Exposé of Labour's failure to address antisemitism leads to more antisemitism

“I WhatsApped him — so I know that he read it — at about 11 o’clock last night, asking what the Labour Party have done. I’ve had no reply,” Ms Smeeth said on Sunday.

“Given that one of the offensive emails was about me, you’d have thought just from a duty of care someone would have contacted me at some point. We all have families, we have friends who have to read vile slurs against us in the last 24 hours and it’s simply not good enough.”

But on Monday evening, Labour General Secretary Jennie Formby confirmed that a party member who branded two female Jewish MPs “a couple of sh*t-stirring c** buckets bought and paid for by Israel” had been suspended.

The same activist also accused both MPs — Ruth Smeeth and Dame Margaret Hodge — of being “cretinous pieces of s**t” who needed to “f**k off back under their stones.”

Ms Formby confirmed the suspension in a message emailed to Labour MPs on Monday night, only minutes before the weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

Labour’s attempt to pour cold water on much of the report appeared to resonate with many party members across the country.

One MP was forced to shut down their official Facebook page after members responded to a message of concern about the Sunday Times revelations with a stream of abuse.

Staff working for the MP had attempted to act as moderators but there were so many abusive messages, many of which were openly antisemitic, it was decided to remove the page entirely.

An email sent out by the chair of Labour’s Walton branch, where the pro-Corbyn MP is Dan Carden, urged members to recognise that “right on cue, just as Labour has the Tories on the ropes” over Brexit “the Sunday Times runs a front page about alleged Labour Party antisemitism.”

The email from Walton CLP chair Alan Gibbons added it was “clear what Murdoch’s game is” and said the reports were “wounding” to “Labour members who have spent their lives arguing against racism.”

In her letter to MPs, Ms Formby accepted the severity of some of the allegations in the Sunday Times report but said it was also “selective and misrepresentative.”

She added that this caused “considerable distress to staff members who are working hard to stamp out antisemitism in our party”.

But Catherine McKinnell, Labour MP for Newcastle upon Tyne, told the JC: “The Labour Party is nothing if it can’t robustly deal with — and root out — any form of racism within its ranks, and I won’t rest until we have adequately dealt with this issue once and for all.

“It’s deeply distressing that any party member or MP who speaks out on antisemitism immediately has their motives or integrity called into question — not least when the Labour leadership have made clear that we do have a problem and it is therefore completely wrong to dismiss these concerns as some sort of smear.

“Engaging in whataboutery, or trying to play down what are deeply held and entirely legitimate concerns, means that you are part of the problem and the party leadership needs to make that very clear.”

Ms McKinnell’s name was one of those on an emergency motion tabled at Monday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) calling for the leadership to commit to a “fully independent complaints process for all allegations of racism, bullying and harassment by party members”.

It also called for Labour to provide full disclosure of evidence used in the Sunday Times report.

The motion was proposed by Ms Smeeth, who is also the new parliamentary chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, Stella Creasy, Catherine McKinnell, Dame Margaret Hodge and Wes Streeting.

Labour’s press office claimed the newspaper had selectively quoted emails to misrepresent them. The PLP motion called for proof of this claim. The motion also called for the party to “make a public statement of solidarity with the Jewish Labour Movement following its 100th year of affiliation to Labour and a full response to the resolutions passed at its recent AGM.”

The motion will be debated and voted on at next Monday’s PLP meeting.

Sunday’s article included details about a serving Lancashire councillor, 61-year-old Pat Bromley, who was only briefly suspended after an online rant about the Rothschild family and “Jewish” media attacks.

In an email sent on April 4 last year, one Corbyn adviser wrote: “Agree with the recommendation to suspend and investigate.

“Considering she does not have elections coming this May, she has a bit more leeway to apologise and make amends.”

Ms Bromley did not apologise and told party officials that she used “Jewish as a blanket term of description without any racist connotations”.

Of 863 complaints overall, 454 are unresolved, including 249 in which the party has not started an investigation, while 176 investigations are ongoing.

Just 29 cases have been referred to the body authorised to expel individuals.

Of 409 cases in which a decision was reached, 191 members faced no further action and 145 received a formal warning — which has no impact on membership or the ability to stand as party candidate.

Leaked emails also revealed:

l Thomas Gardiner, a Corbyn ally and the powerful chief of Labour’s governance and legal unit, last month appeared to frustrate efforts by a member of his staff to fast-track the investigation of a member who condemned two Jewish MPs for being “sh*t-stirring c** buckets” in the pay of Israel”.

l In one case, an MP reported a member for saying the Board of Deputies, Britain’s representative Jewish body, were “c****” and that saying so was “not antisemitic, it’s anti-c***. See Israel.” The member was let off with a warning.

A Labour official said a council candidate who accused Jewish MPs of being “Zionist infiltrators” met the threshold for suspension. She then ruled that because he “is a candidate” he should not be suspended; he faced no action.

Labour has disputed the accuracy of the figures, while a party source said the allegation against Mr Gardiner was “the opposite” of what happened.

Ms Formby later dismissed as “categorically untrue” claims that the Leader’s office had been involved in approving, delaying or blocking at least 101 complaints.

She wrote: “The full email chain shows a staff member in the governance and legal unit make clear it’s right and appropriate that Jennie Formby had ended the practice of the Leader’s Office being asked for help with cases.”