Antisemitism row could cost us power - Corbyn
● Labour leader says ‘no justification for abuse of anybody’ ● But party peers send letter condemning Corbyn’s failure
Jeremy Corbyn has warned the antisemitism row engulfing Labour could cost it power at Holyrood and Westminster as he issued a dramatic plea for unity.
The UK leader used his keynote address to the party’s Scottish spring conference in Dundee to insist there was “no justification for abuse of anybody”.
But it came as a coruscating letter from party peers emerged condemning Mr Corbyn over his “political failure” to tackle antisemitism in the party.
It has emerged Labour’s Scottish executive committee (SEC) will today release a statement committing the party to ensuring all elected representatives, future candidates and SEC members undergo equality and diversity training to address antisemitism.
The issue comes under the spotlight in a debate at the Scottish conference this afternoon after an emergency motion was thwarted by party bosses yesterday.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission said last week it was considering an investigation into Labour.
Mr Corbyn confronted the issue yesterday as he told party delegates the lives of working class voters could be transformed with “Labour governments in London and Edinburgh”. But he added: “To get there we have to be united.
“That doesn’t mean we have no room for disagreement. Discussion and debate are the lifeblood of our democracy, but there is no justification for the abuse of anybody.
“Racism, religious bigotry and misogyny have no place whatsoever in our movement.
“And we will root out antisemitism in our party and in society at large.
“We, the Labour party, must lead the fight against all types of racism.”
Labour has been under fire over its handling of antisemitism complaints amid claims Mr Corbyn’s team had advised disciplinary groups over how to handle some cases. It has prompted Labour members in the House of Lords to complain to the leader in a letter that emerged yesterday.
Their chairman told the Politics Home website that peers wanted to express their alarm “at what is frankly an embarrassing and hugely damaging mess caused by the ongoing failure to remove antisemites from our party”.
He said: “This failure diminishes the moral authority of the Labour party, undermines our whole ethos and calls into question our wider commitment to anti-racism.”
Mr Corbyn insisted yesterday that Labour had a responsibility as a “force for progressive change” during a halfhour address. The only thing that can hold us back is if we were to turn our fire on each other rather than on the Tory government,” he said. “With the Conservatives in disarray, now is the time to come together and defeat them.”
And he warned if Theresa May failed to get her Brexit deal through Parliament next week, it would mark an “unprecedented failure in British political history”.
Labour still favours a general election as a solution to the Brexit impasse and will push for its alternative plan of a “softer Brexit”. The party would also support a People’s Vote.
Labour must not bank on ‘automatic’ frustration with SNP to seize power: Leonard
Labour leader Richard Leonard will warn that “automatic disillusionment with the SNP” may be a forlorn hope in the party’s push to regain power at Holyrood.
The Scottish leader will accuse the Nationalist government at Holyrood of running scared on working rights in his keynote address to the conference in Dundee today.
Scottish Labour plunged to 19 per cent in the latest poll on Holyrood voting intentions last week. This is nine points behind the second-placed Tories, with the SNP on 41 per cent, according to Panelbase. “We cannot rely on an
Scott Macnab
automatic disillusionment with the SNP to do the job for us,” Mr Leonard will say. “There is no iron law, there is no inevitability.
“But if we work for it, industrially and politically, we can achieve it. Because I tell you that we make our own history.”
The recent demise of the Michelin tyre factory and construction firm Mcgill in Dundee will be highlighted by Mr Leonard. He will call for a shift in power in the workplace with a pledge to challenge the “gig economy” and ensure that all workers are paid a living wage.
“This is a city where decent industrious people have been let down by the failed economic system, where too much power rests in too few hands, often in faraway boardrooms,” he will say.
“The SNP tell us we shouldn’t talk about workers’ rights because they are reserved. But these practices are commonplace on public contracts funded by the Scottish Government.
“Which is why it is about time that we had a Scottish Government prepared to use its powers, including through public procurement, to drive up working practices on these contracts to build our hospitals, to build our roads and to build our railway infrastructure.”