From Blair’s old pal to Corbyn’s new crony ... another anti-Semitism shambles Andrew Pierce reporting
When Lord Falconer offered himself as a self-styled witchfinder general to oversee Labour’s handling of anti-Semitism cases, the party leadership finally seemed to be getting a grip of the issue.
One of the biggest beasts in the Labour jungle, Falconer served as Lord Chancellor in Tony Blair’s government.
As a young lawyer he shared a flat with Blair, a close friend he has known since childhood, and he has pledged that Labour’s discredited complaints procedure will be ‘bathed in light’ if he becomes the party’s anti-Semitism Tsar.
But even before he’s taken the job – discussions are still under way as to the likely resources available and what it would entail – his proposed appointment has degenerated into a shambles which has yet again called into question Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and integrity.
The senior Labour MP Dame Margaret hodge, who has endured horrific abuse about her Jewish heritage from hard-Left Corbyn supporters, yesterday denounced Falconer and any role he might play in curbing anti-Semitism in Labour’s ranks. even though Falconer was a friend of her late husband henry, a high Court judge, hodge claimed the former Lord Chancellor had bullied her and even asked her to apologise to Corbyn after she had accused the Labour leader to his face of being ‘anti-Semitic and racist’.
She went on to accuse Corbyn of deliberately misleading her when they met last week after he gave her a ‘copper-bottomed’ undertaking that his office had not interfered to reduce sanctions against those accused of anti-Semitism. ‘either Corbyn has intentionally misled me or his staff have misled him,’ she asserted.
The meeting last week was her first conversation with Corbyn since last summer, when she made her hard-hitting accusations against him. The Labour leadership responded by threatening her with disciplinary proceedings, but backed down after protests from her fellow MPs.
BEHIND the scenes, Falconer, she now claims, was acting as a stooge for Corbyn’s office. ‘Last summer when action was being taken by the Labour Party against me, I was absolutely bombarded by telephone calls from Charlie Falconer,’ she explained this week. ‘They were not about the rights and wrongs of the case. They were about trying to force me to give an apology. Charlie Falconer was an old friend of my husband’s,’ she said, ‘but what I can’t do is allow that personal relationship to cloud my judgment as to whether or not he’s the right person.’
If Falconer takes the antiSemitism job within the party, hodge and other Labour MPs have warned it will trigger a row similar to that when human rights campaigner Shami Chakrabarti conducted a report into anti-Semitism for Corbyn. Shortly after the report was published in 2016 – and widely condemned as a whitewash – Corbyn made her a Labour peer.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews was appalled by her elevation, saying it ‘compromised the independence of her inquiry’. Wes Streeting a Labour MP, added: ‘With one Lords appointment, Corbyn has undermined the remaining credibility of his anti-Semitism inquiry.’
now hodge is just as withering about Falconer: ‘he’s not independent,’ she said. ‘We need somebody from outside the Labour Party otherwise this becomes a Chakrabarti fiasco.’
A chastened Falconer insisted he had been trying to help hodge, not bully her: ‘I was urging the Labour Party to drop the proceedings against her,’ he said. ‘I was discussing whether her lawyers could agree to a form of words with Labour’s lawyers. I regard Margaret as a friend. I am so sorry that she thought I pressed too hard.’
emollient barrister Charles Falconer, 67, has long been chosen to smooth over difficulties in the Labour Party, for he is the ultimate political crony.
his earnings as a lawyer were reputed to be around £500,000 a year, but just before the 1997 general election he turned seriously to politics when he tried to become selected as Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Dudley east. But he was rejected by the selection panel after he refused to withdraw his four children from their fee- paying schools.
even so, as soon as Labour came to power in 1997, he was made a peer by his old chum Blair and won a place in the Cabinet. Falconer’s real value to Blair was to use his silky skills as a lawyer and political fixer to bail him out over the Iraq War.
After the conflict it emerged that Attorney General Lord Goldsmith – who initially warned Blair the war could be illegal – changed his mind after a secret no10 meeting where Falconer was present. Falconer later denied any wrongdoing.
Falconer also played a key role following the death of Ministry of Defence weapons expert Dr David Kelly after he was revealed as the source of reports claiming no10 ‘sexed up’ its dossier on Saddam hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Falconer was said to have helped select Lord hutton to lead an inquiry into Dr Kelly’s death – but the 2003 hutton Inquiry was dismissed as a whitewash by many critics. But when Blair had gone and the political winds changed, Falconer changed with them.
Along with other Blairites, he backed David Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010. Yet, Falconer became a surprise addition to ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet, advising him on how to prepare for government.
And although most Blairites resigned from their frontbench posts when Corbyn became leader in 2015, Falconer served as shadow justice secretary. he lasted a year before resigning with 11 other shadow ministers in a failed coup.
In the last few months, however, he has re-emerged as a Corbyn loyalist, and at one point it looked like he was going back in the shadow cabinet.
SO is Falconer, who is not Jewish, likely to be an independent voice if he does fill Labour’s antiSemitism role? In the last few days he has professed ‘ horror that the party has not been able to show it is dealing with antiSemitism properly.’
And he is certainly aware of the criticism concerning his independence. ‘Some people might feel that I might pull some punches because I’m a Labour member,’ he said.
‘I understand that. People feel that the leadership may interfere in cases.’
hodge is in no doubt about the interference – she said emails she has seen showed ‘a whole number of his [Corbyn’s] top team, not just one person, lots of them, are involved in decisions around individual complaints’.
She added: ‘What they do is interfere and lower the sanctions so people aren’t suspended, they are just given a warning letter.
‘What is so awful about this is that Jeremy always proclaims zero tolerance of anti-Semitism. When it comes to the actual cases, if they are his mates he doesn’t demonstrate zero tolerance.’
Will Falconer blow with the political wind again to keep in with Corbyn – or will he finally treat the very serious accusations made by his old friend henry hodge’s widow with the gravity they deserve?
It’s a question that could determine whether the cancer of antiSemitism at the heart of the Labour Party is ever torn out.