Charity Commission refuses to investigate the Campaign Against Antisemitism
JVL Introduction
In 2020 Jewish Voice for Labour made a complaint to the Charity Commission about the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
We were told that it was being investigated.
Two-and-a-half years into that supposed investigation we reported having informed the Charity Commission “of our concerns about the tone and content of Campaign Against Antisemitism’s published material and, in particular, its vituperative and unfounded attacks on Jeremy Corbyn and many others on the Labour left.”
We further noted that between April 2020 and June 2022, we had presented the Commission with five detailed submissions setting out evidence to show that “CAA is not a bona fide charity, but a partisan political campaigning group”.
Almost four years after the initial complaint the CC changed its tune. Suddenly, it claimed, on totally spurious grounds, that we were not competent to make such a complaint!
Despite providing clear evidence that we were indeed a legal person “affected by the registration of CAA”, and the detailed evidence we had submitted on the complaint itself, the Commission has now simply thrown in the towel and abandoned its investigation.
Will the Commission think again given the widespread disquiet about the CAA expressed across the political spectrum and by many within Britain’s Jewish communities?
We repost reports from the Guardian, Middle East Eye and the Morning Star each with their own emphases on the story.
RK
Charity Commission drops inquiry into Campaign Against Antisemitism
Regulator drops investigation four years after claims of political partisanship were raised
Haroon Siddique, Legal affairs correspondent, the Guardian, 28th May 2024
The Charity Commission has dropped its investigation into the Campaign Against Antisemitism – four years after the regulator was asked to look into allegations of political partisanship against the organisation.
The leftwing Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), which has faced criticism from the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), including being called a “sham Jewish representative organisation”, made a complaint against the CAA to the commission in 2020.
JVL, which has had dozens of members investigated by Labour for alleged antisemitism, was previously told by the commission that it was investigating the CAA, and the regulator gave a statement to the Guardian last year saying it had opened a regulatory compliance case into the charity.
However, earlier this month, the commission wrote to JVL saying that its application had been refused because it was not “a person that is or may be affected by the registration of CAA”, leading to consternation at JVL, given the length of time taken and the regulator’s previous statements.
The veteran human rights lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC said: “There can be no dispute that political campaigning requires investigation. The evidence provided by JVL is of CAA challenging criticism of Israeli policies and conduct towards Palestinians. This is clearly political.
“While combating antisemitism and other forms of racism is clearly a legitimate charitable purpose, attacking expressions of opinion about Israeli conduct towards Palestinians is not.”
Charity regulations state that “an organisation will not be charitable if its purposes are political”.
The Labour MP John McDonnell, who has been criticised by CAA in the past, and Rabbi Chaim Blayer, a community rabbi from north London, have also contacted the commission about the CAA investigation.
The CAA made the initial submission to the Equality and Human Rights Commission about antisemitism within Labour, which led to the watchdog finding that the party was responsible for unlawful harassment and discrimination.
During Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the CAA organised protests outside Labour HQ and a petition, the wording of which was changed from Corbyn “must go” to Labour “must act” after a previous regulatory compliance case led to the commission telling it to do so “to ensure it complied with our guidance on campaigning and political activity”.
In April the CAA was involved in controversy when it released a short video clip showing a Met sergeant telling its chief executive, Gideon Falter, that because he appeared “openly Jewish” he would not be allowed to walk across a pro-Palestinian protest march through central London. A longer version of the exchange showed the officer explaining he was concerned Falter was trying provoke a confrontation with marchers.
In April, three MPs accused the Charity Commission of acting unlawfully by failing to investigate campaigning by a thinktank – the Global Policy Warming Foundation – that questions climate science.
A Charity Commission spokesperson said: “We previously closed this regulatory compliance case after assessing the various concerns raised and issuing the charity with advice and guidance.
“After careful consideration of Jewish Voice for Labour’s specific request to remove the Campaign Against Antisemitism from the register of charities, we concluded it has not demonstrated it has the required legal standing to make such an application. Jewish Voice for Labour can ask for decision review if it disagrees with this decision.”
