The UCU should understand Eve Garrard's resignation today as a sign that it needs to take action.

A steady stream of academic trade unionists is leaving UCU and have been doing so since it first embraced the campaign to exclude Israelis from the global academic community in Spring 2005.

We don't know how many Jews and how many antiracists have been driven out of our union since then. Why don't we know? Because the UCU has refused to count them.

We don't know how many Jews and antiracists have not joined the union who otherwise might have done, because the UCU has not carried out the relevant survey.

We do not know how many Jews and antiracists have quietly stopped paying their subs because they are disgusted by the UCU's complacent attitude towards the possibility of an institutional antisemitism in its own midst.

Any union activist will give anecdotal evidence of resignations and of people who are on the brink of resignation.

The UCU should act quickly to stop Jews and antiracists feeling that they are being driven out of their own union. UCU should:

1 commission research to find out how many resignations there have been which are connected to the boycott campaign

2 launch a serious investigation into institutional antisemitism in the union

3 stop supporting and hosting the campaign to exclude Israelis from the global academic community

Engage is firmly and explicitly a pro-union organisation. We support our union and we believe in our union. We want a strong united union and we want an antiracist union. We call on union members not to resign.

But who could blame Eve Garrard for being unable to bear, any longer, the "shame and embarrassment of belonging to an institution which is willing to discriminate against Jews"?

Engage is pro-union and pro-peace; we are for a Palestinian state, Palestinian democracy and Palestinian freedom; we are for Israeli self-determination; we are for an end to violence and occupation; we oppose antisemitism and all other forms of racism, bigotry and discrimination.

Engage appeals to people who work in universities and colleges to join us in our campaign to make UCU back into an inclusive organisation of which we can be proud.

For more information about Engage, click here.

Engage will not let itself be pushed out of the labour movement by antisemitism. We're here and we're here to stay.

David Hirsh (editor)