Three weeks after his suspension over serious antisemitism charges, Jeremy Corbyn has been readmitted to the United Kingdom’s Labour Party.
Last month, UK’s official human rights watchdog, Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), released a report confirming widespread antisemitism in the country’s main opposition party when Corbyn was at its helm between 2015 and 2020.
The EHRC’s report found Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership guilty on three counts, namely of “political interference in antisemitism complaints, failure to provide adequate training to those handling antisemitism complaints, [and] harassment.” The investigation concluded that “there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for which the Labour Party is responsible.”
The former party leader was suspended shortly after the report’s publication for trying to dismiss the damning findings. His ouster was seen as a desperate attempt by the current party chief, Keir Starmer, to restore the party’s image, which suffered a historic defeat in last year’s general election.
Despite Corbyn’s re-admission, party chief Starmer has denied him the parliamentary ‘whip,’ thereby stripping him of Labour Party affiliation in the British Lower House. He will now sit in the parliamentary as an independent lawmaker.
“Having the whip taken away is considered a serious punishment by a party,” BBC noted. Corbyn may be “classed as an independent and cannot run for the party in the next election, unless that whip is restored,” the broadcaster added.
UK’s Sky News reported the readmission of the disgraced former leader to the party:
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will be readmitted to the party following a row over antisemitism complaints.
The Islington MP was suspended several weeks ago for his response to a report by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). (…)
On Tuesday, a five-member disciplinary panel from Labour’s National Executive Committee met and decided Mr Corbyn should be reinstated.
Afterwards, he tweeted: “I am pleased to have been reinstated in the Labour Party and would like to thank party members, trade unionists and all who have offered solidarity.
The current party leader Keir Starmer was criticized by some Labour lawmakers for letting Corbyn back into the organization, the UK media reported.
Party leadership faces “a mutiny from his own MPs” for readmitting Corbyn, British newspaper The Telegraph commented. Corbyn “had refused to apologise for playing down the scale of the problem in the party, and his readmittance sparked a major new row over anti-Semitism which threatens to undermine Sir Keir’s pledge to clean up Labour,” the newspaper added.
London-based daily The Independent reported the reaction of the members of the UK Jewish community:
Margaret Hodge, one of the Jewish Labour MPs who suffered abuse and threats from what appeared to be Mr Corbyn’s supporters, attacked “a broken outcome from a broken system”.
“A factional, opaque and dysfunctional complaints process could never reach a fair conclusion. This is exactly why the EHRC instructed Labour to set up an independent process!”
The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned what it called Mr Corbyn’s “pathetic non-apology”, urging Sir Keir to put it in the “dustbin of history”.
The Jewish Labour Movement said: “Once again we find ourselves having to remind the Labour Party that Jeremy Corbyn is not the victim of antisemitism – Jewish members are.”
Corbyn, who himself has a history of associating with known antisemites, Holocaust-deniers, and Palestinian terrorists, “encouraged and endorsed” Jew-haters in the party, senior Labour politician Robert Winston admitted in 2018. Threats and attacks on Jews were rampant under Corbyn’s rule. Labour’s Jewish lawmaker, Luciana Berger, attended the 2018 party annual conference under police protection.
The former Labour leader once famously called Hamas and Hezbollah, both terrorist groups with Jewish blood on their hands, “friends.” He was caught placing a wreath in 2014 at the graves of Arab terrorists who had killed eleven Israeli team members at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Corbyn has repeatedly run into trouble for associating with Islamist organizations and activists. The ex-Labour chief criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s October 2019 decision to take out the Islamic State chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He also advocated for the early release of convicted Islamic terrorists serving in British prisons.
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