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Board of Deputies president says next Labour leader should resolve all antisemitism cases within four months
Marie van der Zyl also said disciplinary measures should be extended to ‘whole branches or CLPs when necessary’
March 31, 2020 14:26
Marie van der Zyl also said disciplinary measures should be extended to ‘whole branches or CLPs when necessary’
March 31, 2020 14:26Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl has said the next Labour leader should resolve all the party's outstanding antisemitism cases within four months of their election on Saturday.
Writing in the Times, Mrs van der Zyl said it was “no secret that the past few years have been extremely unsettling for many within the UK’s Jewish community.
“The amount of evidence demonstrating that the Labour Party had a profound problem with antisemitism became overwhelming to all but the most politically myopic.”
Outgoing leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves the party with a backlog of cases of alleged Jew-hate by members and an inquiry by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission into whether the party is institutionally antisemitic.
Mrs van der Zyl noted all the leadership candidates had committed to the Board's ten pledges for combatting antisemitism and wrote: "Our first pledge called for the resolution of all outstanding cases to be concluded swiftly under a fixed timescale — we expect that all such cases be resolved within four months of the new leader taking office.
She added that Jews’ concerns had been met with “denial and open animosity” which could often “be traced back to the office of the Labour leader.”
She said that as “the most egregious examples of antisemitism” within the party had come from grassroots members, the Board would be “urging the new leader to take determined and swift action not just against people who have committed such offences, but disciplinary measures against whole branches or CLPs when necessary.”
She continued: “We also expect that the new Labour leadership will meet at specific intervals with key Jewish communal organisations […] to assess the progress in carrying out those pledges.”
“The Labour Party turned 120 earlier this year," she wrote.
"While there is a tradition within Judaism of wishing others good health ‘until 120’, we hope that the Labour Party, as one of the two main parties in our parliamentary democracy, continues in good health for many more years to come.”
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