Labour Against Antisemitism is making a formal submission to the
Equalities and Human Rights Commission, requesting their
investigation into institutional anti-Jewish racism within the
.
Included within the submission is evidence of:
- Hate crime (including threats of violence) being submitted to
the and no further action
taking place (including reporting to the police).
- Over 15,000 screenshots taken from hundreds of Labour members
and officials promoting antisemitic view, including links between
Labour members and neo-Nazis – equivalent to over
15,000 pages of evidence.
- Endemic anti-Jewish racism within the on a massive scale and in
massive detail (this submission dwarves the two previous
submission on these two measures).
- Labour's inadequate response to the reporting of
antisemitism, (including an internal description of LAAS
reporting as “spamming legal queries”), demonstrating what LAAS
believes to be institutional racism (see attached).
Further points of interest:
- LAAS is the third body to make such a submission, after the
Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) and Campaign Against Antisemitism
(CAA) made recent submissions.
- The content of the evidence provided by LAAS suggests a total
failure by the to deliver an appropriate
and effective safeguarding process for its Jewish members.
- According to the Macpherson definition, institutional racism
is understood as:
'The collective failure of an organisation to provide an
appropriate and professional service to people because of their
colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in
processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination
through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and
racial stereotyping.'
Euan Philipps, spokesperson for Labour Against Antisemitism:
“Over the last two years, our team of dedicated volunteers
has systematically collected and detailed evidence of members promoting antisemitic
views and tropes across a range of social media platforms. This
has all been reported to the party’s compliance team, in a format
suggested by them and including a significant level of detail. It
has been time consuming and distressing for our volunteers, some
of whom have suffered poor mental health as a result.
The response by Labour to our reports has been shocking and
alarming. We were told that elected Labour officials and
politicians were not members and therefore no action would be
taken; reports have been submitted and ignored; we have seen
senior figures within the party escape censure; members have been
suspended and then weeks later quietly had their suspensions
lifted; and most distressing of all, reports containing the most
appalling levels of racism have been given only the lightest
reprimand.
The message again and again has been the same: we don’t care
about this issue.
It is why we have therefore taken that action we have done
and made this submission of evidence to the EHRC. We know that
they are already considering opening a full investigation into
the , we only hope that they will
do so and bring the running sore of endemic Labour racism out
into the light. Failure to do so would leave our democracy in a
very precarious position.”
Q & A’s
Q. How is this submission different to the other two
submissions?
The JLM submission focused on the personal testimonies of
antisemitism from Jewish and non-Jewish members of the . The CAA submission focused
on the antisemitic views, actions and behaviours of senior
figures within the Labour movement. LAAS’s submission covers the
reporting of antisemitism to the , and is larger than the two
other reports combined.
Q. How long have Labour Against Antisemitism been reporting
cases of antisemitism to the ?
A. Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS) began reporting Labour
members for antisemitism in 2016 and has reported approximately
1,200 members since then.
Q. Why make this submission now – why not wait until the EHRC
announced whether it would be investigating Labour and then
submit evidence?
A. Given the unpredictable nature of British politics we wanted
this information to be provided to the EHRC as quickly as
possible. We hope that this submission will expedite their
announcement confirming an investigation into the .
