Divisive Corbyn aide Seumas Milne and Labour’s controversial complaints chief Thomas Gardiner reportedly both leave after years at centre of antisemitism crisis
Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn’s divisive senior aide, and Thomas Gardiner, Labour’s Director of Governance and Legal Affairs, have both quit their employment with the Party.
Mr Milne, who has a record of espousing extreme political views, served as Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn. As a political appointee, his departure following the election of Sir Keir Starmer as Leader of the Party was widely considered inevitable.
Thomas Gardiner’s role in Labour Headquarters involved overseeing the catastrophic complaints process, and became known for his decision that a meme showing an alien crustacean with a Star of David emblazoned on its back sucking the life out of the Statue of Liberty was somehow not antisemitic.
Mr Gardiner’s departure represents the next stage of the clearout of controversial Labour staff by the new General-Secretary, David Evans, who replaced Corbyn ally Jennie Formby.
Mr Gardiner is being replaced by Alex Barros-Curtis, an aide of Sir Keir, on a temporary basis.
While the removal of tainted staff is a welcome development, the promised independent disciplinary process has yet to materialise.
On 28th May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.
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.
