Apollonian
Guest Columnist
Labour has secretly suspended 50 members for anti-Semitic and racist comments
Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...suspended-50-members-for-anti-semitic-and-ra/
By Kate McCann, Senior Political Correspondent
2 May 2016 • 10:51pm
Labour has secretly suspended 50 of its members over anti-Semitic and racist comments as officials struggle to cope with the crisis engulfing the party.
Senior sources reveal that Labour's compliance unit has been swamped by the influx of hard-left supporters following Jeremy Corbyn's election.
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The suspensions that have been made public so far are said to be just the tip of the iceberg.
On Monday night Mr Corbyn appeared to acknowledge there was a problem for the first time, while insisting it was "not huge". He told the Daily Mirror: "What there is is a very small number of people that have said things that they should not have done. We have therefore said they will be suspended and investigated."
Nah Shah was suspended for comments she made about the "relocation" of Israel
There is growing pressure on the Labour leader ahead of the local elections on Thursday, in which his party is forecast to lose more than 100 seats.
Senior figures are now so concerned about the row that they are openly discussing the possibility of an attempted coup following the EU referendum.
MPs are said to be plotting a coup to remove Mr Corbyn after the election if things go badly, with shadow chancellor John McDonnell poised to take over.
It prompted Mr McDonnell to issue an extraordinary denial of the claims on Monday night.
“What we see, to our sadness, [is] a pretty serious problem in the current party membership”
Jonathan Arkush, Board of Deputies of British Jews
He said: "Media and right wing dirty tricks and lies trying to divide me and Jeremy. They should know it only unites us even more and makes us stronger."
Also on Sunday night shadow education secretary Lucy Powell became the first shadow cabinet minister to acknowledge the party had a problem with anti-Semitism.
She told Channel 4 News : "There clearly is an issue with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party otherwise we wouldn't have spent the best part of the last six or seven days talking about it.
"I think it is a very small element within the Labour Party and probably a small element in wider society as well. And that's why we are taking swift action to root it out."
On Monday it emerged that the party suspended three councillors within seven hours over a series of allegedly anti-Semitic posts on Twitter and Facebook.
Two of them had called for Israeli Jews to be relocated to America while a third compared a former Premier League footballer to Hitler.
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A senior source within the party told The Telegraph that the problem went much further and the compliance unit has actually suspended 50 members in the past two months.
They include up to 20 members within the past two weeks alone, with the unit struggling to cope because it does not have necessary resources.
Only 13 Labour members have been publicly named since October after being suspended. The source said: "There are just six people in the compliance unit with one more joining after the EU referendum and frankly, it's nowhere near enough.
"They can't cope with the number of new members that have joined since Jeremy became leader, they need more resources."
John McDonnell once called for an end to the compliance unit
Mr Corbyn is facing one of the most dangerous periods of his leadership after he was last week forced to suspend Naz Shah, a Labour MP, and Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, over alleged anti-Semitic comments.
Jonathan Arkush, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that Mr Corbyn's failure to accept that there was a more widespread problem is "an issue in itself".
He said: "Labour will need to consider whether the compliance unit is the right approach or whether there needs to be a stronger mechanism to deal with what we see, to our sadness, to be a pretty serious problem in the current party membership."
John Woodcock, a Labour MP and critic of Mr Corbyn, said: "The Labour party should make public the number of incidents it has had reported in recent years to the present, we mustn't allow any impression that we are seeking to minimise this very serious issue or sweep it under the carpet."
Mr McDonnell has previously called for the compliance unit to be scrapped altogether. His intervention was described as "sickeningly irresponsible".
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It came as Emma Thompson, previously one of Labour's key supporters, admitted she will not vote for the party in the forthcoming Mayoral election because she no longer feels that the party reflects her views.
Tom Watson, Labour's Deputy Leader, voiced concerns that the anti-Semitism row could damage the party's prospects in the local election.
“We mustn't allow any impression that we are seeking to minimise this very serious issue or sweep it under the carpet”
John Woodcock MP
Sadiq Khan, the party's London Mayoral candidate, has also raised concerns that he may lose because of the row. Despite the row Mr Corbyn and his allies have sought to downplay the problem.
Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary, said claims that Labour has a problem with anti-semitism are a "smear" while Len McCluskey, the leader of the Unite union, accused critics of using the row to undermine the Labour leader.
One Labour MP said:"There's clearly a problem that needs to be dealt with and it's not right that well known figures in Labour like Jeremy and Diane and Len are constantly trying to downplay the issue when there is an problem that we need to address.
