A letter purporting to be signed by 84 organisations appears to compare the Labour party’s possible adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism to the Grenfell Tower fire and the Windrush scandal.

The letter, published by the Independent and signed by groups including “Black Lives Matter UK”, the “British Muslim Initiative” and “Decolonising Our Minds”, says that “As migrant and BAME groups in Britain, we reaffirm our fundamental right to the freedom of expression, and publicly to express our anxieties about the suppression of information on the history and lived experience of our communities.”

It is unclear how many of the groups are actually proper working organisations. As pointed out by one Twitter user, “Momentum Black Caucus” has amassed 53 twitter followers, active since late July 2018…“I seem to now be only person to ever mention ‘Kashmiris for Labour’ on twitter. Google search finds this letter but no prior activity whatsoever. Odd *first* activity. BAME Labour does not have it in friends group list.”

Another of the groups listed, the “Congo Great Lakes Initiative” appears from its website to be an online exhibition displaying artefacts from the Congolese area which are exhibited at the Horniman museum and UCL. It was incorporated as a company, which was dissolved last year. It also has a Twitter account but has never tweeted.

The letter claims that there are “current attempts to silence a public discussion of what happened in Palestine and to the Palestinians in 1948”, and says that "public discussion of these facts, and a description of these injustices, would be prohibited under the IHRA’s guidelines, and therefore withholds vital knowledge from the public. This silencing has already begun.

“Over this past year, several terrible events have demonstrated the dangers of silencing migrant and BAME communities. The fatal fire at Grenfell Tower and the shameful Windrush scandal have shown the active legacies of British colonialism, where racism forms an integral part of British policies, and renders our communities invisible. This denies our dignity and humanity, and our right to fair treatment under the rule of law.”

The IHRA definition of antisemitism specifically states that “criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

However, it states that the following behaviour “could, taking into account the overall context, include” examples such as “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour, “Applying double standards by requiring of it [Israel] a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”, “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis”, or “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”

The letter published by the Independent does not make it clear which exact elements of the IHRA definition the BAME groups take an issue with, or describe exactly how it would prevent people, as it claims, from “hearing the full story of the Palestinians in order to make sense of the current discussions about racism and Israel.”

Jewish communal organisations and a cross-communal coalition of rabbis have urged Labour to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Over the weekend, UKIP, on the other end of the political spectrum, announced that it would not adopt the IHRA definition for “free speech” reasons.

The letter for the BAME groups, however, accuses “UK-based fundamentalist groups aligned with the far-right in the US" of trying "to deny Palestinians’ basic humanity by suppressing their entire history and current plight.” It does not name any specific groups.