The CAA declined to comment.
UK charity regulator rejects Jewish Voice for Labour’s complaint against pro-Israel groupJewish Voice for Labour’s complaint against the Campaign Against Antisemitism dates back four years and centres on the latter’s alleged political activity
Imran Mulla, Middle East Eye, 28 May 2024
The UK’s charities regulator has rejected a request by a Jewish group in the Labour Party to investigate a pro-Israel charity.
In April 2020, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) filed a complaint with the Charity Commission against the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), accusing it of acting as a “highly politically partisan organisation which does not deserve charitable status”.
The CAA, which was founded in 2015 and says it is “dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism”, had played a leading role in antisemitism allegations against the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and has since pursued antisemitism complaints against Labour MPs.
In correspondence seen by MEE, the regulator told JVL on 8 May – over four years after its initial complaint – that it had “not made out a clear case that it is a person that is or may be affected by the registration of CAA”.
The regulator said: “We are therefore refusing your application on the basis that it has not been demonstrated that JVL has the standing to bring it.”
JVL had launched the complaint against the CAA around two years after it was targeted by the group. In April 2018, the CAA published an article where it referred to JVL as being “on the fringes of the Jewish community”. It also accused JVL of being “supportive of extreme elements” and of “cooperating” with organisations, such as the BDS Movement, which it said “camouflage themselves as anti-Zionists.”
JVL considered these accusations to be defamatory.
In its April 2020 complaint, JVL alleged that the CAA had engaged in the “persistent conflation and equating of antisemitism with criticism of the state of Israel” and “denouncing Labour Party activists as anti-semites” with “minimal” supporting evidence.
The group then launched another complaint on 15 March 2021, accusing the CAA of continuing to engage in such behaviour.
Later that year, in September 2021, the CAA described JVL as an “antisemitism-denial group” and a “sham Jewish representative organisation”.
In April 2022, JVL complained again to the Charity Commission after the CAA attacked journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown for writing that “criticism of the state of Israel is deemed anti-semitic.”
In January 2023, the Charity Commission said it was “assessing concerns” about the CAA and that it had opened a regulatory compliance case against the organisation, according to a report in the Guardian.
According to the UK’s charity law, an organisation cannot be a charity “if its purposes are political”.
‘A duty to investigate’
MEE understands that since the 8 May decision, JVL has written to the Charity Commission’s customer relations manager raising concerns over the handling of the case and that those concerns are being considered.
Labour’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP, among others, has since written to the Charity Commission asking for information about its progress investigating the CAA.
Rabbi Chaim Blayer, a Jewish community rabbi working in north London, has also sought such clarification from the Charity Commission.
In his email on Thursday 23 May, seen by MEE, Blayer asserted that “the conduct of the Chief Executive of the CAA has misrepresented the experience and views of many Jews in the UK about peaceful protest against the actions of the Zionist State of Israel”.
Sir Geoffrey Bindman, a prominent lawyer and writer on human rights, and the founder of law firm Birdman & Partners, told MEE that he believed the Charity Commission still had a “duty” to investigate JVL’s complaint.
“Challenging antisemitism and other forms of racism is clearly a legitimate charitable purpose. Attacking expressions of opinion about the conduct of the State of Israel towards Palestinians is not,” he said.
“The Charity Commission has a duty to investigate evidence of the latter supplied by Jewish Voice for Labour.”
MEE has contacted the Charity Commission and requested an update on the case.
The CAA has recently drawn public scrutiny after it released footage in April 2024 showing its CEO, Gideon Falter, being told by a police officer at a pro-Palestinian protest that his “openly Jewish” appearance could antagonise protesters.
The incident led to widespread condemnation of the police officer, but a longer video released later showed the officer saying that Falter had walked into the middle of the march, and was “looking to try and antagonise”.
