OPINION: ‘Keir and I do not see EHRC decision as a moment to celebrate, but a time to apologise once again’
Labour general secretary David Evans writes exclusively for Jewish News in response to the EHRC decision to lift the party out of special measures
It won’t be news to the UK’s Jewish community that the Labour Party has had a problem with antisemitism.
But what I hope will be news, is that today marks an important milestone in our journey to tear it out by its roots.
In October 2020, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued its report into antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Having already begun work on addressing antisemitism in Labour, its findings didn’t come as surprise but were nonetheless shocking.
They represented a stain on the Labour Party and a breakdown
of trust between the Party, its Jewish members, the wider Jewish community and all those who were rightly outraged by what had happened under the previous leadership.
Photo credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
A two-year work programme started immediately to implement the ‘Action Plan for driving out Antisemitism’ agreed with the EHRC.
The EHRC monitored us closely. And today, they have announced that
the monitoring has formally concluded and we are out of special measures.
But of course, this is not the end. Rather, I see today’s announcement as another important step out of the morass we had got ourselves stuck in.
As Keir Starmer has said, we do not see this as a moment to
celebrate but rather as a moment of reflection; a time to apologise once again.
Ultimately, our success will be judged not by me, or Keir, or even by the EHRC, but by whether those who were so badly let down feel ready to call Labour their party again.
Words alone cannot fix the pain caused to our Jewish members and will not offer much solace to those who faced bullying or intimidation.
But I hope our actions which we have been judged on today, will go some
way to extending an olive branch to persuade those Jewish members to return.
In the 1980s I visited the concentration camp Sachsenhausen in Germany with a young delegation of the Greater London Association of Trades Council.
Like so many others that have made this trip, I was horrified
beyond words.
This harrowing experience has stayed with me all my life and has made me even more determined to ensure the party shows zero tolerance to any acts of antisemitism today.
Never did I imagine that so much of my time as general secretary would have to be spent dealing with that evil within this party.
Throughout the lifetime of the ‘Action Plan for driving out Antisemitism’, I chaired the Labour Party’s Advisory Board made up of senior representatives from the Jewish community.
This Board has helped us get where we are today. Board members held our feet to the fire and challenged us to make changes that will have a lasting impact in protecting Jewish members now and into the future.
As a result, I believe we are in a far better place to drive out antisemitism whenever it rears its ugly head.
We have professionalised how we handle our complaints procedures, with comprehensive training for those in the frontline of complaints and automated processes to give us the right data, tools and expertise.
This means we now deal with complaints more efficiently having long ago eliminated the backlog that had built up.
Antisemitism complaints to the Party have drastically reduced. They are half of what they were in 2020. But whilst we are pleased by this, we will not be rejoicing until that number drops completely.
We have set up two independent complaint boards so that professionals, independent of the Party, have the final say in all antisemitism complaints, as well as complaints involving other protected characteristics.
Alongside the Jewish Labour Movement, we have run a comprehensive antisemitism awareness training programme and as a result, have trained thousands of politicians, members and staff.
During 2021 and 2022, the NEC determined that a number of organisations were incompatible with the Party’s aims and values including those whose objectives included “campaign[ing] against the recommendations of the EHRC report” and who considered themselves a network for those expelled from Party by the “witch-hunt” against the left.
Since then, hundreds of individuals have had their Party
membership terminated for being members of, or having supported, such organisations.
Every one of these changes that we have made aren’t just fiddling around the edges or temporary fixes.
Keir and I are determined that they are permanent, fundamental and irrevocable changes.
So be in no doubt, whether you are inside or outside the party, we are never going back.
To those who hope this focus on tackling antisemitism will now pass, you couldn’t be more wrong.
And there is no place for you in today’s party.
But to those who are reassured by what we have done, who think we are going in the right direction, we need you.
Let’s keep changing Labour so we can rebuild trust with the public and then change the country to build a fairer, greener, more dynamic Britain where everyone is respected.
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