Keir Starmer was struggling last night to contain an escalating row over Jeremy Corbyn’s suspension from the party following last week’s bombshell report on Labour’s handling of antisemitism in the party.
A union leader has accused Starmer of using the issue to pursue a “civil war” within the party, and joined with six other union bosses in issuing a joint statement describing the suspension of Corbyn as “unjust”.
The unions’ intervention came as antisemitism campaigners seized on Corbyn’s suspension to warn that the party remains “unsafe” for Jewish members until it thoroughly investigates 15 other MPs about whom they have lodged detailed complaints, including deputy leader Angela Rayner.
Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, said that he believed the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report, which found the party responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination in relation to antisemitism, was “well-balanced”.
However, Ward said the decision to suspend Corbyn “reeks of political opportunism”, adding that Starmer had set a bar for suspension that was incompatible with “a fair process”.
Labour suspended Corbyn after he claimed that “the scale of the problem” of antisemitism in the party had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media”.
But Ward said Starmer had “decided to plunge the Labour party into a civil war of his own making”.
“Nothing that Jeremy said warranted his suspension,” Ward said. “It was a well-balanced and factual response to an equally well-balanced report. There isn’t space for one antisemite in the Labour party. But if Labour is actually interested in fighting racism, it needs to do so honestly and not through a damaging factional lens.”
Ward added: “Minority groups cannot be used as a battering ram for Labour’s factional war.”
Yesterday, seven trade unions affiliated to Labour, including Unite, Labour’s largest donor, and the TSSA, which backed Starmer in the party leadership election, released a joint statement, reported on the website LabourList, expressing “serious concerns” about Corbyn’s “ill-advised and unjust suspension” and urging the party leadership to “repair this damage”.
“As the general secretaries of trade unions affiliated to the Labour party, we seek to put on record our serious concerns about the manner of and rationale for suspension of the former party leader Jeremy Corbyn,” the statement reads.
Having suspended Corbyn, Starmer is coming under acute pressure to take more robust action against 15 other Labour MPs about whom the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), which brought the original complaint that triggered the EHRC investigation, has concerns.
The CAA submitted a lengthy dossier to the party about the MPs before Corbyn’s suspension. Now it is calling for swift action against them.
“Sir Keir has promised to tear out antisemitism ‘by its roots’,” said Gideon Falter, chief executive of the CAA.
“Mr Corbyn was just one of those roots. The 15 other sitting MPs who have indulged in or promoted antisemitic discourse are others. Labour is not safe for Jews until these cases are dealt with under a disciplinary process that is independent, fair, transparent and expeditious. We made the original referral of Labour to the EHRC because the party ignored such cases for so long. We have given Sir Keir until the end of his first year in office to finally address our complaints if he wants Jews to be able to return to Labour.”
Labour now faces the highly sensitive task of dealing with Corbyn’s case while investigating the other complaints, in what will be the first major test for David Evans, Labour’s new general secretary.
Fiona Sharpe, spokeswoman for Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS), said it was clear that Labour’s processes had not been “fit for purpose” and called for a wider, independent review into hundreds of antisemitism complaints.
“Over this period, LAAS reported hundreds of apparent party members, providing evidence of Holocaust denial, the use of racially pejorative language, threats of violence and a variety of antisemitic tropes,” she said. “Due to Labour’s appalling mismanagement, many of these members are still active in the party: at local meetings, on councils and even in parliament.”
The shadow business minister, Lucy Powell, said that the Labour party would recover from the damning report.
“I am sure we will move on as one united party at what is a very very critical time for our country and for people’s lives and livelihoods,” she told BBC Breakfast.