Starmer faces crunch conference vote over independent complaints process - The Jewish Chronicle

The Labour leadership today faces a critical vote to bring in a new independent complaints process as part of its crackdown on antisemitism within the party.

An overhaul of the disciplinary process was part of the action plan laid out by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission following its damning report into antisemitism within Labour.

The rule change was approved by the party’s ruling NEC earlier this month.

While the vote at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton is expected to pass, it has provoked a fresh row with hard-left activists who have urged their delegates to derail the reform.

In a statement, Momentum said it was instructing its delegates to vote against the change, claiming it represented a “flawed interpretation” of the EHRC report.

A spokesman said: “We are firmly committed to tackling all forms of racism, including antisemitism, whether found in the party or in society. Sadly the proposals we are voting on today are a flawed interpretation of the report. The EHRC report itself described the general secretary’s office as a political organ, so review boards and complaints panels which are accountable to the GS cannot, by definition, be independent.”

Writing ahead of the vote, Board of Deputies President Marie van der Zyl urged Labour members to turn the page on the Corbyn era by backing the new complaints system.

She said: “As well as being a legally mandated requirement from the EHRC, it also makes sense for all Labour factions to support it since it will prevent any party leadership, whether left or right, interfering in the complaints process for factional reasons. It is hardly a secret that Jewish support for Labour plummeted under the previous leadership. Jewish members and non members faced not just antisemitism but denial, downplaying and distortion from people at all levels of the party…Labour now has an opportunity to take a further step away from that moral and intellectual abyss.”

Victory today would provide a boost for the Labour leadership after a bruising start to the conference in which Sir Keir was forced to water down his plans to limit the role of members in selecting a party leader.

Allies talked up Sir Keir’s success in making it harder for hard-left activists to deselect Labour MPs but the success of unions in blocking his other reform was a major blow.

The left saw it as an attempt to hobble the power of those who elected Jeremy Corbyn and designed to prevent another hard-left candidate from ever taking the leadership again.

The humiliating withdrawal of the measure in the teeth of fierce union opposition was savaged by senior party members who said Sir Keir’s desperate attempt to create a “Kinnock moment” had left the leadership looking weaker.

Outside the conference hall the first day saw a rally by Defend the Left activists shouting “Stop the purge”.

They want a reversal of thousands of auto-exclusions of Labour members for supporting four hard-left groups proscribed by Labour’s ruling NEC in July, including three which had repeatedly downplayed the scale of Labour’s antisemitism crisis under Mr Corbyn.