Lord Mann, the government’s antisemitism tsar, said Falter’s intention at the protest had been “quite explicit” – and accused the CAA of “not playing it straight”.
The CAA has previously been criticised for its activities.
In 2015 the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism said: “It is important that the [CAA’s] leadership do not conflate concerns about activity legitimately protesting Israel’s actions with antisemitism, as we have seen has been the case on some occasions.”
In July 2022 Labour MP Margaret Hodge tweeted: “I’m fed up of CAA using antisemitism as a front to attack Labour. Time to call them out for what and who they really are. More concerned with undermining Labour than rooting out antisemitism.”
Reposted with permission from Middle East Eye
Charity regulator closes investigation into Campaign Against Anti-Semitism after four years of complaints
Elizabeth Short, Morning Star, 28th May 2024
JEWISH campaigners renewed calls today for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) to lose its charity registration after the Charity Commission closed an investigation into the group.
Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) began demanding a probe more than four years ago, accusing the group of political partisanship.
The campaign, which raised anti-semitism allegations against Labour when it was led by Jeremy Corbyn, has branded JVL a “sham” Jewish organisation.
A string of defamatory remarks directed at the left-wing group include a claim that its members are anti-semitism deniers and “supportive of extreme elements.”
The commission said it had opened a regulatory compliance case last year.
But earlier this month, the regulator claimed that JVL had failed to make “a clear case that it is a person that is or may be affected by the registration of CAA.”
JVL co-chairwoman Jenny Manson said she was very “disturbed” to learn that a statuary body “thinks they can shut up what they consider to be minority voices.”
She said that the campaign’s mode of operation “is to use anti-semitism as the tool to silence critics of Israel.”
An organisation cannot be registered as a charity “if its purposes are political,” the commission’s guidelines say.
Lawyer Geoffery Bindman KC said: “The evidence provided by JVL is of CAA challenging criticism of Israeli policies and conduct towards Palestinians. This is clearly political.
“While combating anti-semitism and other forms of racism is clearly a legitimate charitable purpose, attacking expressions of opinion about Israeli conduct towards Palestinians is not.”
North London community rabbi Chaim Blayer also wrote to the commission backing the call for an investigation, saying that CAA messaging tends towards “generating division” between Jewish groups.
He accused campaign leader Gideon Falter of having “misrepresented the experience and views of many Jews” concerning peaceful protest against Israel’s actions.
Mr Falter has claimed that “terrorism is glorified” at pro-Palestinian marches and called for the army to be deployed against them.
He has been accused by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign of attempting to start a provocation at a march last month.
The CAA also shared proposed measures on how to police the marches with the Home Office, which it says were echoed in Lord Walney’s report on curbing protests.
Ms Manson said that the campaign was giving “ammunition” to “dangerous nonsense” around the marches and is, alongside the government, aiming to “split us from Muslim communities, split us from each other and split us from decent thinking.”
A Charity Commission spokesperson said the regulatory compliance case had been closed “after assessing the various concerns raised and issuing the charity with advice and guidance.”
On the JVL request to remove CAA from the charity register, the commission “concluded it has not demonstrated it has the required legal standing to make such an application,” adding that JVL could ask for the decision to be reviewed.
I seem to remember the CAA just before the 2019 election published a document outlining the “antisemitism” of most of the members of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Of course many of them are in Starmer’s team now. I can’t find the document online now. Can anyone point me to it, or perhaps JVL could upload it.
Please don’t give up. We need your persistence.
Given the CAA regularly refer to Jeremy as the antisemitic former leader of the LP and the antisemite Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitic Jeremy Corbyn (in articles on their website), then all the Charity Commission has to do is to ask the CAA if they have ever reported him to the police, and if they say they haven’t, ask them why not.
There is of course no possible reason/excuse why they wouldn’t have done – which I think we can be 100% certain they haven’t, because not only would they themselves have posted about it on their website, but also informed the media they had and, as such, it would have been all over the MSM – and THAT in itself is surely absolute proof that they are first and foremost a propaganda outfit.
