Corbyn suspension spurs confrontation between local Constituency Labour Parties and central Labour Party
The suspension of Jeremy Corbyn following the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report into Labour antisemitism and the submission of a complaint against Mr Corbyn and other MPs by Campaign Against Antisemitism appears to have spurred a confrontation within the Party between several Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) and the Labour Party headquarters.
Among the CLPs to express support for or solidarity with Mr Corbyn are Battersea, Bristol North West, Bristol West, Blyth Valley, Camarthen East and Dinefwr, Cardiff North, Carlisle, Hastings and Rye, Islington North (Mr Corbyn’s CLP), Leeds East, Liverpool Walton, Newton Abbott, Pendle, Putney, and South Thanet.
Various other local branches of the Party have also passed motions of solidarity or expressed support for the suspended former leader.
The motions and expressions of support came only a few days after the Party’s General-Secretary, David Evans, warned CLPs not to discuss disciplinary cases. A few months ago he also warned them to avoid discussion of sensitive issues relating to antisemitism.
Apparently as a result of these motions and other inflammatory tweets, the Chair and co-Secretary of Bristol West and other members of that CLP have been suspended from Labour.
The Labour Party was found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to have engaged in unlawful discrimination and harassment of Jews. The report followed the EHRC’s investigation of the Labour Party in which Campaign Against Antisemitism was the complainant, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence and legal argument. Sir Keir Starmer called the publication of the report a “day of shame” for the Labour Party.
In the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that Labour Party candidates for Parliament in the 2019 general election accounted for 82 percent of all incidents of antisemitic discourse by parliamentary candidates.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
