Forde Report adds impetus to Grassroots5 in NEC elections

By Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, G5 candidate

Neither the two year delay, nor its sly appearance on the hottest day on record in the midst of a Tory leadership crisis, can divert us from the explosive significance of the Forde Report. At last we know what the QC and his panel have gleaned from many months probing the entrails of the Labour Party as described in Leaked Report of April 2020.

Despite the report’s tortuous attempts to appear balanced between right and left, Martin Forde’s conclusion is inescapable – the Labour Party machine has been in the grip of a clique interested only in vilifying the Corbyn leadership and gutting the socialist membership base.

For those of us still fighting for the soul of an organisation created as the political voice of the organised working class, Forde gives us a new impetus – I would say an imperative – to unite around the many principles that inspire us. Put simply, these are fighting the Tories (regardless of which execrable leader they choose); for peace, justice and equality; against racism, austerity and war. If the party is to be true to these principles, we must also fight within for freedom of expression, democracy, fair disciplinary processes transparently implemented and respectful debate on contested issues. Forde has handed us a number of potent weapons to use in this fight, at every level of the party, during the campaign to get the G5 candidates elected, and ultimately on the NEC itself.

There are numerous analyses of the report now in circulation, many of them republished on this blog, so I will just give a few pointers here – plenty for members to mobilise around as we campaign for representation on the NEC.

1. The right wingers are to blame

When Forde exposes machinations on the part of the right wing, he backs it up with powerful facts, not only from the Leaked Report but also from his panel’s detailed research. When the report suggests “both side” were equally bad, no evidence is presented. Despite the almost unanimous refusal of the mainstream media to acknowledge it, we have a duty to ensure that every party member understands that this is the case.

We need explanations, and apologies, from those in the current leadership who deny that the machinations occurred and have defended those responsible.

2. The party culture is as vicious as the Leaked Report suggested

Forde shows that the Leaked Report was measured and reasonable, not a biased Corbynite apologia as alleged by almost every media pundit and politician. In particular, WhatsApp messages between senior staff demonstrating horrifying levels of nastiness were fairly presented, not cherry-picked to show honourable, hard-working staff in a bad light.

Forde actually says (p.26) “There are a significant number of comments in the transcripts which were not quoted in the Leaked Report but which demonstrate the same kind of hostility as those that were.”

We must demand that those responsible for such behaviour are disciplined if they remain in the party, and that procedures are in place to make it impossible for such a culture to persist.

3. Unelected party staff deliberately undermined the elected leadership

Forde comes down firmly in favour of the Leaked Report’s conclusion that the “validation exercises” of 2015 and 2016 were designed to exclude Corbyn supporters from voting in the two leadership elections. Staff too busy “Trotspotting” to deal with complaints and disciplinary action on antisemitism and other cases, blamed Corbyn’s LOTO (Leader of the Opposition) team and Left NEC members for blocking their noble efforts.

Senior staff mourned successes by Corbyn and his allies and celebrated their defeats, including those they themselves helped to bring about. Funds were diverted from election campaigns supporting leftwing MPs to help those on the right of the party.

We need a comprehensive review of what went on at that time, in particular whether the diversion of funds amounted to criminal acts.

4. The party operates a hierarchy of racism and discrimination

Forde’s report leaves no doubt that many genuine complaints of antisemitism and other forms of racism, Islamophobia and sexual harassment, were ignored, while Governance and Legal Unit staff pursued a campaign to root out people on the left. At the same time, GLU’s focus on antisemitism in its disciplinary regime resulted in a hierarchy of forms of discrimination, to the detriment of Muslims, Black, Brown and GRT people, and women.

Forde puts it succinctly (p81), citing members’ concerns “that the attention to the surge of cases relating to antisemitism and the importance they appeared to play in the interfactional conflict meant that the Party was in effect operating a hierarchy of racism or of discrimination, with other forms of racism and discrimination being ignored. For a Party which seeks to be a standard bearer of progressive politics, equality, and workers’ rights, this is an untenable situation. The Party must live by its values and lead by example.”

We need a review capable of bringing to light complaints that have been ignored or unjustly rejected. There must be transparency where for the last several years members have been treated with contempt and kept in the dark.

