Why should Black people vote Labour?

It is expected that Britain will go to the polls before this year ends. This, a year of unprecedented global uncertainty, not least on account of the proxy wars which Britain and the USA are waging in the Middle East. There is much speculation on whether the Labour Party could depend upon the black vote that it has traditionally taken for granted. The only group of people who seem not to care about that is the Labour Party itself, given how its leader and its national executive have been conducting themselves since the 2019 election.

So, why the uncertainty about the black vote?

Black activists inside and outside of the Labour Party cite a number of actions taken by Labour that suggest that the party does not give a toss about what black and global majority voters think about how it treats its black MPs, councillors and party activists, especially those on the left of the party.

In 2022, Maurice McLeod, an outspoken and highly regarded local Labour councillor in Battersea Park ward in the borough of Wandsworth, South London was blocked from standing as a member of parliament in Camberwell and Peckham, an area with a large settled black population. McLeod was considered to be ‘off message’ as far as the Labour leadership was concerned.

Hierarchy of Racism

In light of Keir Starmer’s evangelistic campaign to rid the Labour Party of anti-Semitism and rein in the left, he faced criticism for not being as concerned about racism and Islamophobia in the party. Starmer commissioned Martin Forde, KC to investigate allegations of racism, bullying and sexism in Labour. In the summer of 2022, Forde published a 139-page report and called on the party to implement 165 recommendations.

Despite a Labour party spokesperson at the time asserting that the report detailed ‘a party that was out of control’, Keir Starmer took no action and the report did not provoke any debate within the party. This was unlike the urgent and comprehensive response that Starmer gave to an earlier report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on anti-Semitism in Labour.

Some nine months later, Forde was telling Al Jazeera: “Anti-black racism and Islamophobia is not taken as seriously as anti-Semitism within the Labour party. That’s the perception that has come through … . My slight anxiety is that, in terms of hierarchy, and genuine underlying concerns about wider racial issues, it’s not, in my view, a sufficient response to say ‘that was then, this is now’.” Forde expressed the view that the Labour Party was enabling a hierarchy of racism.

In April 2023, Diane Abbott, who became an MP in 1987 and is the longest-serving black member of parliament, was suspended from the Labour Party after suggesting that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people were not subject to racism “all their lives”. Her remarks were condemned by Starmer and the Labour Party as ‘anti-Semitic’. Following her suspension, the party claimed that it was going to investigate the matter. However, almost a year later, Abbott remains suspended and operates in her constituency as an independent MP.

There are no signs that the Labour Party intends to lift her suspension before the next election, and the expectation is that she would be deselected and the party would field another candidate in the seat she has held for the last 37 years.

Abbott apologised for her remarks, claiming that she had erroneously sent an earlier draft to the paper that printed her statement. Her remarks were clumsy and poorly communicated, but I and any number of black people knew exactly what she meant. Abbott should have stood her ground and not be bullied by Starmer or anyone else indulging in weaponising anti-Semitism.

Weaponising Antisemitism

In the last week, the same week during which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, Kate Osamor MP was suspended by Labour for writing in a message distributed in her constituency: “Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day, an international day to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, the millions of other people murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups and more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza”. Later, Osamor apologised “for any offence caused by my reference to the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza as part of that period of remembrance”.

While it will be some time before the ICJ rules on whether Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli state are guilty of genocide, surely Osamor could be forgiven for likening Israel’s indiscriminate annihilation of 30,000 Palestinians, almost 50 per cent of them children, in an act of collective punishment, to the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and Bosnia.

But then, we should not be surprised at Starmer’s weaponising of anti-Semitism.

On Sunday, January 12, 2020, the Board of Deputies of British Jews launched its 10 pledges which it demanded that each of Labour’s candidates for leader and deputy leader should sign. Marie van der Zyl, the Board’s president, said she hoped the new leader of the Opposition would address anti-Semitism in Labour “promptly and energetically”.

The 10 pledges which the board demanded that candidates adopt were:

1. The promise to resolve outstanding cases of alleged anti-Semitism

2. To devolve the disciplinary process to an independent agent;

3. To ensure transparency in the complaints process;

4. Prevent re-admittance of prominent offenders;

5. Provide no platform for those who have been suspended or expelled for anti-Semitism;

6. The full adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism “with all its examples and clauses and without any caveats”;

7. To deliver anti-racism education programmes that have been approved by the Jewish Labour Movement, which would lead training;

8. To engage with the Jewish community via its “main representative groups and not through fringe organisations” such as Jewish Voice for Labour;

9. To replace “bland, generic statements” on anti-Jewish racism with “condemnation of specific harmful behaviours”;

10. For the Labour leader to take personal responsibility for ending the “anti-Semitism crisis”.

Ten Pledges

Van der Zyl stated: “Our ten pledges identify the key points we believe Labour needs to sign up to in order to begin healing its relationship with our community… We expect that those seeking to move the party forward will openly and unequivocally endorse these ten pledges in full, making it clear that, if elected as leader or deputy leader, they will commit themselves to ensuring the adoption of all these points.”

Of the six declared leadership candidates, five endorsed the board’s demands straight away: Sir Keir Starmer, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Emily Thornberry. Keir Starmer declared on Twitter: ‘The Labour Party’s handling of anti-Semitism has been completely unacceptable. It has caused deep distress for the Jewish community, which we must all accept responsibility for and apologise. I support the recommendations put forward by the Board of Deputies’.

Racism is clearly too far down the hierarchy of oppression to warrant Starmer’s endorsement of Martin Forde’s findings and recommendations.

Labour is about to unveil its plans for a Race Equality Act, having neutered the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 by failing to resource the Commission for Racial Equality to effectively enforce compliance with it. Charity begins at home. No one should take Labour and its proposed new Act seriously until Starmer provides evidence of what Labour is doing about his party which remains ‘out of control’ on issues of racism, bullying and Islamophobia, as highlighted in the Forde report.

Professor Augustine John is a human rights campaigner and honorary fellow and associate professor at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London.