That said, the CC of course knows damn well that they are, as does just about everyone on the left, and just about everyone on the right.
JVL should request the Charity Commission to ascertain whether the CAA has or has not reported Jeremy to the police for antisemitism and, as such, put the Commission on the spot.
NB I think we can safely assume that none of the groups and organisations and individuals who have repeatedly accused Jeremy of A/S or called him an antisemite during the past eight years or so have ever reported him to the police. JVL should ALSO mention this fact to the Commission as well.
And ask them why they think that is!
What have they been doing for 4 years?!!!! No wonder we have no faith in public institutions and their cover-ups. I’ve just sent in my own complaint demanding the Charities Commission look at the substance of the JVL’s very detailed submissions and if they disagree, explain publicly why and on what grounds. This is beyond belief.
This is very much par for the course where the Charity Commission is concerned. At the Stop the JNF campaign, we have tried on two occasions to challenge the JNF’s right to be regarded as a charity in the UK.
On the second occasion we had the cooperation of a Palestinian who still had the deeds to her family’s land and property available for scrutiny and the tax-paid receipts from the British Mandatory Authority. The JNF had appropriated this land as part of its “ecological” work of disguising crime scenes as parks in the years after 1948. In this case, the land was planted with trees and became part of “British” or “Britanya” Park. (sic)
Our case was rejected at the Manchester hearing because the court decided that our Palestinian colleague did not have “standing”. In other words, ownership and the paperwork to prove it counted for nothing. The court decided that even if a decision was reached in a UK court that the JNF had stolen the land, it would have no consequence in Israel and so the case fell there and then, before it was even properly investigated – just as with the JVL. (For further details see the “Stop the JNF” website.)
The JNF list of patrons may give some indication as to why the CC behaves as it does with respect to its “charitable” work.
This is truly scandalous. In 2022, I published jointly with Dr Jan Deckers an article called “What is wrong with the IHRA definition” in the journal of moral philosophy ResPublica: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11158-022-09553-4. We systematically analysed pages of 19 individual members (including some ex-members of the Labour Party, where it lists what it calls antisemitic ‘incidents’, and were able to show that the people concerned were not making indiscriminate generalisations about all Jews. CAA therefore had no basis for asserting that their statements stemned from antipathy towards Jews as an ethnicity. We went on to argue that CAA’s reasoning was a form of ‘double-think’; by pivoting its accusations first and foremost on IHRA example 2, which is about Jews exercising power over societal institutions, it was in fact objecting to people speaking of the power that CAA and similar pro-Israeli organisations themselves (sought to) exercise.
I hope JVL will check this article carefully for evidence that might assist in appealing against this travesty of justice.
I myself complained about CAA to the Charity Commission in 2018 and sent them a reminder after they failed to acknowledge my letter, which was sent in the post (I can understand how email communications don’t always get noticed). This was after CAA sent me an aggressive email saying that they were going to expose me as a supporter of antisemites in the Labour Party and asking me for any comments before they were due to publish. It was both inaccurate and intimidatory. I replied, refuting their allegations but I quoted their communication when writing to the Charity Commission. I am surprised that the Commission never gave me a decision or engaged with my complaint, and I assume that it is actually understaffed, probably toothless, probably unwilling to intervene except in the sort of cases where charity money is being embezzled.
If JVL is not “a person that is or may be affected by the registration of CAA”, then surely it would only take a matter of a few days at the very most for the folks at the CC to determine that, and no way on this planet would it take nearly four years for them to do so.
I have little doubt – as has been quite evident for a long time – that they have been treating JVL with contempt from the outset AND playing games with your emotions – ie evoking the emotions of frustration and anger, and then hope (that you now appeared to be getting somewhere as of last year), and then finally anger and outrage and exasperation and indignation at being blatantly dismissed and discounted and insulted.
The sort of thing that psychopaths just luurve and thoroughly enjoy doing to empaths.