Another Corbyn Own Goal
Labour Should Have Rejected the EHRC Investigation as Politically Motivated
I sometimes feel that it would be both cheaper and more efficient if Jeremy Corbyn replaced his advisors, Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, with a tape recorder with a few pre-recorded messages, ‘I surrender’ ‘I apologise’. ‘I promise to do better’.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission announcedon the 28th May that it was going to hold an investigation into the Labour Party under s.20 of the Equality Act. Its terms of reference are here.
It is a catastrophic mistake to have welcomed this ‘investigation’. It is a politically motivated establishment attack under the guise of racism. The internal affairs of the Labour Party are none of the EHRC’s business. The allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ have nothing to do with anti-Semitism, i.e. hatred or hostility to Jews and everything to do with Israel.
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| One of the major themes of the CAA, who made the complaint against Labour, is that most Muslims are antisemitic |
That is why the main demand of the Board of Deputies and the two organisations who made the complaints that led to this inquiry – the Campaign Against Anti-Semitismand the Jewish Labour Movement– was for Labour to introduce the IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’.
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| This is the racist stereotype that the Campaign Against Antisemitism featured |
Instead of welcoming the investigation the Labour Party should have challenged it as politically motivated, biased and tendentious. Labour should have asked why there was no equivalent investigation into Tory party Islamaphobia or into the Tory party’s anti-Semitic partners in the European Conservative Reform Group, in the European parliament.
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| Nothing Corbyn says will ever convince his opponents - which is why he should stop appeasing them |
At the very least the investigation should have been challenged legally. The pathetic gutlessness of Corbyn’s response may yet come back to haunt him. However given that he has conceded all along to the bogus ‘anti-Semitism’ taunts it was all but inevitable that he would lie down and accept with grateful thanks the latest humiliation.
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| The CAA has run over 300 anti-Corbyn articles on its website |
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| The only photo the CAA could find for their report on Muslim 'antisemitism' was of a dark person (Muslim?) holding a Hitler was right poster |
There are numerous reasons why this ‘investigation’ should have been rejected.
i. The two organisations whose complaints led to the investigation are part of the Zionist/Israel lobby.
ii. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism in particular, a so-called charity, has waged a virulent and abusive campaign against Corbyn. It has hundreds of articles on its web site attacking Corbyn.
iii. The CAA is a deeply racist Islamaphobic organisation. One only needs to look at their racist profile of a male Muslim to see where their politics are coming from.
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| The Jewish Labour Movement Boasts that the Israeli Labor Party is their 'sister party' - we should believe them |
iv. The Jewish Labour Movement which is the other organisation responsible for making the complaint is the British branch of the Israeli Labour Party. A party of ethnic cleansing and colonisation. It is a party that has supportedthe deportation of Black African refugees from Israel because they are not Jewish.
Of course the real problem is that Corbyn should fought back against the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations, which were begun by the Daily Mail in 2015, when they started. Corbyn had enough experience in the Palestine solidarity movement to know that the standard accusation against all Palestine activists is that they are anti-Semitic. It is inexplicable that Corbyn is still incapable of understanding this simple point.
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| That Corbyn did not question the motives behind this 'investigation' is inexplicable |
Today denying that the Labour Party faces an ‘anti-Semitism’ problem is in itself proof of being an ‘anti-Semite.’ Yet the Zionists repeatedly allegethat Corbyn is anti-Semitic and a racist. It should be abundantly clear even to the simplest mind that the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations are motivated by the Zionist lobby yet Corbyn is incapable of speaking this simple truth.
Instead he and John McDonnell have behaved throughout the affair as if the Board of Deputies of British Jews were some benign organisation that was genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism, even to the extent of organising an ‘anti-racist’ demonstration outside parliament in March 2018. This is the organisation which has a history of telling Jews, from the Battle of Cable Street to the National Front, not to confront fascists and to keep their heads down and stay indoors.
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| Boris Johnson merits a slap on the wrist from this tame Tory body |
Corbyn should have gone onto the offensive. The Tories are about to elect someone who believesthat Black people are ‘picanninies’ with ‘water melon smiles’ and who refers to Muslim women wearing the burka as ‘letter boxes’. This is the party of the ‘hostile environment policy’ and Windrush. Yet it too has condemned Corbyn as ‘anti-Semitic’. Yet Corbyn is too spineless and feeble to rebut any of these attacks.
The real question is why, at no stage, has the EHRC not opened an investigation into the Windrush scandal and Theresa May’s ‘hostile environment policy’ If its concern is racism then how is it that hundreds of Black British citizens have been deported and this useless establishment body hasn’t stirred itself? Or is it incapable of investigating the government that funds it?
The real reason is that the EHRC is not and never has been an anti-racist body. It is a body whose main purpose is to see that discrimination does not affect the workings of the market. It is about incorporating the anti-racist struggle. It is staffed by the great and good from the corporate world. There isn’t one trade union commissioner. In its current investigation it is using fake allegations of anti-Semitism in order to do the Establishment’s dirty work of attacking Corbyn. And Corbyn is stupid enough to have given them a stamp of approval.
