UK Labour party suspends ex-leader Corbyn 'because he hates Jews'

Alistair Smout, Estelle Shirbon
Reuters
Thu, 29 Oct 2020 00:00 UTC

Comment: Will this satisfy the Lobby and the British deep state? Can Corbyn retire in peace now? Or will they seek his head?

© Independent

Jeremy Corbyn

Britain's Labour opposition suspended its former leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday after he downplayed a report that detailed serious failings in the party's handling of persistent anti-Semitism complaints during his 2015-2019 leadership.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said it had found evidence of failure to adequately train people investigating alleged anti-Semitism, political interference in the processing of complaints, and harassment of individuals.

Corbyn's successor, Keir Starmer, said he accepted the findings in full, who said:

"It is a day of shame for the Labour Party. We have failed Jewish people... I am truly sorry for all the pain and grief that has been caused. Never again will we fail to tackle anti-Semitism and never again will we lose your trust."

Starmer has been trying to make a clean break from the hard-left Corbyn era as he seeks to turn around Labour's fortunes after four successive general election defeats since 2010.

But the ruling Conservatives were quick to attack Starmer on Thursday, pointing out that as Labour's Brexit policy chief under Corbyn, he had worked closely with him and campaigned for him to be prime minister.

"Many people will rightly worry about your failure to speak out and challenge the Labour leadership at the time," senior minister Michael Gove wrote in an open letter to Starmer.

Corbyn, 71, reacted to the EHRC report by saying the scale of Labour's anti-Semitism problem had been overstated by the media and his political opponents, and his attempts to deal with the issue had been blocked by "obstructive party bureaucracy".

Labour suspended him over the comments, a move Corbyn denounced as a political intervention which he said he would strongly contest.

Factionalism

Corbyn's suspension is likely to complicate Starmer's job as leader by reigniting factionalism in the party.

Labour is deeply divided among those who passionately favour Corbyn's left-wing agenda and those who yearn for a return to a more centrist stance as seen from 1997 to 2010, when Labour was in government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Former Labour lawmakers who had left the party after suffering anti-Semitic abuse during the Corbyn years welcomed the ex-leader's suspension, as did the Board of Deputies of British Jews, an organisation representing the Jewish community.

"His shameless comments today showed that he remains part of the problem and is an obstruction to the resolution of the issue," President Marie van der Zyl said.

A veteran campaigner for Palestinian rights who spent decades as an obscure lawmaker on the left-wing fringes of the party, Corbyn shocked the establishment by winning the Labour leadership contest in 2015.

But critics said his ascent led to a surge of anti-Semitic abuse within the party, with the lines between opposition to Israel and anti-Jewish prejudice becoming blurred.

Corbyn resigned after Labour suffered a heavy defeat by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservatives in last year's December general election, with Starmer taking over earlier this year.

Comment: Starmer's reaction came as no surprise. Others chimed in to trounce Corbyn:

The decision to suspend Corbyn was taken by the party's disciplinary unit, rather than Starmer, who saw the statement just moments before he was due to give a press conference on the report. Multiple Labour sources said there was a sense of shock in the headquarters at Corbyn's statement.

Asked about Corbyn's response to the report, Starmer told reporters that he would "look carefully" at his predecessor's comments. Two hours later, the party suspended Corbyn and withdrew the Labour whip.

A Labour spokesman said:

"In light of his comments made today and his failure to retract them subsequently, the Labour party has suspended Jeremy Corbyn pending investigation. He has also had the whip removed from the parliamentary Labour party."

However, Corbyn said he had been obstructed by party officials in trying to tackle the issue.

"One antisemite 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. My sincere hope is that relations with Jewish communities can be rebuilt and those fears overcome. While I do not accept all of its findings, I trust its recommendations will be swiftly implemented to help move on from this period."

After his suspension, Corbyn said he would "strongly contest the political intervention to suspend me" - suggesting he believed it was done on Starmer's direct orders.

"I've made absolutely clear those who deny there has been an antisemitism problem in the Labour party are wrong. I will continue to support a zero tolerance policy towards all forms of racism."

Labour's former deputy leader Harriet Harman said Corbyn's suspension was the right thing to do.

"If you say that AS [antisemitism] exaggerated for factional reasons you minimise it and are, as Keir Starmer says, part of the problem."

Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy leader, who was promoted to the shadow cabinet under Corbyn, said the former party leader had

"an absolute blind spot. I'm devastated that it's come to this. Today should be about really listening, reading and taking in the report. I think that brings shame on us, and there's no mitigation of that, and we have to acknowledge that and do something about it." Rayner said she was "deeply, deeply upset by the circumstances, and upset that Jeremy wasn't able to see the pain that the Jewish community have gone through. Jeremy is a fully decent man, but as Margaret Hodge said, he has an absolute blind spot, and a denial, when it comes to these issues. And that's devastating."

Dame Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP and JLM's parliamentary chair, said Corbyn

"sat at the centre of a party that enabled antisemitism to spread from the fringes to the mainstream. There is an absolutely entrenched cultural challenge, and diverting it into somebody who is irrelevant in the Labour party today ... it just doesn't matter. What matters are the commitments that Keir Starmer gave today. Jeremy is part of the past. I want to move on."

Corbyn said:

"Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour party is wrong. Of course there is, as there is throughout society, and sometimes it is voiced by people who think of themselves as on the left. Jewish members of our party and the wider community were right to expect us to deal with it, and I regret that it took longer to deliver that change than it should."