LAST week the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) gave the Labour Party a “clean bill of health” on dealing with anti-semitism. 

Its statement is based on two falsehoods and has led to a growing crisis of party democracy.

First, that there was a major problem of anti-semitism to be cured.

Second, that it ignores the escalating attack by the party on its Jewish socialist members. 

The publication of the EHRC’s statement has encouraged the right-wing leadership of the party to declare that support for Israel and its criminal behaviour is mandatory for party members and proclaim that a pro-business and pro-Nato stance is also required.

Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) has exposed in detail the scanty and selective evidence base for the accusation of widespread Labour anti-semitism.

We have never denied the existence of a low but troubling level of anti-semitic speech by a few party members.

We have also been clear on the systematic failure of the party machine under the Blairite leadership of Iain McNicol to deal with those instances.  

This did not end with his displacement to the House of Lords. 

The undermining, by staff appointed under his regime, of the efforts of the Corbyn/Formby leadership to get on top of his legacy was revealed by leaked report on the activities of governance and legal unit, the party enforcers, and confirmed in the Forde report.

JVL also publish a detailed critique of the flawed legal basis of the EHRC’s findings of unlawful behaviour by the party in How the EHRC Got It So Wrong.

The commission’s unjustified findings of unlawful behaviour were not only painful and damaging for the individuals concerned; they also provided the excuse for the demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn and all who supported him and for a state-sanctioned assault on socialists in the party who spoke out in support of Palestinian rights. 

In the two years since the EHRC reported, this assault has most ferociously targeted left-wing Jews.

The Keir Starmer/David Evans autocracy has conducted a campaign of harassment against JVL’s Jewish members.

We have produced detailed statistical evidence that shows that Jewish JVL members are 37 times more likely to be investigated for anti-semitism than an average Labour Party member and 54 times more likely to be expelled.

It is not necessary to show that there has been deliberate targeting of Jews for disciplinary action for this pattern to be deeply disturbing.

Socialist Jews experience this as grossly inconsiderate of their right to express how their upbringing leads them to feel about Israel’s actions. 

The floodgates open

Since the publication of the EHRC’s latest statement the demands for ideological purity from Starmer and leading Labour zionist politicians have intensified.

This was anticipated by siren call from Rachel Reeves a week earlier when she celebrated the pile-on on Kim Johnson’s accurate description of Israel as a state guilty of the crime of apartheid, saying it was a sign of just how serious Starmer is at booting both anti-semitism and “anti-zionism” out of Labour. Starmer has boasted that he is “a zionist without qualification.” 

It has not been so explicit previously that it was impermissible for party members to disagree with him.

While Reeves is opposed to anti-zionists and those human rights defenders she mislabels as anti-semites, she is on record as celebrating Nancy Astor, a known anti-semite and Hitler sympathiser.

It swiftly became clear that Reeves was not alone in determination to cleanse Labour of those who placed an emphasis on morality and equality.

Margaret Hodge said on Radio 4 “I’m inviting them, if they feel uncomfortable, in a party that will not tolerate Jew-hate, that supports businesses and the economy, that will support Nato in the international arena, this is not the party for them.”

It is not opposition to “Jew-hate” that divides us from Hodge; it is her expansive but selective definition of it.

Hodge seems to have a perception that would include Amnesty, B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch and anyone who quotes their denunciations of Israel’s criminal treatment of Palestinians but excludes Reeves’s endorsement of a known Nazi sympathiser.

It is not difficult to imagine her expletive-laden outrage if Corbyn had spoken warmly of Astor.

Ruth Smeeth, under her nom-de-guerre of Lady Anderson, was not to be upstaged by Hodge. 

She got herself interviewed on BBC TV news and on being asked whether her reaction to anti-zionist Jews being frightened to attend Labour Party meetings because of abuse and intimidation was “tough” she did not hesitate to agree.

She went on to insult and defame JVL and said its members did not belong in the Labour Party.

This is the same Ruth Smeeth who said in 2019: “I am not prepared for any Jew to be hounded out. If the party won’t fix this, then they are going to hear from me every single day until this is resolved.” 

She is as selective as Hodge as she clearly means “any” in the more limited sense of “any who agree with me.”

Peter Kyle has tweeted: “If you’re anti-semitic or you don’t agree with support for business … then this isn’t the party for you.” 

Again, we see this supposed link between anti-semitism and lack of support for business.

It’s almost as if there is for these people an unbreakable join of Jews with business — Kyle and others might want to look at any list of classic anti-semitic tropes.

This consistent messaging from Starmer’s outriders suggests that he wants to use the EHRC as another weapon not to win an ideological argument but to enforce an ideological uniformity on the party. 

This dungeon has room for: tolerance of, and thus complicity in, Israeli quotidian breaches of international law; sympathy with business but not with trade union action to protect workers against abuse and impoverishment; an absence of any critical reflection on the role of Nato either in relation to Ukraine or more widely. 

When the Guardian praises Starmer, even they still warn against his hostility to independent thinking and challenge from the left.

A desire for purification is a feature of fascism. No previous Labour leader, not even Neil Kinnock or Tony Blair, has pursued a purification programme with the enthusiasm and ferocity of Starmer as even a moderate commentator like Michael Crick has realised.

The EHRC has handed Starmer new equipment for his petty version of the Inquisition. His acolytes have seized it with alacrity and joy. 

Mike Cushman is JVL membership secretary.