Met chief says police to examine incidents of online Labour anti-Semitism

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick says the force will examine a file of dozens of incidents of online anti-Semitism by Labour Party members to consider whether anything constitutes a hate crime.

The file, of unknown origin, was passed to the country’s top police chief by LBC Radio, and Dick said she would hand it to her experts to see whether crimes have been committed.

The radio station announced the news on Tuesday – hours before Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) was due to meet to discuss its new code of conduct on anti-Semitism. It has been criticised for not replicating word-for-word the 11 examples of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.

Among the comments is one reading: “We shall rid the Jews who are cancer on us all… Zionist extremist MP who hates civilised people about to get a good kicking.” In another file, a serving Labour councillor is accused of inflicting “ten years of hell” on a child, calling him a “Jew boy”. In another, the prison sentence for a former Auschwitz guard is described as “a travesty of justice”.

Mak Chishty, who formerly dealt with hate crime for the Met police, told the radio show that he had reviewed all 45 anti-Semitism cases within the dossier and felt 17 should have been reported to the police as a race-hate incident for investigation. He added that a further four warrant a criminal investigation.

Speaking on the show, Simon Johnson, the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, asked why these cases had not been passed to the Met before now if they could constitute crimes.

“If so many of these cases are serious enough to be referred to the police and yet Labour is dragging their heels in dealing with them, that clearly contributes to the complete lack of confidence that the Jewish community has in the way Labour is dealing with these at the moment,” he said.

“If Jeremy Corbyn was a competent leader, he would have already dealt with these cases of anti-Semitism months ago. He would have rid this party of the stain that now affects them.”