Interference, obstruction, inaction: and a total failure of leadership
Human rights report lists page after page of serious mistakes by Labour in tackling anti-semitism
JEREMY CORBYN has been accused of “serious failings” in a damning report into Labour’s anti-semitism.
The long-awaited 130-page report was published after a 16-month investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which was triggered by growing concern over the party’s complaints process.
The report ruled that the party had broken the law by failing to prevent “acts of harassment and discrimination” and said that Mr Corbyn’s leadership “did not do enough to prevent antiSemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it”.
Investigators noted “a lack of leadership within the Labour Party on these issues”, which the report said was “hard to reconcile with its stated commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to antiSemitism”. It said: “The Labour Party must live up to this commitment and acknowledge the impact that multiple investigations and years of failing to tackle anti-semitism has had on Jewish people.”
The report also added it “uncovered serious failings” in the way complaints were handled, until at least 2018.
The committee found that Mr Corbyn’s office unlawfully “politically interfered” with almost two dozen cases of alleged anti-semitism.
It also said that Ken Livingstone, Labour’s former mayor of London, had committed “unlawful harassment” for dismissing anti-semitism.
Alasdair Henderson, the lead investigator of the report, said that Mr Corbyn was “ultimately accountable and responsible” for the failings of the party.
The Labour Party now has until Dec 10 to implement the recommendations of the report or face legal action.
Corbyn’s office interfered 23 times in ‘discriminatory and unlawful way’
Almost a third of the 70 complaints i nvestigated by the EHRC f ound instances of political interference by Mr Corbyn’s office or other party members.
His staff even urged the complaints body to drop an investigation relating to the former leader.
Decisions i nfluenced i ncluded “whether to investigate and whether to suspend” members and the EHRC concluded the interference was “not a legiti mate approach to determining complaints”.
“We concluded that this was indirectly discriminatory and unlawful, and that the Labour Party was legally responsible for it,” the report stated.
In one example, the EHRC reports that Mr Corbyn’s team put pressure on the Governance and Legal Unit ( GLU) over a 2016 complaint lodged against him. The complaint had been made after it emerged that Mr Corbyn had objected to the removal of an antiSemitic mural four years earlier.
In an email to the GLU, his team said the case should be dismissed because it “seems to fall well below the threshold required for investigation”.
Mr Corbyn’s staff then “amended and approved” the GLU’S written response, leading the EHRC to conclude they had “directly interfered in the decision not to investigate in this case”.
In another ex ample, t he GLU requested input from Mr Corbyn’s Number’s up Notable figures under Corbyn’s tenure 325,000 new members joined Labour in the first 15 months of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, taking the party past half a million members, although this began to decline towards the end of his tenure 1.6m
workers belong to trade unions which are still considered aligned to Mr Corbyn and the Left of the Labour Party 40,000
members are still believed to belong to Momentum, the grassroots campaign group which first helped to propel Mr Corbyn to power £350,000
is the amount of money raised by supporters of Mr Corbyn to fight any legal action. The crowdfunding campaign was originally set up after he was threatened with being sued by anti-semitism whistle-blowers office over the decision to suspend a member for anti-semitism. In an email, his team requested an “immediate suspension” of the individual and a “robust press line to that effect”.
A member of the GLU later confirmed that Karie Murphy, former chief of staff to Mr Corbyn, had told him the “decision is to suspend”.
The report also found that the “substantive” approach of the National Executive Committee had been influenced by external events. It argued that the decision to resuspend Chris Williamson as an MP in June 2019 was made after news of his reinstatement “was leaked to the press and prompted an outcry”.
A ‘serious failure’ of leadership
The report identified “a serious failure of leadership”, coupled with an “inadequate process for handling anti-semitism complaints across the Party”.
It accused the complaints system of being “inconsistent, poor and not transparent” and said it had found evidence of “political interference” in its handling of them.
It also highlighted reasons for decisions, record-keeping, delay and failures to communicate with complainants as problematic. It added that some complaints were not investigated at all and that this was “unjustifiable”.
The party committed “unlawful harassment” through the acts of its agents by suggesting that anti-semitism complaints were “fake or smears”.
