The EHRC report is next test for Starmer
V FOR ALMOST five years, Jewish Labour activists have been warning with increasing alarm and distress of the growing tide of antisemitism within our Party.
Emerging from the leadership contest in 2015, a rapid influx of new members overwhelmed Party structures. While the vast majority of new members were good people, inspired by a different kind of left politics promised by Corbyn, a committed group of hard-left activists, ideologically committed to a new form of antisemitism, but imbibing all the hallmarks of the old, were able to enter largely unnoticed. Bringing with them a set of tactics not seen inside Labour since the 1980s, they would quickly poison the well.
When Hannah Arendt spoke of the “banality of evil”, her observation that good people could willingly abdicate critical thinking in deference to ideologues and rhetoricians came under much scrutiny from those who believed this excused and removed agency from antisemites.
This is precisely the debate that the Labour Party must now face. Five years of the leadership excusing, ignoring, diminishing and downplaying antisemitism has inculcated a culture of denialism and obfuscation. While the overwhelming majority of Labour Party members believe anti-Jewish racism is bad, polling of members has consistently shown that most believe it to be blown out of all proportion.
For those of us working to rid our Party of it, this has been the most bizarre of experiences. Having exhausted all internal methods of redress, pleading with the leadership and governance of the Party to enforce standards and set the tone, our efforts to call in the Equalities and Human Rights Commission as an independent arbiter will soon reach their conclusion.
Having already established that they believe the Party may have committed unlawful acts against Jewish members, the EHRC will soon publish its much anticipated report. The Jewish Labour Movement has, as have others, submitted mountains of evidence. In our case, more than 70 whistleblower testimonies, reams of primary evidence exhibiting unlawful acts and more than 100 impact testimonies from the people the investigation’s terms of reference is focused on: Jewish Labour Party members.
The weeks following the election of Keir Starmer as Leader of the Party have been akin to a three-month stake-out. We have been closely studying every speech, conversation and action to discern the kind of action we will get. Face-to-face meetings with JLM and the community were a big first step; many were concerned that the same demand made of Corbyn — “actions, not words”— was all too familiar. Anticipation was focused on the EHRC, whose independent recommendations could give ammunition to the new leader to impose good governance on to the Party.
Few inside the community believed that Rebecca Long-Bailey would receive anything more than a slap on the wrist for sharing an article containing a gross antisemitic conspiracy theory. Indeed, communal leaders assumed no action would be taken short of a slow and staged, mealy mouthed “apology”, characteristic of the Corbyn era. But, within four hours, the Shadow Education Secretary was sacked, with elements of the hard-left declaring open warfare on the leadership in response. Until now, the full machinery of the Party has been used to find excuses for antisemitism. In the wake of Long Bailey’s sacking, outriders and shock-jock bloggers have taken to the internet and airways attempting to justify antisemitism, and Labour Party members have begun to smell the rot. This is a major turning point in the history of Labour antisemitism. The Leader and the Party’s response to the EHRC will be the next.
Labour needs to set firm boundaries, discipline those who cross them and re-educate a radicalised membership to understand antisemitism. Only then can it restore its tradition as a consistent and universal antiracist Party. The culture of any organisation is set by its leadership and defined by its actions. What a contrast we have now seen.
Communal leaders assumed no action would be taken
Peter Mason is the National Secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement