Labour Antisemitism Report Found Borderline ‘Neo-Nazis’ in the Party

A woman holds up a placard declaring "Corbyn made me a Tory" as she joins protesters gathe
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

An internal Labout investigation found that antisemitism was rife in the left-wing party, and that some members held borderline “neo-Nazi” views.

The report, which covered the party’s actions between 2014 and 2019, stated that an email inbox containing reports of prejudice against Jews would go unchecked “for months”. There were also “a litany of mistakes and missed opportunities” in tackling antisemitism within the party.

“The events which led to this investigation, including the party becoming host to a small number of members holding views which were unarguably hostile to Jewish people and in some cases frankly neo-Nazi in their nature, are deeply disturbing,” the leaked report said, according to the Daily Mail.

“This has caused great pain to the Jewish community. The party must take all possible steps to repair this damage, and apologise for failing to take action sooner,” the document added.

Sir Keir Starmer, who replaced Corbyn as leader of the party earlier this month, said the report “raised matters of serious concern” and he would investigate further.

The report attempted to shift blame away from the far-left former leader of the party, Jeremy Corbyn. It claimed that Mr Corbyn and his office had “little or no oversight over the disciplinary process” and that the failure to tackle antisemitism was in large part due to the tension between Corbyn and Labour Party headquarters.

On Wednesday, it was announced that the former general secretary of the Labour Party, Iain McNicol, will be stepping down from the party’s front bench in the House of Lords while an investigation is carried out, Politics Home reports.

As general secretary, McNicol was in charge of Labour HQ until 2018, when he was nominated by Corbyn for a peerage. The report claimed that while he was general secretary, Lord McNicol failed to confront prejudice against Jews within the party.

The report drew fire from centrist members of the party, including Lord David Blunkett, for its attempt to shield Mr Corbyn from blame over the antisemitism row.

“Whatever happened, whether it’s the internal shambles of the last four-and-a-half years or the failure to win elections was entirely down to those who were actually in charge in the leader’s office,” Lord Blunkett said.

Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.