1) EHRC finds that Labour has committed unlawful acts against Jewish members, and that the leadership failed to tackle antisemitism. That ruling is final. It’s not for individuals to accept/reject and/or challenge.
The EHRC is a statutory body. They investigated for 18 months.
2) Jeremy Corbyn refuses to accept ‘all the findings’ and insists the ‘scale of the problem was exaggerated,’ directly parroting the *denial* that EHRC found to be a huge part of the problem.
3) Corbyn refuses to retract or apologise and is suspended by GS.
Corbyn’s comments after the release of the EHRC really underlines the problem he has. The problems that led to the EHRC being forced to conclude the party had acted unlawfully and discriminated against it’s Jewish members.
Even when given the chance to apologise, he refuses.
4) Campaigns of support and solidarity with Corbyn spring up. These campaigns are the direct result of Corbyn’s suspension for promoting denial of Labour antisemitism and refusing to clear a very low bar.
5) These campaigns are embraced by Corbyn himself. The beast grows.
6) The NEC subcommittee that heard Corbyn’s case has been told to wind up disciplinary matters by the EHRC, in preparation for a fully independent one. Nonetheless, they heard the case, ordered he retract and apologise for statement, and readmitted him.
7) Corbyn’s membership is reinstated, but he doesn’t withdraw or apologise for the statement that led to his suspension.
8) The Labour whip has always been in the leadership’s gift; Starmer withholds it.
By not welcoming Corbyn back into the PLP until he withdraws his offensive statement and apologises, the Labour leadership is finally demonstrating the moral clarity that had been so lacking from LOTO these last five years.
This decision is widely welcomed by Jewish communal organisations; the apolitical ones, the left wing ones, and the rest.
Of course, fringe far-left groupings that have spent five years making excuses for and acting as shields for antisemites tell a different story.
These groups represent, at best, the opinion of a couple percent of British Jews.. but they’ve been platformed to appear like there’s a 50:50 split in the wider community.
Deferring to these groups for your dose of Jewish thought and ignoring all others is tokenistic and racist.
Fast forward to the motions that condemn Starmer/support Corbyn to regain whip...
9) These motions come to branch/GC/AMM meetings. They say Corbyn is a ‘victim’ and a ‘lifelong antiracist.’
They might not mention Jews or antisemitism, but gloss over the eight steps to this one.
This is a chain of events; the motions, whether or not you see it, are the perfect cover for debating antisemitism and the EHRC report.
These motions do not happen in isolation, they happen as a response to steps 1-8. It gaslights the Jewish community and makes meetings unsafe.
I think it’s unhelpful to compare racisms and profess that such and such wouldn’t happen to xyz community because it’s almost always untrue.
But, for a lot of people, failing to see the link between these motions and direct hostility to Jewish members is a unique blind spot.
Jews aren’t asking for special treatment, as I’ve seen inferred by some.
But after five years of crap, the resignation of Jewish MPs and councillors, and conclusion of a statutory EHRC investigation, we shouldn’t have to *still* prove what has been proven a hundred times over.
Cheerleaders for the left got it wrong on Livingstone, Galloway, Williamson, Willsman, Greenstein, Walker, and others.
All wasted political capital because they wouldn’t listen to experts on antisemitism or the Jewish community, and later backtracked.
Is it so hard to believe they’ve also got it wrong on members of JVL, or the other agents of the Labour Party who hear, debate, and vote for these motions that bring shame on the party and indirectly discriminate against Jews?
Because that’s what they’re doing and defending.
