his death on left-wingers who were outraged by his abuse of Rosen’s text. They also targeted Rosen himself especially, despite a coroner’s inquest that never mentioned him once.
Ironically, the creation of the ‘award’ to honour Newbon accidentally exposed his record as a serial troll who was on a final warning from Northumbria University because of his appalling online activity. At first, after his death, Newbon’s widow Rachel Hewitt called him her “best friend, my partner-in-crime, my beautiful kind husband, a brilliant reader & scholar”.
But it didn’t take long before she woke up to his reality, first realising that he had put their whole family at risk with his obsessive legal pursuits and smears of those who dared oppose Israel’s apartheid. She then further holed his reputation, writing in 2025 how he had abused her and that she had felt her children were in danger if left alone with him.
And now, she has gone further in a post on her Substack, describing Pete Newbon as a “pathological liar” driven by “shame and inadequacy”, who “cannot weather the exposure of the lying, because it brings the intolerable shame out into the open from behind the fragile defences”.
Sounds about right, though it hasn’t stopped his fellow fanatics from competing for the ‘award’ named after him, smearing his victims, or trying to use his death to attack those horrified by the racist hounding to death of academic Jason Arday.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
