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Home / Vol 3, No 2 (2020) Rich

Labour’s Leaked Report: Who Is to Blame for Antisemitism in Britain’s Labour Party?

Dave Rich

Abstract


In April 2020, shortly after Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the UK Labour Party, an internal party report concerning the workings of Labour's internal disciplinary unit in relation to antisemitism was leaked to the media. This report was over 850 pages long and was intended to be submitted to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is conducting an inquiry into allegations of antisemitism in the Party. However, Labour's lawyers refused to allow it to be used, almost certainly because the content was so damaging to the Party's own defence. It confirmed many of the claims made by Jewish Party members and community organisations during Corbyn's leadership of the party, namely that the disciplinary system was not fit for purpose and cases of alleged antisemitism were ignored or delayed and punishments were too weak. When it was leaked the report caused a scandal because it claimed that Corbyn's efforts to deal with antisemitism were sabotaged by his own Party staff, who were mostly drawn from factions opposed to his left wing project. Furthermore, the report claimed that this was part of a broader conspiracy against Corbyn that even extended to Labour Party staff trying to prevent a Labour victory in the 2017 General Election. The leaked report is selective and inaccurate in many respects and ignores the role played by Corbyn and his close advisers in denying the problem of antisemitism existed. Nor does it address the reasons why people with antisemitic views were attracted to Labour under his leadership. It is most likely that it was written to allow Corbyn and his supporters to continue to claim that their project did not fail on its own merits, but was betrayed by internal saboteur

Keywords


Labour Party; Antisemitism; Jeremy Corbyn; Left -Wing; UK Politics; EHRC; Keir Starmer; Chakrabarti Report

Full Text:

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References


Baroness Jan Royall, Allegations of anti-Semitism: Oxford University Labour Club, undated, https://antisemitism.

uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Royall-Report.pdf, accessed July 6, 2020.

Shami Chakrabarti, Report: The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry, June 30, 2016, https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/

uploads/2017/10/Chakrabarti-Inquiry-Report-30June16.pdf, accessed July 8, 2020.

Judith Ornstein, ed., Whitewashed: Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party (London: Kitty Hawk Press, 2017); JTV,

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Alan Johnson, Institutionally Antisemitic: Contemporary Left Antisemitism and the Crisis in the British Labour

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Antisemitism in the Labour Party: Closing Submissions on behalf of the Jewish Labour Movement, redacted

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The Campaign Against Antisemitism also submitted evidence but it has not been published at the time of writing.

The Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in Relation to Antisemitism, 2014–2019 (London: The

Labour Party, March 2020).

The Forde Inquiry, https://www.fordeinquiry.org/, accessed July 21, 2020.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 11.

Ibid.,12.

Ibid., 12–13.

Ibid., 11.

Lee Harpin, “The Cost of the Legacy of Antisemitism under Corbyn,” Jewish Chronicle, July 23, 2020.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 775.

Ibid., 152.

Vice News, “Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider,” YouTube, May 31, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ptAcbfKP0; Jonathan Freedland, “Labour and the Left have an Antisemitism Problem,” Guardian, March 18, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/18/labour-antisemitism-jews-jeremy-corbyn.

Seumas Milne, “Jeremy Corbyn’s Surge Can be at the Heart of a Winning Coalition,” Guardian, August 20, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2015/aug/19/jeremy-corbyn-coalition-labour.

BBC Newsnight, “Labour does not Have anti-Semitism Issue: Len McCluskey,” YouTube, September 26, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzWgwEQNtS8.

Rajeev Syal, “Diane Abbott Says Claims of Antisemitism within Labour are Smear,” Guardian, May 1, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/01/diane-abbott-smear-labour-antisemitism-problem-andrew-marr.

Ken Loach, “Letter: Clarifying My Comments on the Holocaust,” New York Times, October 13, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/ken-loach-holocaust-anti-semitism.html.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 15.

Ibid., 11.

Ibid., 424.

Ibid., 13.

Ibid., 237.

Ibid., 237.

Ibid., 285.

Ibid., 15.

Ibid., 106.

Ibid., 559.

Ibid., 303.

BBC Panorama, Is Labour Anti-Semitic?, July 10, 2019.

“An apology from the Labour Party to Kat Buckingham, Michael Creighton, Samuel Matthews, Dan Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Benjamin Westerman and Martha Robinson,” The Labour Party, July 22, 2020 https://labour.org.uk/press/an-apology-from-the-labour-party-to-kat-buckingham-michael-creighton-samuel-matthews-dan-hogan-louise-withers-green-benjamin-westerman-and-martha-robinson/.

Jeremy Corbyn, Facebook post, July 22, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/JeremyCorbynMP/posts/10158676878363872.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 380.

Ibid., 514.

Ibid., 419.

Ibid., 303.

Ibid., 556,

Patron Law, letter, June 9, 2020, https://dochub.com/adam-ramsay-dp431t/dbnaAMqK9YLaEbvKGNXJm0/letter-to-j-schlosberg-matthews-090620-1-pdf?dt=on1bxf1ArYDsyqs12KXH.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 16.

Ibid.

The political insult “trot” historically referred to activists from small Trotskyist parties who joined the Labour Party in an attempt to extend their otherwise limited political influence. Nowadays it is applied to the far left more generally, including those who do not follow Trotskyism.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 70–71.

Ibid., 51.

Ibid., 74.

Ibid., 51.

Ibid., 54.

Ibid., 267.

Chakrabarti, Report, 14-15.

Ibid., 18; quoted in Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 523–524.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 552–556.

Chakrabarti, Report, 18.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 553.

Chakrabarti, Report, 3.

Labour Party, Right of Reply correspondence, July 5, 2019, provided to the author by John Ware.

Jon Stone, “Labour Antisemitism Row: Read the Ken Livingstone Interview Transcripts in Full,” Independent, April

, 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-anti-semitism-row-full-transcript-of-ken-livingstones-

interviews-a7005311.html.

Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit, 341.

Ibid., 352.

Ibid., 373.

Ibid., 416.

Ibid., 430.

“Labour Activist Expelled after Remarks to MP at Anti-Semitism Event,” BBC News, April 27, 2018, https://www.bbc.

co.uk/news/uk-politics-43920227.

See, for example, John Ware, “Panorama, Labour Antisemitism and the Facts that Novara Media won’t Publish,”

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novara-media-won-t-publish-1.499827.

Antisemitism in the Labour Party, 10–11.

Matt Bolton & Frederick Harry Pitts, Corbynism: A Critical Approach (Bingley: Emerald Publishing, 2016), ch. 6.

David Hirsh, Contemporary Left Antisemitism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018).




DOI: https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.2.54

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Keywords Britain Chakrabarti Report EHRC Holocaust IHRA Israel Jeremy Corbyn Keir Starmer Labour Party UK Labour Party UK Politics Zionism antisemitism antizionism class genocide political parties polling public opinion survey voters
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