Following an article published in print on March 13, 2020 headlined “Hampstead chair thanked ‘Jewish Question’ activist”, and online on 10 March 2020, headlined “Hampstead and Kilburn Labour chair thanks ex-member who was expelled for ‘sickening’ comments about Jews”, Gerald Downing complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that the newspaper had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. IPSO upheld this complaint and has required the Jewish Chronicle to publish this decision as a remedy to the breach. 

The article reported that Mr Downing had been expelled from the Labour Party after making “sickening’ comments about Jews” and that these comments had been discussed in Parliament. 

The complainant said that the article was inaccurate; he had been expelled from the Labour Party for publicly supporting another political party, not for making comments about Jews, sickening or otherwise. The complainant provided official Labour Party letters to IPSO which supported this position. He also said that no comments he had made about Jewish people had been discussed in the House of Commons.  

IPSO found that it was significantly inaccurate to report that the complainant had been expelled from the Labour Party for making “sickening” comments about Jews which were raised in Parliament, and particularly where this featured in the headline of the online article, it had failed to take care not to publish inaccurate information in breach of Clause 1.