In November 2015, Rentoul issued a public apology for tweeting that "Jeremy Corbyn might say that France had brought the Paris attacks on itself". The journalist acknowledged it was a "stupid and offensive" thing to say. Rentoul was accused of using his position in the Independent to actively undermine Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party through the persistent suggestion that Corbyn was an anti-semite. In a Twitter conversation when asked to provide any evidence of Corbyn's anti-semitism, he did not do so. However he had previously provided a detailed explanation of his views on alleged antisemitism within the Labour Party, saying that "There is an ambiguity about antisemitism at the heart of Corbyn’s ideology".