Starmer suspends Corbyn from the Labour Party after EHRC anti-Semitism scandal

Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended from the Labour Party, pending investigation, over his response to the findings of an Equality and Human Rights Commission investigation into antisemitism under his leadership. He has also had the whip removed from the parliamentary Labour party.

The EHRC today served the Labour Party with an unlawful act notice over its failure to tackle antisemitism. A yearlong investigation by the body – formed by a Labour government to promote and uphold equality non-discrimination laws – found Labour responsible for three breaches of the Equality act relating to: political interference in antisemitism complaints, a failure to provide adequate training to those handling antisemitism complaints, and harassment.

The findings of political interference directly implicate the office of the leader of the Labour Party at the time of the complaints, Jeremy Corbyn. “We found 23 instances of political interference by LOTO (Leader of The Opposition) staff and others,” the EHRC report states. “These include clear examples of interference at various stages throughout the complaint handling process, including in decisions on whether to investigate and whether to suspend.”

An egregious example, highlighted by the EHRC, can be seen in the handling of investigations into Ken Livingstone, who was accused of antisemitism after defending Naz Shah’s antisemitic Facebook post suggesting Israel should be relocated to the United States.

According to the EHRC, it is likely that Corbyn’s office intervened to have Livingstone’s case referred to Labour’s National Executive Committee – a political body which Corbyn had influence over – rather than allowing it to be investigated by the party’s Governance and Legal Unit. This may have been an attempt to prevent the suspension of Livingstone, an old political ally of Corbyn’s, from Labour.

Overall, the Leader of the Opposition’s Office interfered inappropriately in one in three of the anti-semitism claims the EHRC examined.

The EHRC also found that the Labour Party breached the Equality Act 2020 by committing “unlawful harassment through the acts of its agents”, after it received a range of complaints about Labour Party members, including MPs and local councillors, targeting Jews with antisemitism. These include the use of antisemitic tropes and suggestions that complaints of antisemitism are fake or smears.

The report highlights the example of Pam Bromley, a Labour councillor in Rossendale, who posted on Facebook: “Had Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party pulled up the drawbridge and nipped the bogus antisemitism accusations in the bud in the first place we would not be where we are now and the fifth column in the Labour Party would not have managed to get such a foothold … the Lobby has miscalculated … The witch hunt has created brand new fightback networks … The Lobby will then melt back into its own cesspit.”

These acts of harassment left Jewish Labour Party members feeling shocked, angered, appalled, offended, and very distressed.

The EHRC also found that the party’s complaints procedures were severely lacking. There was not a clear, accessible and published complaints and disciplinary policy for antisemitism, and no mention of antisemitism on the complaints web page on the party’s website. There was also no information about the process for dealing with an antisemitism complaint. The report highlights that there is, however, a dedicated complaints page for sexual harassment.

Those who did still submit antisemitism complaints found that their cases were not handled in a professional manner. “In one case we investigated, the relevant complaint was not stored in a complaint file, and the only evidence received was a result of email searches by the Party,” the EHRC report notes. “Similarly, another complaint file only included email correspondence, mainly from complainants.”

Current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer responded to the findings with disgust. “I found this report hard to read,” he said this morning. “And it is a day of shame for the Labour Party. We have failed Jewish people, our members, our supporters, and the British public. And so, on behalf of the Labour Party, I am truly sorry for all the pain and grief that has been caused.”

Starmer added: “If – after all the pain, all the grief, and all the evidence in this report – there are still those who think there’s no problem with antisemitism in the Labour Party, that it’s all exaggerated, or a factional attack, then, frankly, you are part of the problem too, and you should be nowhere near the Labour Party either.”

Jeremy Corbyn’s response had a rather different tone. The now-suspended former leader said: “One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was… dramatically overstated by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.” He added that he “does not accept all of the findings” of the EHRC report.

It is that unapologetic statement, and Corbyn’s subsequent refusal to retract it, that triggered the former leader’s suspension from the Labour Party today.