5. Corbyn’s team did not interfere in discipline cases to protect antisemites

Far from the Corbyn leadership and NEC left wingers preventing the GLU team from pursuing antisemites in the party, Forde bears out the opposite narrative of the Leaked Report: it was the GLU team that failed to do the job properly, because of factionalism and incompetence. Forde’s report is explicit about specific allegations from those hostile to Corbyn, that emails between LOTO and GLU in March /April 2018 show that it was LOTO trying to get the processes speeded up, rather than LOTO protecting those accused of antisemitism.

It says the narrative put forward was “partial and misleading” and that “advice from two LOTO staff members which was subsequently criticised was, however, requested insistently by GLU and in our view provided in good faith; one LOTO staff member in particular was thanked effusively by GLU for giving it… in our view it is entirely misleading, however, to imply that these emails in themselves were evidence of those LOTO staff members inserting themselves unbidden into the disciplinary process for factional reasons.”

It’s unfortunate that Forde reproduces the Leaked Report’s failure to challenge the underlying misapprehension, now almost universal in the UK, that the Labour Party under Corbyn was in the grip of a massive antisemitism epidemic and that only a tiny minority of “hard left” fanatics were in denial about it.

JVL, repeatedly accused of “denialism”, has never claimed there is no antisemitism in Labour. We’ve looked at the evidence and understand full well that prejudice against Jews exists in the party, as in the wider society. But it is not remotely on the scale alleged, and it is often the wrong people who are accused and punished.

We have to demand apologies from those, in the party and in the media, who spread such damaging falsehoods, and challenge those who continue to do so.

6. Antisemitism has been exploited for factional purposes

Forde’s inquiries led him inexorably to the conclusion that “some opponents of Jeremy Corbyn saw the issue of antisemitism as a means of attacking him.”  They “treated it as a factional weapon.” That is, antisemitism was weaponised for factional purposes – a statement which has been quoted in evidence against many a hapless member on the left presented with a Notice of Investigation or Suspension.

Oddly, Forde says that “both factions” were guilty of this weaponisation. It’s difficult to see how that can be squared with the relentless way in which allegations of antisemitism were used to demonise and undermine Corbyn and his many thousands of supporters, with no corresponding pushback from LOTO. The deployment of dubious accusations against socialist members to suspend them for long periods, exclude them from office, remove them from election shortlists and even unseat sitting councillors, has no counterpart in the behaviour of the left towards the right. One can only speak in such terms if you back away from examining the sloppy ideas about what antisemitism is that have shaped the damaging narrative of the last few years.

Now that we have it on the authority of a QC, commissioned by the party, that antisemitism has been deployed as a factional weapon against the left, we must insist on correctly writing the history of the Corbyn period and exonerating those unjustly accused. Jeremy Corbyn himself must be reinstated as a Labour MP.

7. We need education about racism, not antisemitism “training” from a sectional point of view

Forde is damning in his conclusions on the Party’s attempts to deal with antisemitism. Top-down training delivered by the Jewish Labour Movement is “one dimensional,” the report says, providing no safe space to explore and reflect on difficult issues, such as attitudes towards Israel, in a nuanced way. It fails to provide what is needed – a model of education requiring engagement and deep listening by all participants, that seeks to disentangle issues concerning discrimination within the Party from ongoing factional battles, to help people grapple with the complexities of the issues themselves (rather than merely being the recipient of a particular policy). It should be about promoting personal change…rather than relying on a ‘zero- tolerance’ disciplinary approach with expulsions (although disciplinary action and expulsions may be appropriate in extreme cases). Antisemitism education should not be divorced from that on all forms of racism.

These are wise words, and might not have been necessary if the party had implemented recommendations from Shami Chakrabarti in her report in June 2016, which called for training in equality and diversity to be done not by partisan groups, but in collaboration with the Trade Unions and with Higher Education Institutions.

Both Forde’s and Chakrabarti’s thoughts are echoed in the work of JVL which has been delivering interactive antisemitism education workshops successfully for the last few years, much to the chagrin of the JLM. Tellingly Forde says he is “disappointed that there has been a refusal to engage at all with Jewish Voice for Labour’s proposals for antisemitism education and that CLPs are, we are told, not even allowed to enlist their help.”

The party needs to revisit its one-dimensional, punitive model of training which silences dissenting views (especially about Palestine) and engage with JVL and others who are equipped to develop programmes which help people evolve and learn.