Forde is being ignored and it matters for this election
JVL Introduction
As requested by Sir Keir Starmer, Martin Forde KC conducted his investigation and, among other things, identified a hierarchy of racism within the Party with antisemitism being taken more seriously than anti Black racism or Islamophobia, for example. Labour claims to have implemented most of the 165 recommendations, but has largely ignored the man himself and rejects the idea that antisemitism is considered more important than other forms of racism.
Last year Martin Forde was interviewed by Al Jazeera where he said: “no one from Labour had been willing to discuss the recommendations further”
Labour’s response to this interview was to send “Mr Forde a robust legal letter”…”accusing him of acting against the party’s interests and advising him that it was “considering all of its options”.”
NEC member Mish Rahman said:“This legal threat from the Labour Party to Mr Forde is consistent with the behaviour of Starmer’s Labour Party, which is intent on cracking down on any dissent or criticism rather than the actual perpetrators of racism,” …“We also saw this in the party’s pursuit of those it believed had leaked evidence of racism, and its defence of those who had made racist and bigoted comments.”
It matters for the election; we have seen how Diane Abbott and Faiza Shaheen were treated and we have seen many resignations, in no small part because of the Party’s refusal to oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza.
LL
This article was originally published by The Independent on Wed 19 Jun 2024. Read the original here.
Labour tried to gag Black lawyer who wrote party’s own racism report
Exclusive: Martin Forde KC says people will see letter from party responding to his criticisms as a ‘collateral attack on a Black professional’
Speaking exclusively to The Independent, Mr Forde said he was ‘irritated’ by Labour’s suggestion that he lacks professionalism
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“We [the party leadership]are proud the party has completed work on the recommendations made by Martin Forde, and want to place on record, once again, our thanks to Martin for his hard work.”
Strange, is it not, that Martin Forde has a very different assessment of the LP’s inaction on its much delayed publication of his report (well, not really strange). That the report’s findings were withheld for so long, for no legitimate reason, was but one example of the style of the ‘changed party’.