Labour Party’s General Secretary cancels meeting of antisemitism working group because group members had gone on holiday
A scheduled meeting of the Labour Party’s antisemitism working group has been cancelled by the Party’s General Secretary, Jennie Formby. Despite having been instructed by Jeremy Corbyn to make tackling antisemitism her “first priority”, Ms Formby contacted the Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to cancel the scheduled meeting of the Momentum-dominated working group, which was supposed to take place last Thursday.
The reason for the cancellation was that despite the meeting having been scheduled, a number of those due to attend had instead booked holidays.
Following yet another week of revelations of antisemitism in the Party, and with a backlog of associated cases before the disciplinary committee and no end in sight to the crisis, the move was met with anger.
Richard Angell, director of Progress, told The JC: “This is supposed to Jennie Formby’s top priority and part of Jeremy Corbyn’s response as a militant ally on antisemitism. Like expediting the antisemitism disciplinary cases, rather than action, it is just more delays from Labour’s new establishment.”
However a Labour Party spokesperson insisted the meeting had not been cancelled, but rather postponed, claiming: “The NEC recently agreed reforms to speed up and strengthen the Party’s processes for tackling antisemitism.
These concrete actions are already being implemented and are not affected by the date the working party meets.”
The last meeting of the antisemitism working group voted unanimously in favour of Labour’s new code of conduct, which was a rewriting of the International Definition of Antisemitism.
