Lord Harris, Chair of Labour Peers, sends fierce letter to Jeremy Corbyn about “humiliating…shame” of CAA-instigated EHRC intervention

Lord Toby Harris, Chair of Labour Peers, has sent an extraordinary and fierce letter to Jeremy Corbyn about the “ongoing failure to remove antisemites from the Party” after the Equalities and Human rights Commission (EHRC) announced that it was initiating pre-enforcement proceedings against the Labour Party.

The EHRC’s move was triggered by 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 his letter, Lord Harris stated that: “I understand that the last time the EHRC took action against a political party was when they investigated the [far-right] BNP over its ‘whites-only’ membership policy for the Labour Party to be in this position is nothing short of humiliating and a matter of great shame.” 

He added that: “Until the people making the decisions about discipline and expulsions accept as antisemitic words and actions viewed by the Jewish community as antisemitic nothing will change and the crisis will continue.”

In the past six months, eleven MPs have resigned from the Labour Party over antisemitism.