Sir Keir Starmer under pressure again after Diane Abbott shares platform with suspended JVL member
Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure again after Diane Abbott reportedly shared a platform with a suspended Labour member.
Ms Abbott, the former Shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, shared a platform with Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, the Media Officer of Jewish Voice for Labour, an antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation. Ms Wimborne-Idrissi was recently suspended from Labour after giving a speech in support of Mr Corbyn and criticising the “weaponisation” of antisemitism in the Party.
The two shared a platform at the a ‘Solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn Sunday Stroll’ in London Fields, Hackney over the weekend.
This is not the first time Ms Abbott has shared a platform with a suspended or expelled Labour member, but, although Sir Keir made a pledge during the leadership election campaign that he would suspend MPs who gave a platform to former Labour members suspended or expelled in the wake of antisemitic incidents, the Labour Party declined to take any action last time. It remains to be seen whether Sir Keir or the Party will take a different course this time.
Ms Abbott is herself the subject of a complaint by Campaign Against Antisemitism, submitted to the Labour Party, which is still pending.
Campaign Against Antisemitism recently lodged a complaint against Mr Corbyn, holding him responsible for conduct that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Labour Party, as the Leader during the period of the EHRC’s shameful findings. Given the serious detriment that this conduct has caused, we are seeking Mr Corbyn’s immediate resuspension and, if the complaint is upheld, we will be requesting his expulsion. On the day the publication of the EHRC’s report, we also submitted a major complaint against Mr Corbyn and other sitting MPs. These complaints are yet to be acknowledged by the Party, and they must be investigated by an independent disciplinary process that the EHRC has demanded and Sir Keir has promised but has yet to introduce.
The Labour Party was found by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to have engaged in unlawful discrimination and harassment of Jews. The report followed the EHRC’s investigation of the Labour Party in which Campaign Against Antisemitism was the complainant, submitting hundreds of pages of evidence and legal argument. Sir Keir Starmer called the publication of the report a “day of shame” for the Labour Party.
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.
