THREAD on the Labour Party report that was due to go to the EHRC, was withdrawn and has now been leaked everywhere. A few thoughts having read it /1
Firstly, it's a massive data breach. There are dozens of names of people investigated/suspended/expelled for antisemitism, often alongside the name of the (usually Jewish) person who reported them. It's an incitement to further antisemitic harassment and must be investigated /2
I've redacted all but the most public or essential names from the parts I've used in this thread, but the original leaked report is fully unredacted /3
Astonishingly, the report doesn't really defend the central EHRC allegation that the party discriminated against Jewish members: it just blames the factional opponents of the previous leadership. Labour antisemitism is real, cases were dropped or delayed etc. All accepted. /4
This argument that failings were due to internal processes and culture rather than personal antisemitic prejudice fits the definition of institutional racism perfectly - and blaming staff doesn't avoid the institutional responsibility /5
The whole report reads like a settling of accounts with factional opponents & with the whistle blowers who appeared on Panorama and gave evidence to the EHRC. The first 170 pages barely mention antisemitism but focus on factional in-fighting. It's like a parody of the left /6
At times it reads like the Labour Party and the Labour Party are two different organisations 🤷‍♂️ /7
When you get to the accounts of how the party dealt with antisemitism -or rather didn't deal with it - it's shameful. British Jews suffered four years of harassment, insults and gaslighting for claiming the party had a serious problem - and we were right all along /8
There are four pages on "denialism" and 15 pages on Corbyn's statements opposing antisemitism. But no room for the examples of Corbyn and his closest supporters encouraging that denialism in the first place /9
There's other places where the selectivity is obvious. The Royall report is mentioned but the NEC's decision not to publish it is ignored. The Chakrabarti Report launch is described without Marc Wadsworth's abuse of Ruth Smeeth /10
The account of Ken Livingstone's first suspension doesn't really fit with Livingstone's own claim that he was in almost daily contact with Corbyn's office to coordinate his media appearances /11
We do get confirmation that Livingstone's eventual resignation was suggested and coordinated by the party to avoid the pain of having to expel him /12
We also get confirmation that Corbyn's office tried to avoid suspending Naz Shah before changing their position a few hours later /13
The account of the meeting between Corbyn and Jewish community organisations in April 2018 is, um, not quite how we remember it /14
But Labour did use CST's Engine Of Hate report to identify and investigate antisemitic Labour-supporting Twitter accounts. Take that, outriders! /15
Finally, the report quotes my "expert opinion" a couple of times and recommends my book. Very nice of them. I've long argued that the Labour Party is institutionally antisemitic and wouldn't change under Corbyn. Nothing I've read in this report has changed that opinion. /End
You can follow @daverich1.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: