Speaking at the Jewish Labour Movement's press conference earlier
today, discussing the report issued this morning by the EHRC,
Katy Colton, Head of
the Politics and Law Group at Mishcon de Reya said:
"We cannot underestimate the unprecedented nature of the EHRC's
report. It is extremely rare for the EHRC to issue Unlawful Act
Notices and impose action plans. The closest parallel is the 2016
EHRC investigation into the Metropolitan Police. In that case,
the EHRC made far reaching recommendations, but did not go as far
as issuing an Unlawful Act Notice. It has done in the case of the
Labour Party. This demonstrates the true extent of the conduct
found to be unlawful.
The EHRC found that there were three examples of the Labour Party
breaching equalities legislation. The first was a finding of
harassment. The EHRC found that there were two examples in which
the Labour Party was found to be legally responsible for the acts
of its agents, in the cases of Ken Livingstone and Pat Bromley.
However, it is important to make clear that these were not the
only examples of harassment based on antisemitic conduct found.
The EHRC found many more cases of harassment by ordinary members,
who were not acting as agents as the Party and therefore the
EHRC's powers did not extend to including these examples in the
Unlawful Act Notice. The EHRC made clear though that the Labour
Party must deal with antisemitic conduct regardless of whether it
is legally responsible for that conduct under equalities
legislation.
The second breach of equalities legislation was indirect
discrimination of Jewish members through political interference
by the leadership in complaints of antisemitism. This was not a
one off act; the EHRC found evidence of political interference in
30% of the cases it reviewed. This indirectly discriminated
against Jewish members of the Party, who were more likely than
non-Jewish members to make complaints of antisemitism, and will
therefore have been disadvantaged by the interference and lack of
transparency in dealing with complaints.
Finally, the EHRC found that Jewish members were indirectly
discriminated against through inadequate training of those tasked
with investigating antisemitism complaints. My client, the JLM,
repeatedly offered training on antisemitism to the Labour Party
but was rebuffed. The EHRC has now made clear that this was
wrong. It has expressly recommended that training must be
delivered in consultation with Jewish stakeholders."