Overall the report found a lack of leadership within the Labour Party when it came to harassment, discrimination and political interference. It concluded that such an absence was “hard to reconcile” due to the party’s “stated commitment to a zero- t olerance approach to anti-semitism”.
It said the party had demonstrated an ability to “act decisively when it wants to”, such as the i ntroduction of a “bespoke process to deal with sexual harassment complaints”. It was therefore difficult not to find “that anti-semitism within the Labour Party could have been tackled more effectively if the leadership had chosen to do so”.
The report does not l ay blame directly with Mr Corbyn, but Mr Henderson said the failure of leadership must ultimately end with him.
Mr Henderson said: “As the leader of the party at the time, and given the extent of the failings we found in the political interference within the leader of the opposition’s office, Jeremy Corbyn is ultimately accountable and responsible for what happened at that time.”
Livingstone created ‘hostile, degrading, humiliating’ environment
The EHRC report found that the former mayor of London had committed harassment against Labour members by dismissing claims of anti-semitism.
Mr Livingstone was a member of the party’s National Executive Committee in April 2016 when he made a series of anti-semitic remarks. He invoked a classic trope when he argued that “the Israel lobby” had driven scrutiny of the anti-semitic comments made by Naz Shah, the Labour MP. The watchdog concluded that the Labour Party, through Mr Livingstone, had committed “harassment against its members in relation to Jewish ethnicity”.
The report also found that his comments “had the effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for members, and prospective members, of the Labour Party, particularly those who were Jewish”.
The EHRC also found “evidence” of Mr Corbyn’s staff being involved in the decision to investigate a complaint made against Mr Livingstone.
In a statement posted on his website yesterday, Mr Livingstone said: “I am proud of my record as an anti-racist and a leading campaigner against the farRight and their hate, from when I joined the Labour Party in 1969, through my life since, including serving as a local councillor, Greater London Council member, MP, Mayor of London and Labour National Executive Committee member. I have always implacably opposed anti-semitism. As a lifelong anti-racist, I am deeply hurt by – and fully reject – the accusations again being circulated across parts of the media and by political opponents that I am anything but 100 per cent committed to fighting all forms of racism, including anti-semitism.”
John Mcdonnell, former shadow chancellor
On the day we should all be moving forward and taking all steps to fight anti-semitism, the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn is profoundly wrong.
‘Jeremy Corbyn is ultimately accountable and responsible for what happened’
Councillor guilty of harassment
Another agent of Labour whose behaviour constituted the party being found to have committed unlawful harassment was Pam Bromley.
As a local authority councillor in Rossendale she made numerous statements on Facebook between April 2018 and December 2019 that were said to have
Laura Alvarez, Jeremy Corbyn’s wife
Please boycott the poison mainstream media and stand with the best international leader and anti-racist activist! Check facts! caused an “i ntimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for members, and prospective members, of the Labour Party, particularly those who were Jewish”.
On her Facebook profile she identified as a “Labour Party member/councillor for Corbyn” and her profile picture at the time included the words “Jeremy Corbyn Keep the Faith”.
The Labour Party received a number of complaints about Ms Bromley’s conduct. Despite her social media posts having been brought to the attention of
Andrew Scattergood, Momentum co-chairman The EHRC report demands serious consideration, but the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn risks politicising and undermining Labour’s response to anti-semitism. the GLU in May 2017, it took almost a year before she was suspended. It would not be until February 2020 that she was expelled.
The report found that her comments were “unwanted conduct related to Jewish ethnicity, which, whether viewed individually or together with other relevant acts of Labour Party agents, had the effect of harassing Labour Party members”.
Hitler and conspiracy theories
The EHRC found significant evidence of
Chris Williamson, former Labour MP suspended for alleged anti-semitism Socialists in the Party must stop deluding themselves: this was always about destroying Jeremy and criminalising criticism of Israel. It had nothing to do with anti-semitism. “anti-semitic conduct” on social media, including examples of Labour members expressing support for Hitler and diminishing the scale of the Holocaust.
In other cases, members compared Israelis to Nazis and said complaints against the party had been manufactured by the “Israel lobby”.
Others referenced conspiracies about the Rothschilds and Jewish power over financial institutions, while some social media posters blamed Jewish people for the actions of the state of Israel.
The watchdog “found evidence of