-
Over two-thirds of serious disciplinary cases are
allowed to remain as party members
-
Just under a half of all cases received no significant
punishment at all.
-
Labour leader must meet EHRC commitment to zero
tolerance.
On Thursday 21st January, the Labour Party did something it had
failed to do for over a year: it published statistics[1] on the
outcomes of cases determined by subpanels of the Labour Party’s
Disputes Panel.
There has been on ongoing challenge of transparency regarding how
the Labour Party tackles antisemitism, and so we can welcome the
publication of these figures as a positive (albeit a step that
the party has been forced into by the Equalities and human Rights
Commission (EHRC). The reason we can welcome them is because they
provide an insight into where the Labour Party is in terms of
effectively prosecuting instances of anti-Jewish racism by its
own members. And that’s where the positives end.
Labour Against Antisemitism has always argued the extent of
anti-Jewish racism in the Labour Party was so embedded that only
a complete, zero tolerance approach would work effectively, and
this was something the EHRC agreed with, describing a party
“culture… at odds with [its own] commitment to zero tolerance of
antisemitism”[2]. So clear was this message from the EHRC that in
its own Action Plan[3] in response to their report, Labour placed
“Living up to a zero-tolerance commitment” as action point
1.1[4]. The top line figure therefore to focus on is the number
of expulsions – with an expectation that the closer the figure
gets to 100% the closer the Labour Party is to reaching its goal.
Unfortunately these published stats show just how far away that
goal currently is. Just 31.71% of cases (of which antisemitism
make up 82%), or 91 out of 287 members whose conduct was serious
enough to merit a subpanel hearing, resulted in expulsion. That’s
less than a third of cases.
And of the remaining 59.3% who were allowed to remain in the
party, 139 members – just under half of all cases - received no
significant punishment at all.
Frustratingly, the stats do not include figures on how many
members left the party rather than face a disciplinary process (a
feature of the 2019 report[5]) nor does it provide a full year of
data (again a feature of the 2019 report). The decision to
compare these figures with statistics from 2014-2018, but not
2019, is not explained and could be a political decision to make
the current leadership look better than its predecessor. If so,
that is also disappointing: attempting to spin this kind of
information only undermines trust and risks undercutting the
entire purpose of the exercise.
Conclusion
It’s fair to state that and his general secretary, , inherited a
disciplinary system which, as per the EHRC investigation and
report, was simply not fit for purpose. Culture and personnel can
take time to change and the replacement of hardcore
Corbyn-supporter Yasmin Dar as chair of Labour’s NEC disputes
panel by Shabana Mahmood[6] suggests Starmer is slowly getting
his people in place. Time needs to be allowed to pull the Labour
Party back from the brink of where it was under .
However, these figures present two distinct challenges to Sir
Keir: firstly, how will he ensure that the expulsion figures move
closer to 100% than to 0%, and secondly, what will happen with
all the members who are being let off? The first, he will hope,
will be addressed by the implementation of the action plan, but
as yet the second has not been mentioned. These cases represent
real members – maybe even MPs - whose anti-Jewish views have no
place in the Labour Party and whose presence is an obstacle to
tackling the antisemitism crisis. Having been let off by a broken
party machine that is institutionally racist, the Labour leader
needs to commit to a full review of historical cases once his
independent system is up and running. Otherwise he will struggle
to detoxify the party he leads, regain the trust of the British
Jewish community, and convince the wider electorate that his new
management is any better than the old one.
END
-----------------------------------------
Cases determined by subpanels of the Labour Party’s NEC Disputes
Panel https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DisputesCaseStatistics.pdf
EHRC Report p. 6 https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/investigation-into-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party.pdf
Action Plan: Driving out antisemitism from the Labour Party 17 12
20 https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Labour-Party-EHRC-Action-Plan.pdf
Action Plan: Driving out antisemitism from the Labour Party 17 12
20, p. 5 https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Labour-Party-EHRC-Action-Plan.pdf
Labour Party Disciplinary Processes on Antisemitism – Statistics
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/13434_20-Statistics-Report-No-Place-For-Antisemitism.pdf
elected as chair of Labour’s NEC disputes
panelhttps://labourlist.org/2021/01/shabana-mahmood-elected-as-chair-of-labours-nec-disputes-panel/