If you search the EHRC’s site under Windrushyou come up with just one result which is one more than if you search under ‘hostile environment policy’. So despite the major racist scandals of the past 5 years being none of the business of this so-called anti-racist organisation Corbyn and his supporters are incapable of calling this useless corporate ‘diversity’ organisation out.
Who are the great and good who make up the EHRC and its Commissioners?
Below are their profiles taken from the EHRC web pages:
David Isaac CBE (Chair)
David is a partner at law firm Pinsent Masons and was previously Chair of Stonewall from 2003 to 2012.
Caroline Waters (Deputy Chair)
Currently Vice President of Carers UK and Founder and CEO of CW Consulting Box, Caroline Waters was also Director of People and Policy at BT She chaired, for example, Employers for Carers from 2001 to 2013, was founder and inaugural Chair of the Employers' Forum on Belief, and Chair of the Lone Parents working group.
She is a Director of Roffey Park and a member of the Whole Education Board.
Suzanne is an experienced board member, finance professional and Chair.
Suzanne has extensive FTSE 250 board experience gained in executive and non-executive roles and is currently a non-executive director of WHSmith plc, where she is also Chair of the Audit Committee. She was formerly Group Finance Director of Mitie Group plc, and her earlier career was spent at Serco and in the accountancy profession with PwC and Deloitte, where she specialised in corporate finance and assurance.
Her other roles have included Chair of BITC in the South West and Chair of the Business Services Association.
Suzanne is Fellow of the ICAEW and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Pavita Cooper has over 25 years’ experience as an executive talent leader across a range of multi-sector global blue-chip organisations, including Shell, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group.
Pavita is a passionate advocate of greater diversity; she campaigns tirelessly to change the face of British business.
Alasdair Henderson is a barrister at 1 Crown Office Row, specialising in public law, human rights, employment law and equality law.
Rebecca Hilsenrath (Chief Executive)
Rebecca Hilsenrath joined the Equality and Human Rights Commission as Legal Officer in March 2014 and was appointed as Chief Executive in 2016.
Prior to that, she was CEO of LawWorks (the Solicitors Pro Bono Group), a national charity facilitating free legal advice to community groups and individuals in need.
After graduating from Cambridge, Rebecca trained and practiced at Linklaters, and then moved to the Government Legal Service, where she held roles in the then Department for Education and Skills and in the Attorney General’s Office.
Susan Johnson OBE
Susan Johnson was, until her retirement in July 2015, Chief Executive at County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service, where she was the first woman and non-uniformed chief executive to lead a Fire and Rescue Service in the United Kingdom.
Helen is chair of the Renewables Infrastructure Group Limited and deputy chair and senior independent director of Primary Health Properties plc, both of which are companies listed on the main market on the London Stock Exchange.
She is also a non-executive director of SSE plc and Bonheur ASA, the latter being listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. She was, until she retired in 2013, Group Company Secretary and General Counsel of National Grid plc for 10 years. At National Grid she was also executive sponsor of inclusion and diversity, about which she is passionate.
Helen has also been on the boards of Aga Rangemaster Group plc, Stagecoach Group plc and SVG Capital plc.
Mark McLane is the Head of Global Diversity and Inclusion for Barclays PLC.
Prior to Barclays, Mark was the Director of Diversity and Inclusion for Booz Allen Hamilton, a professional services firm in Washington DC.
He also held the position of Chief Diversity Officer for Whirlpool Corporation.
Dr Lesley Sawers (Scotland Commissioner)
Lesley is currently Executive Chair of GenAnalytics Ltd, a specialist analytical and market insights consultancy focused on business performance improvement linked to equality and diversity in the workplace.
Previously Lesley was Vice Principal and Pro Vice Chancellor for Business, Enterprise and Innovation at Glasgow Caledonian University and Chief Executive of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry. She has also held senior leadership positions at Scottish Power, Royal Mail, CACI, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and VisitScotland.
Professor Swaran Singh is Head of Division, Mental Health and Wellbeing, at the University of Warwick.
In short there isn’t a radical or grassroots antiracist amongst them. They are all in favour of ‘diversity’ and incorporating struggles against the iniquities of capitalism but you won’t find them on a picket line or demonstration. Most of them have a corporate background and that is the main purpose of the EHRC, to advise corporations on equality and diversity.
The EHRC is completely unfit to step into the middle of what is a political battle in the Labour Party between left and right under the guise of ‘anti-Semitism’. All those alleging ‘anti-Semitism’ are also those who pushed the fake IHRA definition of ‘anti-Semitism’.
However the result of accepting without question the EHRC investigation will be that if they come out, as is highly likely, with an adverse report then it is going to be one more potent weapon in the armoury of the Right.
It is an own goal to have accepted or welcomed the Inquiry. They should have been challenged legally and there should have been fierce resistance to this attempt to neutralise the left leadership of the Labour Party via bogus complaints of anti-Semitism.
As for the Jewish Labour Movement, they should be thrown out on their ear for having done their best to undermine and destroy the Labour Party at the very moment when the Tories are facing a political crisis.
But instead, when they engaged in some grandstanding and threatened to leave the Labour Party Corbyn begged them to stay! They rewarded his idiocy with a motion of no confidence in him.
Tony Greenstein