The murderous antisemitic hate that Starmer’s Labour has not dealt with

The Guardian newspaper which enthusiastically promoted the narrative of a “crisis of antisemitism” during the period when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, found itself in a bit of trouble a few days back for daring to suggest that criticisms of Corbyn’s long record of anti-racism were unjustified. Cue a batch of furious letters from the (not so) great and (not so) good. They have since published two very calm responses to those furious letters.

David Rosenberg

Sadly, they didn’t publish mine. Perhaps because it contained a very discomfiting revelation of how Starmer-led Labour utterly failed to deal with a very serious case of antisemitism within the party. This revelation ought to be especially discomfiting for the Labour Party hierarchy and also for the mainstream media that continued to take Starmer at face value when he said he would “tear antisemitism out by its roots”, despite his swift back-pedaling on the pledges that got him elected. Instead Starmer has cynically used the issue of alleged antisemitism in Labour as a factional weapon as he attempts to tear off a wing of the party that had always been much more in the forefront of anti-racist work than the centrists. Left wing Jews have been disproportionately targeted by the leadership and their concerns ignored.

My unpublished letter said:

“The defence of Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-racist record in a recent Guardian editorial has elicited fierce responses… but one crucial voice is too often missing from this discussion: that of Jewish Labour Party members in his constituency, who have known and interacted with Corbyn most frequently over many years.

“Our collective letters when Corbyn was, in our view (and the NEC panel’s), unjustly suspended in 2020, and had the whip removed, were published locally, but not in the national press.

“Letters signed by Jewish Labour members with strong records of anti-racist, anti-fascist and pro-human rights activism, stated: ‘As Jews we have always felt safe, welcome, and supported in everything we do in the borough and the party.’ Regarding the EHRC report we wrote: ‘it is only right that Corbyn should attempt to reassure Jews that the extent of antisemitism in the Labour Party had been grossly exaggerated by the media, and others; not in order to fight such prejudice but as a way of attacking him.‘

“One very unwelcome response we received was a collective death threat on a Labour-supporting Facebook page, which we reported to the police and the Labour Party. A Labour member in the Midlands was suspended and a very slow investigation began which did not reach a conclusion. He denied it was him, though his name and facebook profile was identical to another account in his name [that made the threat]

“Given what happened in this very serious case; the current Labour leader’s repeated failure to respond to requests to meet with us (in his neighbouring constituency); and the appalling disciplinary treatment of left-wing Jews in the party since Starmer became leader, please forgive us for being cynical about the Party’s proclaimed success on tackling antisemitism.“

The perpetrator of this death threat referred to those Jews who had signed letters in support of Corbyn as “twenty five traitors to the Jewish race” and promised that ‘…we’re going to make you answer for it, and far more effectively than what happened in 1945. Prepare for the rope.” The reference to Nuremburg 1945 was particularly sickening given that some of our signatories lost family in the Holocaust.

The police recorded the crime and promised to investigate further. When we wrote to the Labour Party’s Complaints Team we explained that we had reported it to the police and gave them the crime reference number. We pointed out that a number of the signatories the threat was aimed at were elderly and lived alone.

We also gave them quite a bit to go on from our own research: a screenshot of the post that contained the death threat (on the Labour Support Group Facebook page – since renamed “Labour to Win”); evidence that the perpetrator had probably been a Labour member for around 30 years; the West Midlands constituency he voted in; his approximate age; evidence that the perpetrator used aggressive language on his own facebook page that we would describe as Islamophobic and misogynist, as well as violent language about Jeremy Corbyn MP.  He wrote, with reference to Jeremy Corbyn, that it was “time to go”, adding: “in your case Russia or the Gaza Strip… we don’t want shit like that in the country. Full stop.” He also wrote: “We should get the Israelis in. They would soon remove him.”

