Former Labour activist to be prosecuted over alleged “rid the Jews” comments is named, but prosecutors reduced charges on other offenders so that it is now too late to prosecute

The former Labour activist who has been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) after Campaign Against Antisemitism reported a leaked secret Labour dossier to the Metropolitan Police live on LBC has been named.

According to a source, Mohson Rasool, a 60-year-old from Hollybank Road, Birmingham, commented on Facebook that “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all [sic]”. He is also alleged to have suggested that the Jews should be sent into the Red Sea rather than expending expensive gas on them in what appeared to be an allusion to the use of gas chambers by the Nazis to murder Jews. Among other alleged remarks, he claimed that “hatred of Jews and Hindus is in my DNA”.

Mr Rasool is being charged with sending a grossly offensive message or other matter on a public electronic communications network on 10th February, 2018, in breach of section 127 of the Communications Act, and will appear at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on 25th March.

It is understood that Mr Rasool had been expelled by the Labour Party prior to his arrest.

Of the ten cases so far referred to the CPS considered, five apparently remain under consideration, four will be dropped and Mr Rasool will be prosecuted.

However, it is understood that the four cases being dropped may have passed the threshold for lesser offences, but because the CPS took so long reviewing the cases, it is now too late to bring charges.

This is despite Lord MacDonald, a former Director of Public Prosecutions, saying last month that he believed that the CPS had had sufficient time to review the cases and should announce its conclusions, and that charges should be brought.

In a statement released yesterday, Gideon Falter, the chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, addressed this point, saying: “This sad tale exemplifies why two thirds of British Jews have lost faith in the CPS, which simply cannot be relied upon to bring anti-Jewish racists to justice. When the CPS has failed to prosecute antisemites in the past we have successfully instigated private prosecutions and brought judicial review proceedings against the CPS. We had hoped that these measures would not be necessary every time antisemitic hate crimes come before the CPS, but yet again we find ourselves having to consider our options with our lawyers in order to deliver justice for the Jewish community, because the CPS has failed us.”

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. The research also showed that 42% of British Jews have considered leaving the UK, of which 85% cited antisemitism in politics, and close to two thirds of British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.

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.