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Labour's shamed former head of disputes panel to give main speech at party event
Christine Shawcroft - who resigned after defending someone who shared Holocaust denial - is due to speak at Labour Women Leading event
February 11, 2019 15:51
Christine Shawcroft - who resigned after defending someone who shared Holocaust denial - is due to speak at Labour Women Leading event
February 11, 2019 15:51The shamed former head of the Labour Party’s disputes panel - who quit after she defended a council candidate who promoted Holocaust denial – has been invited to give the main speech at a Labour event.
Christine Shawcroft - a director of the pro-Corbyn Momentum group - will address the gathering of activists attending the Labour Women Leading West Midlands meeting being held at Birmingham headquarters of the Unite Union next Tuesday.
Invitations to the event, which is for delegates and visitors who are going on to the National Women's Conference in Telford later that week, have been sent out by Andy Thompson, chair of Ladywood Labour Party and a delegate for Len McCluskey’s Unite union - promising what he said would be a “very interesting meeting”.
Mr Thompson had previously signed a letter sent by the far-left Labour Representation Committee (LRC) to Jeremy Corbyn which suggested “false accusations of antisemitism” were being made against the Labour leadership in order to “deter criticism of Zionism and the Israeli state.”
One source told the JC: "It’s shocking really – Christine Shawcroft should have been consigned to the dustbin of Labour Party history over her conduct regarding antisemitism.
“But here she is being given star billing an event for women seen at the heart of the Party in the West Midlands.
Ms Shawcroft quit her role on the disputes panel, which handles allegations of sexual harassment, antisemitism and disciplinary breaches last March after questioning the suspension of an alleged Holocaust denier, used a Facebook post to insist the issue was “being stirred up to attack Jeremy”.
Alan Bull, who was a Peterborough council candidate, shared an article on Facebook headlined “International Red Cross report confirms the Holocaust of 6m Jews is a hoax”, illustrated with a photograph of the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Ms Shawcroft said sent an email defending him "before being aware of the full information", adding: "I had not been shown the image of his abhorrent Facebook post."
"Had I seen this image, I would not have requested that the decision to suspend him be re-considered. I am deeply sorry for having done so."
A few days later, after seeing the "abhorrent image", she wrote on Facebook that she had told the member that he should be sent for training about antisemitism, while the issue within the Labour Party was being used to attack Jeremy Corbyn.
She later removed the post.
At the time she was also still a member of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) and almost 40 MPs and Peers called for her removal, with Labour sources claimed Ms Shawcroft and allies in the “left caucus” of the NEC regularly cast a sceptical eye over cases brought to the disputes panel – on which all NEC members sit – fearing them to be politically motivated.
Ms Shawcroft eventually stepped down from the NEC and was replaced by Eddie Izzard.
In 2015 she was also suspended from the Party after publicly defending the disgraced Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman.
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