Keir Starmer: too much support for Israel and not enough for Jews?

A group of Jewish Labour Party members is calling on Keir Starmer to make amends for what they describe as “discriminatory treatment”.

Here‘s Jewish Voice for Labour:

Labour leader Keir Starmer is facing calls to acknowledge and make amends for discriminatory treatment of Jewish party members.

A legal letter to the party from Bindmans LLP on behalf of Jewish Voice for Labour sets out compelling evidence that Jews who disagree with the current leadership about Israel, Palestine, Zionism and antisemitism suffer disproportionately from the Party’s harsh disciplinary regime. Jewish members are 6 times more likely to be investigated and 9.5 times more likely to be expelled from the Labour Party for antisemitism than non-Jewish members (see Annex B).

The letter, copied to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, says the Party has failed to understand the diversity of opinion among British Jews and misconstrued criticism of Israel as antisemitism, illegitimately restricting the free expression of Jewish views on Israel and on Zionism. Associated restrictions on the rights of ­all party members are contrary to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and to the Party’s own rules.

Such practices undermine the Party’s commitment to eliminating antisemitism and are in conflict with Labour’s history as the party that pioneered laws against racial discrimination such as the Race Relations Acts of 1965, 1968 and 1976 and the Equality Acts of 2006 and 2010.

The letter notes the exclusion of non-Zionist Jews from consultation on and implementation of Labour’s complaints and disciplinary procedures, as referenced by Martin Forde KC in his report (pp. 110-12) on these matters.

The letter invites the Party to acknowledge that it: “is in breach of the Equality Act 2010 by discriminating unlawfully against its Jewish members and unlawfully harassing them in (a) the manner in which it investigates complaints made against them and (b) its failure to investigate complaints made by them.”

Details are summarised in a new update to the ongoing Crowd Justice appeal set up by Labour Activists 4 Justice.

Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the right margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/

6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical

7) Feel free to comment!

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.

The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here: