Kier Starmer has an opportunity to end for good the influence of the hard Left in parliament and the country

The former leader deserves to be expelled from the party and moderate former members welcomed back.

Source - Daily Telegraph 29/10/20

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It is inevitable that media and public attention will focus on Keir Starmer’s response to today’s publication by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) of its final report into Labour anti-Semitism. Little of what the commission has concluded is new or was not expected; what is new is the party leadership and how it responds. How will Starmer make things right?

Removing the party whip from his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, was a very good start, so Starmer should be given credit for that. Now he has to go further.

While it is reasonable and predictable that some will point the finger of blame at Starmer himself – after all, he remained on the front bench, campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn prime minister while knowing that the PM-in-waiting had been accused of enabling and tolerating anti-Semitism in the party – such accusations are largely (though not entirely) wide of the mark.

For me, as a Labour Party member for the last 34 years, 14 of them as a Labour MP, it was Peter Willsman’s outburst at a meeting of the party’s National Executive Committee in July 2018 that was the final straw. Not only did Willsman, a strong supporter of Corbyn, reveal himself to be a deranged conspiracy theorist, not only has this bigotry now been confirmed to be present at the highest levels of the party, but I knew that in the elections then underway Willsman would still win enough support from ordinary Labour members to be re-elected to the NEC.

And so it transpired. But by then, I had tendered my resignation. I simply could no longer justify paying a monthly fee to a party which was making life so unbearable for Jewish friends. At the time, I had no intention of publicising my decision; the fact only came to light because I foolishly confided in a friend who simply couldn’t resist gossiping to journalists. But when the inevitable calls came in from the press, I deliberately did not go off on one about Corbyn: this was a personal decision and my taking it did not reflect at all on the decision of the many decent, moderate people – many of them Jews themselves – who had resolved to stay and fight. I disagreed with them, they disagreed with me. And life went on.

Starmer made the decision to stay and fight. He could have resigned from the front bench (again) and allowed a Corbyn superfan, of which many had been elected in 2017, to replace him as shadow Brexit secretary. But like many front benchers, he chose not to do that, perhaps calculating that Labour had no chance of winning the next election anyway so the threat posed by Prime Minister Corbyn was minimal. It was a judgment call.

More important than what he and his colleagues did during Corbyn’s leadership is the question of what they do now. Obviously all the recommendations of the EHRC will have to be adopted without delay, and Starmer has confirmed this he will do.

But what about Corbyn now? What about all those on the hard Left, and their fellow travellers, who, either through deliberate intention or inaction encouraged or protected anti-Semites in their hate campaigns over the last five years? 

Starmer has been given an opportunity never afforded to any of his predecessors to end for good the influence of the hard Left in parliament and the country. Previous Labour leaders thought they could contain the likes of Corbyn and McDonnell, but we now know the grotesque chaos to which such complacency led.

Tony Blair, for example, could have made the decision that when the number of rebellions indulged in by the Campaign Group of Labour MPs reached three figures – when they had voted 100 times with the Conservatives against the Labour government – they should have the party whip removed and be banned from standing at future elections as Labour candidates. Alas, he did not, and so he and Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown need to accept at least part of the responsibility for the result of the party leadership election of 2015 – and all the consequences that flowed from it.

What better opportunity for dealing with Corbyn and his allies will any Labour leader get than a formal report by the EHRC detailing the grotesque failings of the last five years? More to the point, will Starmer’s insistence that he’s taking anti-Semitism seriously stand up to scrutiny if he fails to deal with the man whose improbable rise to the leadership opened the floodgates to people who think that the Jews are a problem and with the members of the hard Left who continue to idolise him?

Without the whip, Corbyn can no longer stand as a Labour candidate. But at the age of 71, he may not have intended to anyway. If this is as far as it goes, there will be many who feel he has got off lightly. He cannot be forced to stand down as an MP but he can be expelled from the party – others have suffered that fate for far less serious crimes than those of which he stands accused. When the Labour leader talks of action, this is the obvious course he needs to take. 

He can do more than that, of course. Although I am content to remain outside the party for the long term, I know there are many ex-members who left because of anti-Semitism and who would love to return, but fear the hostility, not just of the hard Left but of the moderates who stayed. Starmer must make it clear that anyone who resigned from the party on this issue – including former MPs who stood against Labour candidates last year – will be welcomed back into the fold with open arms, no need to forgive because they did nothing that requires forgiveness.

For the sake of his party, I hope Starmer has the courage to play this game out to the correct end.