Corbyn’s senior aide Laura Murray said Corbyn instructed her to stop suspension of activist now arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred
Jeremy Corbyn’s disgraced senior parliamentary aide, Laura Murray, has now been exposed intervening to prevent the suspension of Pat Sheerin from the Labour Party.
In leaked e-mails, she said that she intervened on behalf of Mr Corbyn himself.
Ms Sheerin is one of three former Labour activists who have been arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred. The arrests were made after Campaign Against Antisemitism reported a secret Labour Party dossier to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick live on air, after it was exposed on LBC radio.
In e-mails leaked to The Sunday Times, Ms Murray intervened to stop the suspension of Ms Sheerin. Ms Murray has previously been revealed interceding to stop disciplinary action against antisemites.
Ms Murray wrote in one e-mail that Ms Sheerin should not be suspended after Labour Party staff pleaded to suspend her because Ms Murray claimed that she was anti-Israel but not against “Jews or Jewishness”.
The material that Ms Sheerin is now being interrogated by police about is decidedly antisemitic.
Ms Murray reportedly told Labour Party staff that the recommendation not to suspend Ms Sheerin was from Mr Corbyn himself.
Mr Corbyn’s most senior lieutenants were copied in on the e-mails, including his Executive Director of Strategy and Communications, Seumas Milne, his Chief of Staff, Karie Murphy, and his political adviser, Andrew Murray, who is Ms Murray’s father.
For weeks, Labour Party staff were ignored as they sought to suspend Ms Sheerin, writing: “Please can we get a response to the below” and “The next thing will be people saying we are soft on anti-semitism [sic] or not acting” before pleading: “Please can I get an agreement for these suspensions. Pleeeeeeeease [sic].” However Ms Murray eventually responded to instruct that Ms Sheerin should not be suspended.
Labour attempted to dismiss the revelations, telling The Sunday Times that “The material that was sent to the leader’s office is different from the material that went to NEC [National Executive Committee] in July, and different from the material that may have been reviewed by the police. There is therefore no comparison to be drawn between these e-mails and later action taken by the Party and possibly the police against this individual, which was on the basis of more serious material.”
It appears that Mr Corbyn himself ordered an intervention on behalf of someone currently under police investigation on suspicion of the very serious crime of incitement to racial hatred. It is a reminder that Mr Corbyn, who is himself an antisemite, can never be the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has begun pre-enforcement proceedings against the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant. The pre-enforcement proceedings are a precursor to opening a full statutory investigation.
In recent months, eleven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism.