The initial response of the party’s Complaints Team suggested that they took it seriously. They identified the member and suspended him pending an investigation. After that things slowed right down. We had to do all the chasing. In early February 2021 we were told: “We are currently processing the case and looking to resolve it soon. We are yet to take it to a hearing of the NEC but once we do and the outcome is confirmed we will let you know.”

In late March 2021, things still seemed to be heading slowly in the right direction. The Complaints Officer wrote: “We have been liaising with the Police and the respondent in the case as well as conducting our own investigation. We have ensured that the account that posted the anti-Semitic content has now been removed by Facebook. Based on the information and evidence we have gathered so far we are close to providing a resolution to the matter but would appreciate your response to the below.

“The evidence you provided us consisted of two different Facebook accounts – ******** C. ********* the account that posted the anti-Semitic content (1 post). ******* ********* – the account with birthday, location and Labour Party membership information (3 posts). Both accounts have the same profile picture. When the anti-Semitic content was posted do you have any evidence or reason to believe that the ‘******* *********’ profile posted this?“

We were astonished to receive this question. They had not done a thorough investigation. We went back to the second profile – the main Facebook account of the person we had identified and they had suspended, and spelt out what they should have discovered for themselves – that there was at least one post on his main FB acount in which he reposted a comment that he had sent to the Labour Support group facebook page. We highlighted another post that confirmed that the initial letter of his middle name was the same as the account that posted with the same first name and surname in the Labour Support Group. We provided details of another post on his main facebook account (from December 2018) regarding a BBC News report about Corbyn seeking an urgent meeting with Jewish leaders, in which he made the threatening comment: “All the Jews have to do is give MOSSAD a ring in Tel Aviv, and five minutes later Jeremy is retired. Permanently.”

Apart from the horrific language expressed about the twice-elected party leader, we stated that we viewed this claim that “the Jews” have a hotline to killers, as clearly antisemitic. We made reference to another post we found by trawling his page that showed that the comment he made towards us was absolutely consistent with other comments on his timeline which describe people as “traitors”, and condone violent, illegal actions such as the murder, rather than trial, of alleged paedophiles.

We stated: “We believe that everything points to the two accounts being run by one and the same person. We very much hope that this matter can be brought to a just and satisfactory conclusion in the very near future that is commensurate with the appalling threat that was made to 25 Jewish Labour Party members.”

The complaints officer thanked us and said “the information you have provided is helpful”.

At the end of April 2021 we received a letter that tried to explain the delay in resolving the case as being the fault of the police who had the power (which the Party complaints department apparently don’t have) to trace IP addresses for the posts that would immediately confirm the identity of the person who had posted. The officer reported to us ominously: “The party is not in a position to confirm the identity of the respondent.” As if all of our evidence confirmed nothing. It seemed that the ‘respondent” had simply denied that the post was done by him (despite the evidence), so they were patiently waiting on the police to give them results. And that is where it stood for several more months.

In September 2021 we could not conceal how angry and frustrated we felt, saying that we found it completely unacceptable that nine months had elapsed since our initial complaint without a resolution to it. We said: “Looking back at our correspondence it would be possible to conclude that the Labour Party would instead prefer to see this issue ‘kicked into the long grass’. – which of course ought to be unthinkable in a situation where such a vicious antisemitic threat was made and lives are potentially in danger.”

More correspondence ensued in which the complaints department suggested that we liaise directly with the police (which seemed to be a way of them offloading their urgent responsibility to deal with antisemitism.) Our own attempts to liaise with the police were not fruitful – effectively they fobbed us off.

Since then it has been left in limbo. If this is an example of “tearing antisemitism out of the party by its roots”, I’m a banana. I think we all know why this case did not reach a satisfactory conclusion. It may well be that the complaints officer we were dealing with was being straight with us but he was clearly being thwarted by his superiors who, it seems, did not want this case of a death threat made by a non-Jewish Labour right winger against 25 Jews to reach a conclusion. And that tells you volumes about how fraudulent the Party’s claims are to be fighting antisemitism. They are fighting Corbyn and the left instead.