Campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism have accused of “hiding behind meaningless
statistics” and are demanding that Labour HQ release accurate and
up-to-date figures on antisemitism within the party.
In The Guardian (Corbyn sacks shadow Brexit minister for ‘Hitler
in the bunker’ comment, 18/07/19), a Labour spokesperson
reportedly said that:
“Labour is taking decisive action against antisemitism,
doubling the number of staff dedicated to dealing with complaints
and cases. And since Jennie Formby became general secretary, the
rate at which antisemitism cases have been dealt with has
increased fourfold.”
A similar statement appeared on the Politics Home website (Labour
peers take out advert to tell he has 'failed test of
leadership' over antisemitism, 17/07/19):
“Since September 2015, the number of cases that have
undergone disciplinary procedures relate to about 0.06% of
members.”
Labour Against Antisemitism have countered:
- Saying that the rate at which antisemitism cases have been
processed has increased fourfold requires clarification as to
what the baseline figure was. Similarly, with the number of
staff.
- Without figures showing what the outcomes of the cases has
been there can be no confidence that antisemitism is being dealt
with; as former Labour staffer Sam Matthews said, “it’s easy to
deal with thousands of cases of antisemitism if all you’re doing
is letting them off”.
- Saying the number of staff has been doubled does not explain
whether that is commensurate with the number of antisemitism
cases. If, as LAAS suspects, the number of antisemitism cases has
increased massively since 2015, not just doubling but even
tripling (and likely more) the workload of the Compliance team
then that would mean the Compliance unit has continued to be
under-resourced.
- Linking the number of cases to a membership percentage is
meaningless without providing membership figures.
- We also note that the % figure given appears to have been
fluctuating. In April 2018 it first appeared as 0.1%, and there
it remained until Saturday 13 July (Sky News, : 'Many many inaccuracies'
in Panorama's probe into Labour antisemitism), however over the
last week the figure has changed to 0.06%. Has there been a
sudden change of membership or a decrease in the number of
cases. The figures provided by the mean it is impossible to
know.
Euan Philipps, spokesperson for Labour Against
Antisemitism (LAAS):
“We demand the publish reliable figures on
the number of cases of anti-Jewish racism they are processing and
how many members they have expelled for antisemitism.
It is our suspicion that they are hiding behind statistics
because the real figures would be highly embarrassing for Ms
Formby, the , and its leader .
Since September 2016 LAAS volunteers submitted 1,200 separate
reports of antisemitic Labour members. We also understand there
have been hundreds, possibly thousands of reports by other
concerned groups and members. What has happened to these
reports?
If Mr Corbyn expects anyone to start showing faith in his
ability to recover from this crisis he needs to be open and
transparent and stop hiding behind meaningless statistics.”
