THE first meeting of Labour’s national executive committee under its new leader was narrowly focussed on the terms of reference for the independent investigation into the leaked Labour Party submission to the Equal and Human Rights Commission inquiry into allegations of anti-semitism in the party.
The status of this document is now transformed from a body of evidence compiled to aid the EHRC in its work to an “internal” document.
It is easy to understand why people whose actions involved obstructing the party leadership and undermining its electoral efforts might wish for evidence of their misogyny and racism to be shelved.
But the EHRC’s investigation is primarily concerned with anti-semitism and the ways in which this conspiratorial cabal obstructed timely and transparent investigation into complaints of anti-semitism is highly relevant.
It is important that nothing is covered up because the investigation is taking place under powers granted the EHRC by the Equality Act which enables it to make recommendations which Labour is legally obliged to adopt.
The EHRC’s terms of reference for its investigation are to enquire whether unlawful acts have been committed by the party or its employees or agents and the steps taken by the party to implement the recommendations made in the reports on anti-semitism by Baroness Royall, the home affairs select committee and in the Chakrabarti report.
In addition it is charged with investigating whether the rule book and the party’s investigatory and disciplinary processes have enabled or could enable it to deal efficiently and effectively with complaints of race or religion or belief discrimination and racial harassment or victimisation, including whether appropriate sanctions have been or could be applied.
Furthermore the EHRC is investigating whether the party has responded to complaints of unlawful acts in a lawful, efficient and effective manner.
It is encouraging that some reports from people at the NEC meeting suggest that disciplinary action against the people named in the shelved EHRC submission is still possible. Following the meeting, a Momentum figure reportedly welcomed Keir Starmer’s commitment to disciplinary action against people named in the report.
No-one is likely to forget that the original moves to subject the Labour Party to an investigation took place during a ferocious media campaign and a succession of offensives against the Corbyn leadership by big parts of the Parliamentary Labour Party and other right-wing elements.
It would be poetic justice indeed if a rigorous and transparent investigation by the EHRC within the terms of reference already determined were to bring to a wider audience exactly who was responsible for the party's apparent failures to deal with anti-semitism.
As well as a thirst for justice and transparency there is an understandable impulse to get this whole affair over. The best way to move on to the business of challenging this government and mobilising the working class and labour movement is to move swiftly to subject the people named to the party's disciplinary machinery. This in itself would aid the EHRC in determining just how efficient that machinery is.
Corbyn’s intervention in Parliament an encouraging sign working-class politics are on the move
Jeremy Corbyn's intervention in person in Parliament is an encouraging sign that working-class politics are on the move again. The People’s Assembly against Austerity’s online agitation with Laura Pidcock, Ken Loach and others raised our spirits while Don’t Leave, Organise – uniting Jewish Voice for Labour, Red Labour and the Labour Representation Committee – is just one of the initiatives that are rallying the left inside the party.
A Labour Party under strong influence from working-class organisation and militancy outside Parliament, itself a project that requires co-operation between socialists inside and outside the mass party of the working class, will be far better placed to fight for the needs of the vast majority in a crisis which has exposed that capitalism cannot meet them.
