This of course isn’t the full and up to date story of Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension from the party.
When the long anticipated Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report into the Labour Party was released, It did not contain what many thought (or hoped) that it would. It concluded that the Labour Party under Corbyn was not institutionally anti-Semitic and that Corbyn himself was not anti-Semitic. What it did report was that there were two agents of the Party who were guilty of unlawful harassment. One a NEC member and one a Labour councillor. They did report that there had been political interference from Corbyn in the party’s efforts to deal with the problem of anti-Semitism in the party but that these incidences were in order to speed up the process.The commission therefore recommended that in future there should be no political interference in disciplinary matters.
On the strength of the findings Corbyn made a response saying; “Anyone claiming there is no anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is wrong… One anti-Semite is one too many but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. That combination hurt Jewish people and must never be repeated.”
Corbyn pointed to evidence that according to public perception one third of Labour members were anti-Semitic whilst the real figure was 0.3%
However, on the day of the report’s release, and against the EHRC recommendation that there should be no political interference in disciplinary cases, Starmer took it upon himself to suspend Jeremy from the party. At this point the head of the Unite union Len McCluskey warned that if Corbyn’s suspension was not reversed it would cause internal war within the party. Len then entered into negotiations with Starmer’s Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney, and Angela Raynor find a solution and it was agreed that if Corbyn were to make a clarifying statement, the wording of which would be agreed upon by all sides, then the way would be clear for Corbyn to re-enter the party. McSweeney reassuring McCluskey that he had the power to speak for Starmer.
A statement was then prepared and agreed upon and Jeremy delivered it. What then followed was that a five person NEC panel consisting of only two Corbyn supporters voted unanimously to reinstate Jeremy. At no point in the discussions had there been any mention of the Labour whip being removed from Corbyn, the whole idea being to reach an agreement that would bring matters back to normal. Starmer then reneged on the deal, withdrawing the whip and leaving Corbyn in the ridiculous position of being an MP and a Labour Party member but not a Labour MP and that is the situation we have today.
Oh, FFS!
It's so embarrassing that you are still defending Corbyn and LOTO on this. Your post is no better than deflective spin reliant on selected technicalities. It seems you've learnt from Mr Blair's dodgy Iraq dossier spin.. This sort of stuff keeps coming up on here as a defence and it is probably by you each time. Please pack it in, it is embarrassing.
I don't normally respond in detail when you put this up, but one thing I've learnt from Brexit is that when repeated misrepresentations are never countered, they sow seeds in the public consciousness that bear their poisonous fruit further down the line. Many on here won't have gone into this subject and may start to think the antisemitism issue was overblown and just mudslinging after all.
So, here are some excerpts from the EHRC report. I've highlight some bits because you either don't know about them or do not understand how significant this absolutely damning report was.
From the FOREWORD
‘This report is being published during a time like no other in recent memory. Politicians have been asked to show leadership to steer the country out of an unprecedented crisis, and we are being asked to put our trust in them to do so.
Trust should be at the heart of a political party’s relationship with its members, and with the wider general public; yet what this investigation has shown is a clear breakdown of trust between the Labour Party, many of its members and the Jewish community.
The investigation was prompted by growing public concern about antisemitism in the Labour Party and followed official complaints received by us. Despite this concern and an internal inquiry led by Baroness Chakrabarti in 2016, our investigation found significant failings in the way the Labour Party has handled antisemitism complaints over the last four years.
We found specific examples of harassment, discrimination and political interference in our evidence,
but equally of concern was a lack of leadership within the Labour Party on these issues, which is
hard to reconcile with its stated commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism.
The Labour Party must live up to this commitment and
acknowledge the impact that multiple investigations and years of failing to tackle antisemitism has had on Jewish people.
Rebuilding trust and confidence with its members, the Jewish community and the wider public
will be crucial for the future. A transparent and independent antisemitism complaints process, which ensures that all cases of alleged discrimination, harassment or victimisation are investigated promptly, rigorously and without political interference, must sit at the heart of this.
However, tackling antisemitism isn’t just about procedures. It is also about
making sure that the Labour Party has a
culture that clearly reflects its zero tolerance of antisemitism and indeed of all forms of discrimination.
But, more than that, politicians on all sides have a responsibility to set standards for our public life and to lead the way in challenging racism in all its forms.
What politicians say and do matters. Their words and actions send a message about what is acceptable and what is not.
From the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY on ANTISEMITISM IN THE LABOUR PARTY
Our investigation has identified serious failings in leadership and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints across the Labour Party, and we have identified multiple failures in the systems it uses to resolve them. We have concluded that
there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for which the Labour Party is responsible.
While there have been some recent improvements in how the Labour Party deals with antisemitism complaints, our analysis points to a
culture within the Party which,
at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be
seen to accept it.
The issue of antisemitism within the Labour Party has been the subject of much scrutiny, most formally with
three investigations in 2016, conducted by Baroness Chakrabarti, Baroness Royall and the Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC).
