URGENT: Deadline for EHRC submissions brought forward to July 31

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has updated its website to say that the cut-off date for submissions to its inquiry into the Labour Party’s handling of antisemitism complaints is July 31.

The address for communications concerning the investigation is  [email protected].

JVL as an organisation is preparing its own submission. It has already provided some testimonies from members that were collected earlier in the year.

It is important that individuals intending to make their own submissions should refer to the EHRC’s full Terms of Reference which may be viewed and downloaded here.

The commission says:

We are using our powers under the Equality Act to open an investigation, which will look at:

  • whether unlawful acts have been committed by the Party or its employees or agents
  • the steps taken by the Party to implement the recommendations made in the reports on antisemitism by Baroness Royall, the Home Affairs Select Committee and in the Chakrabarti Report
  • whether the Rule Book and the Party’s investigatory and disciplinary processes have enabled or could enable it to deal efficiently and effectively with complaints of race or religion or belief discrimination and racial harassment or victimisation, including whether appropriate sanctions have been or could be applied
  • whether the Party has responded to complaints of unlawful acts in a lawful, efficient and effective manner

Section 7 of the Terms of Reference includes the following definitions:

p. ‘Protected racial characteristic’ means Jewish ethnicity

q. ‘Protected religion or belief characteristic’ means Judaism

r. ‘Race discrimination’ means direct discrimination or unjustified indirect race discrimination (as those terms are defined in the 2010 Act) because of the protected racial characteristic

s. ‘Religion or belief discrimination’ means direct discrimination or unjustified indirect religion or belief discrimination (as those terms are defined in the 2010 Act) because of the protected religious characteristic

t. ‘Harassment’ means harassment (as that term is defined in the 2010 Act) where the harassment relates to the protected racial characteristic

u. ‘Victimisation’ means victimisation (as that term is defined in the 2010 Act) where the protected act relates to the protected racial characteristic and/or the protected religious characteristic

v. ‘Unlawful acts’ means race discrimination and/or racial harassment and/or religion or belief discrimination and/or victimisation, as defined herein.

Section 8 states:

8. In the course of the investigation, the Commission may have regard to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and associated examples, while recognising it is a non-legally binding definition.


To seek JVL’s advice, email us here.

Comments (5)

  • Peter Rowlands says:

    I have been an active member of the Labour Party, in four different constituency parties, for 47 years, including being a parliamentary candidate, councillor and party office holder. I encountered some racism , in the 1980s, directed against some members of the local Asian community. However, I have never during this period encountered anti-semitism within the party.

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  • John Lipetz says:

    I’m happy that the EHRC is looking at the Labour party’s approach to anti-semitism but surely it should also be looking into islamophobia in the Conservative party ie it should be seen as a broadly balanced body. Notice the approach of the Muslim Council of Britain and Baroness Warsi’s comments.

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  • Pamlea Kettlety says:

    It is right that the EHRC is looking into the Labour party’s handling of this anti-Semitism issue, racism is on the increase within the UK and also Europe and beyond. All aspects need to be looked at – islamophobia is on the increase esp. in the conservative party within the UK. The potential leader (Boris Johnson) of the Conservatives has made obvious rascist remarks against Muslim culture. I am not Jewish but have Jewish friends within the labour party who are appalled at using the anti-Semitism issue to remove a democratically elected leader.

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  • Mark Francis says:

    The Labour Party is the ONLY party that has anti Semitism as a disciplinary offence. Perhaps the EHRC should be looking into other parties that apparently have procedures at all.
    Odd that…

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  • Paul Holmes says:

    Facts always trump hysteria…

    Fact one; after a tireless investigation by the NEC approximately 0.1% of the Labour Party membership posted any online material that could be considered in any way antisemitic, under the wide ranging definition of what might represent antisemitism.

    Fact two; only twelve Labour Party members, out of a membership of approximately 600,000 were expelled after the investigation, equating to 0.002% of our membership.

    Taking the two facts into account it would appear that antisemitism is in fact statistically negligible in the Labour Party. These are the key facts that all genuine Labour Party members should quote as a rebuttal versus the disgusting slurs that we are “institutionally racist and antisemitic.”

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