Former Mayor of Luton and current candidate for Bedfordshire Police chief is suspended by Labour over alleged antisemitism
The former Mayor of Luton, who is currently Labour’s candidate for Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner, has been suspended by the Party over alleged antisemitism.
Tahir Khan, who served as Mayor of Luton in 2016-17, will no longer be able to represent Labour in the 2021 election for the senior police job, and a new selection process is reportedly underway.
Although the basis of the suspension is unclear, Mr Khan is believed to have posted Rothschild conspiracy theories on social media in the past and to have claimed that the BBC is a “Zionist channel”.
A Labour spokesman reportedly said: “The Labour Party takes all complaints of antisemitism extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We are pleased that this case is being investigated by Labour, but the Party must make its processes transparent so that the Jewish community and the public can see whether and what action has been taken. The Party’s failed disciplinary processes are why we referred Labour to the EHRC in the first place, and it must now urgently introduce an independent disciplinary process in order to restore confidence in the Party’s procedures.”
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.