Since then, the Party has failed to implement the recommendations made in these reports fully, or to take effective measures to stop antisemitic conduct from taking place. It is regrettable that many of the concerns we raise here were first raised in these reports
over four years ago.
This reflects a
culture that is at odds with the Labour Party’s commitment to zero tolerance of antisemitism.1 The Party has shown an ability to act decisively when it wants to, through the introduction of a bespoke process to deal with sexual harassment complaints. Although some improvements have been made to the process for dealing with antisemitism complaints,
it is hard not to conclude that antisemitism within the Labour Party could have been tackled more effectively if the leadership had chosen to do so.
We found evidence of a
significant number of complaints relating to antisemitism that wer
e not investigated at all; this is
especially true for complaints about social media activity where the Labour Party previously adopted a policy of not investigating mere ‘likes’ or reposts. Where matters were investigated, the guidance on appropriate sanctions was unclear and inconsistent. We found evidence of
political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints throughout the period of the investigation.
We have concluded that this practice of political interference was unlawful. The evidence shows that staff from the Leader of the Opposition’s Office (LOTO) were able to influence decisions on complaints, especially decisions on whether to suspend someone. Sometimes these decisions were made because of likely press interest rather than any clear formal criteria. We set out our main findings and recommendations for change below.
The Labour Party must now produce an action plan to address our findings and recommendations.
The new leadership under Sir Keir Starmer has already publicly committed to implementing our recommendations in full. It must now put this into practice. The recommendations are clear, fair and achievable. They will help the Labour Party to make positive change in its policies, processes and culture, to benefit all of its members, and to rebuild trust among the Jewish community and the wider public.
This must be done in a proactive and timely way. It must not be the case that these recommendations have to be made again in yet another report in the future.
From the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY on UNLAWFUL ACTS
‘Our investigation found that the Labour Party breached the Equality Act 2010 by committing
unlawful harassment through the acts of its agents in
two of the complaints we investigated. These included using antisemitic tropes and suggesting that complaints of antisemitism were fake or smears.
As these people were acting as agents of the Labour Party, the Labour Party was legally responsible for their conduct.
This is by no means the full extent of the issues we identified within the files in our sample;
it represents the tip of the iceberg. We also saw:
• A further 18 ‘borderline’ cases. In these cases, there was not enough evidence to conclude that the Labour Party was legally responsible for the conduct of the individual. These were people such as local councillors, local election candidates and Constituency Labour Party office holders.
• In many more files, evidence of antisemitic conduct by an ‘ordinary’ member of the Labour Party. These members did not hold any office or role, therefore the Labour Party could not be held directly responsible for their conduct under the Equality Act 2010.
In light of our position as a regulator, we only made findings of unlawful conduct in cases that were sufficiently clear-cut, in Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights Act 1998 terms.
If the Labour Party really is committed to building a culture of zero tolerance towards antisemitism, then
it must make it clear that antisemitic conduct by members will not be tolerated. It should also deal with such conduct by its members effectively whenever it does occur, regardless of whether it is legally responsible for it. As we explain below, we
also found that the Labour Party
breached the Equality Act 2010 by
acts of indirect discrimination relating to political interference and a lack of adequate training.
From the EXECUTIVE SUMMARY on POLITICAL INTERFERENCE
‘Throughout the period we investigated, there was political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints – as
part of a wider practice of LOTO involvement in disciplinary cases that were deemed ‘politically sensitive’, as well as a distinct practice in March–April 2018, when all antisemitism cases were referred to LOTO
. Within the sample of 70 complaint files, we found
23 instances of political interference by LOTO staff and others. These included
clear examples of interference at various stages
throughout the complaint handling process, including in decisions on whether to investigate and whether to suspend.
We found that this political interference was not part of the Labour Party’s formal complaints process, so it was not a legitimate approach to determining complaints. We concluded that this was
indirectly discriminatory and unlawful, and that the Labour Party was legally responsible for it. This practice has created a
lack of transparency and consistency in the complaints process and a
serious risk of actual or perceived discriminatory treatment in particular complaints. It has also
fundamentally undermined public confidence in the complaints process.’
Given this report, it's talk of past fostering or allowing a culture of antisemitism to form through the inaction and messages sent from the top, the condemnation of the turning of a blind eye to social media likes and retweets and the reports
legal instruction from the Labour Party to correct this, it is absolutely no surprise and in fact totally correct that Starmer sent out a message that the report was heeded and the culture had changed. That's why Starmer jumped on the Rebecca Long-Bailey retweet of the Maxine Peake article. That's why he came down hard on Corbyn.
Corbyn's response was tone tone deaf. It was 'yeah, but...'. It was a non apology apology and it's timing was ridiculous. It was in fact reminiscent of his and Milne's politically incompetent response to the Salisbury poisoning.
Full EHRC report here