"People would have much more trust if we set out openly the scale of the issue we are facing and publish the number of people who have been suspended."
Labour was on Monday forced to suspended three councillors within seven hours over material on Twitter and Facebook.
Mr Aziz posted this image to Facebook
Ilyas Aziz, a Nottingham councillor, was suspended when it emerged that he said on Facebook that “it would be wiser to create Israel in America it’s big enough. They could relocate even now [sic]”.
Salim Mulla, a former mayor of Blackburn, was suspended a few hours later when it was found that he had posted the same graphic proposing Israel’s relocation to the United States.
Shah Hussain, of Burnley council, tweeted to Israeli footballer Yossi Bennayouyn that “you and your country doing the same thing that hitler did to ur race in ww2 [sic]”.
Speaking to The Telegraph Mr Aziz denied that the comments he posted were anti-Semitic and insisted that the media was "trying to stir up trouble".
The compliance unit suspends members who are reported for "bringing the party into disrepute". It assesses material on social media websites and elsewhere and then launches a formal investigation.
A source close to the Labour leader said the party does not comment on the number of suspensions but added that Diane Abbott said on Sunday that there have been "12 reported incidents of anti-Semitism" in the party.
Naz Shah, Ken Livingstone and Labour's anti-Semitism crisis
Wednesday April 27 - afternoon
Naz Shah suspended
To begin with, the Labour party said its MP for Bradford West "didn't mean what she said" back in 2014, and Naz Shah made an apology in the House of Commons for sharing posts considered anti-Semitic on her Facebook wall before she became an MP (see video above).
But by the end of the day, she was eventually suspended from Labour, after widespread outrage inside - and outside - the party.
Thusday 28 April - morning
Enter Ken Livingstone, to defend Naz Shah's comments
The following morning, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone stepped into the media spotlight to defend Ms Shah:
“Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 – his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel,” he told BBC London. “He was supporting Zionism. This before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews.”
Thursday April 28 - lunchtime
Labour's John Mann MP confronts Labour's Ken Livingstone
John Mann MP didn't appreciate Mr Livingstone's comments, and called him a racist and Nazi apologist - in front of TV cameras and journalists.
All the while, Livingstone was on the phone to LBC radio, attempting to explain his earlier comments to BBC London...
April 28 2016 - afternoon
Livingstone hides in the loo
Ken Livingstone leaves BBC studios - in which he was again confronted by Mr Mann, this time on live TV - to find a pack of journalists waiting for him.
So decides to hide out in a disabled loo.
Thursday April 28 - afternoon
Labour suspends Livingstone
After calls from multiple Labour MPs, including from the front bench, Ken Livingstone is suspended from the party, pending an investigation, "for bringing the Party into disrepute".
Jeremy Corbyn insists "we will not tolerate anti-Semitism in any form" (see vido above)
Meanwhile, Mr Mann was summoned to the Labour whip for a telling off, after his public confrontation with Mr Livingstone.
Thursday April 28 - evening
Livingstone says he's not making a comment until Saturday
Friday April 29 - morning
Livingstone makes a comment...
Despite saying he absolutely wouldn't be speaking to the press before his own LBC Radio Show on Saturday 30 April, Mr Livingstone spoke to the Evening Standard: “Everything I said yesterday was true and I will be presenting the academic book about that to the Labour Party inquiry."
Earlier in the day, he gave reporters on his doorstep an insight into how he would be spending his day: "Taking Coco (his dog) for a walk, then I'm coming back to do the washing, then I'm moving the newts and pond weed from my old to my new pond. I need to move the newts and the old pond is past its sell-by date."
Friday April 29 - lunchtime
'How can the truth be an offence?'
The former London Mayor gives another interview, this time to Sky News, saying Labour should reinstate him, as he was only stating the truth.
"How can the truth be an offence - if I had lied that would be offensive," he said. "I'll just produce the evidence and I mean it's hard for somebody to decide to suspend me from the party here when all this was there 30 years ago in the public domain and nobody raised a peep."
Saturday April 30 - morning
'My critics lied'
In a remarkable 30 minutes of radio, Mr Livingstone is interviewed on LBC and apologises for upsetting people, but says the only reason his comments could have caused offence is because they have been distorted.
"It's caused offence because people have distorted it and said this is anti-Semitic to have said it. They've lied in doing that. It's not caused by me saying the truth", he said, saying the storm had been caused by MPs trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
He has suggested it is all a conspiracy, with some members of the Labour party preferring to see "the Tories elected" than Mr Corbyn.