Whilst we were all (understandably) looking the other way an extraordinary political scandal has emerged. Now it makes little difference as to what your personal political affiliations or beliefs are this thing is an absolute shocker. It all stems from a leaked report:
So the EHRC have been carrying out an investigation into alleged anti-semitism within The Labour Party. To expedite this the party has provided various documents/dossiers and so forth and it seems there was a lengthy (more than 800 pages) addendum providing some ‘background’ as to why the question of antisemitism should have been such a particular problem. The existence of antisemitism is not denied (although there is evidence that much of it has been conflated with anti-zionism which is a very different thing). In fact this new document sets out the premise that allegations in this area were dealt with no differently than in any other area blowing away the myth that there were delays and obfuscation. Moreover where such delays might have occurred it was essentially at the behest of the governance and legal unit (GLU) of the party – a unit held in the grip of right-wingers and anti-Corbynists. In fact it appears that they and others weaponised the issue in order to attack the leader and his supporters. That is not just bad, it is appalling.
Moreover this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is spoken of in this leaked report as background information in the assertion that anti-semitism wasn’t (a) specific to The Labour Party, (b) particularly virulent within The Labour Party and (c) there was much more dark stuff happening internally within The Labour Party structure and the issue was a symptom rather than a cause. Some of the allegations made are truly disturbing and members of the party (the largest political party, by membership, in Europe remember) will need some explanation as to why this was allowed to happen. The stuff contained within the document is truly disturbing. As a flavour some of the things mentioned are: widespread misogyny, racism, smears, the diverting of funds in by-elections to favoured candidates, plotting to deliberately lose the 2017 general election…the list goes on and on. We won’t do it here but names are named and fingers are firmly pointed. We firmly suggest that anyone with even a passing interest into the workings of political machines checks out the plethora of information out there. It really makes for chilling reading.
Thus far the official response from the new Labour leader, Sir Kier Starmer, is that an independent inquiry will be launched looking at the document itself but also how it came to be leaked and by whom (the least of his worries we’d have thought). Apparently it was the party’s lawyers who suggested that the thing not be released officially. As a lawyer himself let’s see what he makes of the situation. Hell of a way to start a new job.
