 |
| Jeremy Corbyn undermined by GLU staff during leadership. Credit: Jonathan Brady |
So here we have it, the exposé that the Corbyn mass have been waiting for even though they themselves probably did not
even know it. The document I’m of course shedding illumination on is the leaked
and unredacted report entitled, ‘The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in Relation to
Antisemitism, 2014 – 2019’. A
pretty much do-what-it-says on the tin style document with all the attractive
nature of sparsely populated red bordered .pdf that’ll get any Corbynite
smacking at the lips for the politically salacious with the added bonus of
being right all along.
What we have here is an internal Labour party
investigation conducted in the final months of the Corbyn leadership by –
presently – authors unknown. Even more relevant to this arch of Labour history
is that the party’s legal team have deemed the document not fit for submission
to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) as evidence for the
overarching investigation into the mishandling of antisemitism
complaints within the Labour party.
Contextual prose done, the meat and gravy of the
report is damning in its conclusions right from the get-go and places no room
for doubt on who the perceived enemies are for shortcomings of the party in
recent years; the focus of this document being on the 2017 general election and
party handling of antisemitism complaints. Painstaking perhaps is not the word
for how laboriously the document sets up the problem at hand, the fingers of
which pointing the at the perpetrators along with the symptomatic problem,
factionalism (a word that will be of prime importance throughout the
controversy surrounding the report). We are immediately presented with a new
angle on antisemitism from the ‘faction’ of the Labour party that produced this
report, the admittance that antisemitism was in fact as grave a problem as
highlighted by so many in the time period 2015 - 2018 but the institutional element
of this racism was in fact largely down to the Blairite wing of the party (a fairly select group of individuals) within the Governance and Legal Unit
(GLU) not allowing the courageously gleaming Leader of the Opposition (LOTO) to
enact swift justice.
Leaving aside the harshly unaccounted concerns for
data protection claims by the publisher’s choice to release such a report
unredacted and the amount payable by Labour to the named claimants on impending
libel charges; it leaves me aghast in head scratching contemplation at what the
actual comprehension of antisemitism is within these ranks. We began this
lodged stone uncovering with lice scuttling around the party moss that have
indeed always been virulently antisemitic by their use of rudimentary tropes
all the way to the adherence of more “higher power” anti-Jewish political
theories. However, this was harshly denied in the early stages by most and was
allowed to brew until it reached the forefront of our senses. Then we uncovered
more serious concerns than your average middle-aged lefty in their 70s jeering
antisemitic remarks, there was cause to believe that measures of protection
were being followed through to shield those who had been confident enough to
bring their true feelings about Jews to the surface. And finally, the already
unravelling episode concluded with findings I myself and many others had only
begun to suspect, that a more sinister institutionally racist structure was at
work.
 |
| Party general secretary, Iain McNicol resigns amidst the leaks. Credit: Ben Pruchnie |
At every stage of the above timeline (which is
neatly summarised in the Jewish Labour Movement closing submission to the EHRC), we were provided refutations – although
sometimes hard to garner considering JC’s sheer reluctance to engage with media
outlets – regarding the above. The thug-like behaviour of racist individuals
was part of a small minority that would be deal with through suspension; that
antisemitic claims made by more senior Labour members were not in fact
antisemitic and were merely forms of historical analysis and finally, that the
claims made stating the attempted tampering by LOTO with the disciplinary
process contrary to the findings in the Chakrabarti report were hugely
exaggerated to the point of borderline falsehood.
Mary, Mary quite contrary. In the report we are
faced with such deplore, from what is likely to be the very faction that denied
all of the above, of the behaviour illustrated in each stage of the antisemitism
epic. I almost have to fight back a cathartic grin at the thought of this
orchestral internal conspiracy, crafted from reams of Whatsapp chat logs,
bringing down the saviours of those who fell victim to antisemitism in much the
same way that those who dared protest again the Corbyn leadership were
lambasted as being part of the great Zionist project to infiltrate the far
left. So, which is it? Was antisemitism grossly exaggerated to meet the
political ends of those conniving Splinter Cells ready to taint the foundations
of an institution from the ground up or were those same whistle blowers
revealed to be the true artists of torment inflicted on the Jewish community
when exposed to the cold light of day? If either theory is peddled as true, the
end result is undeniably the same, Jewish members of Labour still remain
victims of an inability to properly have their complaints dealt with, either at the
hands of one institutionally racist faction or another. A conundrum you and I
both could be pile driving into our craniums until a conclusive verdict is
reached by the EHRC.
Drawing near a close, I’ll leave us thinking about
the very word reappearing more than any throughout the internal report, this
being factional. It is actually with a double entendre of sombreness that I
trawl through the report as I witness a group that cannot get past antics that
it likes to often blame the current ruling party for exhibiting and in doing so, has mendaciously lit the match on deserted territory for the
newcomers to find in complete post-blaze dilapidation. Taking the investigation findings as true, I would draw two implicated conclusions. At worst case, the party was so caught up in
factionalism that it could not effectively organise and govern bodies
responsible with handling complaints of such a serious nature that if ignored
would only be at the expense of the continued silencing of minority groups. At
best case, we have a party that would resemble a primary school football match:
social and political circles who’s squabbles over “who should have passed to
who” only leading to more and more opposition points scored, and in this case,
an own goal with finger pointing absolution as to who the culprit was.
Sources
- Closing Submission to the Equality and Human
Rights Commission on Behalf of the Jewish Labour Movement - https://www.scribd.com/document/438372031/Redacted-JLM-Closing-Submission-to-the-EHRC#fullscreen&from_embed
- Equality and Human Rights Commission Terms of
Reference on the Investigation into the Labour Party - https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/terms-of-reference-investigation-into-labour-party-28-may-2019.pdf
- Labour Lawsuit - https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour-could-be-bankrupted-by-lawsuits-after-antisemitism-dossier-leak-1.499051
- Labour Rulebook 2019 - https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Rule-Book-2019.pdf
- The Shami Chakrabarti Inquiry - https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Chakrabarti-Inquiry-Report-30June16.pdf
- The Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and
Legal Unit in Relation to Antisemitism 2014-2019 - https://cryptome.org/2020/04/Labour-Antisemitism-Report.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment