Former London mayor Ken Livingstone 'committed harassment' against Jewish Labour Party members, EHRC report says
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone has been accused of having "committed harassment" against Labour Party members of Jewish ethnicity and of dismissing complaints of anti-Semitism as “fake or smears”, in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The report said Mr Livingstone was not protected by freedom of speech laws when he said that social media posts by Labour MP Naz Shah – which included a graphic suggesting Israel should be relocated to the United States with the comment “problem solved” – were not anti-Semitic.
The report stated: “In his denial, Ken Livingstone alleged that scrutiny of Naz Shah’s conduct was part of a smear campaign by ‘the Israel lobby’ to stigmatise critics of Israel as anti-Semitic, and was intended to undermine and disrupt the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn MP.”
The report found that ultimate responsibility for the anti-Semitism failings lay with then-leader and Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn.
EHRC lead investigator Alasdair Henderson told a press conference: “Blame for the anti-Semitism in the Labour Party can’t be placed on one person, we looked at the party as a whole.
“And it went beyond the role of Jeremy Corbyn.
“That said, the failure of leadership, although it extended across the party through the period of example that we looked at, was of course during the time when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
“And as leader of the party, and with evidence of political interference from within his office, he does have a responsibility ultimately for those failings."
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Mr Corbyn said he did not accept all of the EHRC’s findings and added that the scale of the anti-Semitism problem in Labour was “dramatically overstated” for political reasons.
Jewish Labour MP for Barking Dame Margaret Hodge said Mr Corbyn had “shamed” the party.
At a Jewish Labour Movement press conference she said: “I think the statement that Jeremy chose to put out today demonstrates that he is in permanent denial about the extent of the problems that emerged during his leadership.
“Even when the evidence is placed in front of him he fails really to understand the importance and severity of it.
“It happened on his watch. He shamed the Labour Party. He sat at the centre of a party that enabled anti-Semitism to spread from the fringes to the mainstream.”
The Jewish Labour Movement said blame for the “sordid, disgraceful chapter” in the party’s history “lies firmly with those who held positions of leadership”.