Contrary To Natural Justice

From Labour Briefing a report by Pete Firmin of the CWU and Hampstead & Kilburn CLP on the strangulation of free speech in the British Labour Party.

Earlier This Year the Labour Party was under intense pressure to hand over disciplinary action to an ‘independent body.’ The pressure came from those claiming the party is institutionally anti-Semitic and not dealing with cases rigorously and quickly enough.

There were even calls that when antisemitism is alleged, people should be immediately expelled. These calls came from the likes of Margaret Hodge, Tom Watson and the Jewish Labour Movement, all of whom have clearly pledged themselves to undermine and, if possible, bring down, Jeremy Corbyn by whatever means they can. They extrapolate from the few isolated cases of hatred of Jews to claim the party is riddled with them, and they consider all critics of Israel to be fair game.

The party has had the good sense to reject such independent oversight, especially as ‘independent’ means acceptable to those who want to see supporters of the Palestinians purged from the party. However, a proposal for a rule change going to the party’s National Executive (NEC) on September 17th and then to party conference will bring in ‘fast track’ procedures. This was discussed at the NEC meeting in July and involves `extreme’ cases of antisemitism being considered not by the National Constitutional Committee (NCC), but by a meeting of either the NEC officers or an NEC disputes panel. The precise form of the rule change to go to conference is not yet known, but the flaws in such a change are clear.

Continue Reading @ Labour Briefing.