Analysis comment

Video: in 2019, EHRC told BBC it wouldn’t allow anyone with conflict of interest to take part in Labour probe. This week it defended its director who failed to disclose donations to Tories

Only last year, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s own chief executive questioned its independence and criticised its chair for refusing to ‘take a public position’ on key issues embarrassing to the Tories.

When the BBC approached the EHRC for comment, it claimed it took its ‘independence and impartiality very seriously’ and that it would not allow:

anyone with a conflict, or perceived conflict, of interest to take part

in its investigation into the Labour Party.

Today, it defended a director whose failure to declare substantial donations to the Tories was exposed by Newsweek:

The EHRC has repeatedly refused to investigate anti-Muslim bigotry in the Conservative party – in spite of huge evidence presented by the Muslim Council of Britain – and the testimony of whistleblowers from within the Tory party.

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28 comments

  1. Sadly (because we do need a properly *independent* body), the EHRC is not fit for purpose, and has been compromised right from the get-go in getting involved with the set-up against the Labour Party, reinforced by its totally different response to accusations involving the Tory Party.

    I shall be pleasantly surprised if its forthcoming report does not give ammunition to Starmer and his friends in the Israel Lobby.

    I would also be even more surprised if it does an essential part of the purported job and unpicks the confusion that has been set up by the IHRA ‘Definition’ and ‘Examples’ – a thatclarification that anyone can see as an essential prerequisite for making judgments about antisemitism.

    1. Hhmm. Look folks; there’s only one way out of this abusive relationship, and i know it typically take 20-30 attempts before the victim successfully leaves or is destroyed by the perpetrator…burn your membership cards and join the Greens. Get the hell out now!

      1. The Greens showed their lib dem streak during Brexit. They are Nick Clegg with renewable energy.

  2. I wrote to the EHRC a long time ago to warn them that if they failed to take account of the Israeli interference in British politics exposed by “The Lobby” they’d expose themselves to ridicule and censure.
    Even if they completely exonerated Labour and condemned its attackers they still couldn’t justify not reporting before the 2019 election as they could easily have done.
    They’ve clearly been stalling – investigating Labour was a couple of months’ work at most.
    I believe Netanyahu’s hand is firmly on the wheel at EHRC – he’ll have as good as written the report himself.

    1. David, if you held a public role like RLB (did) you would now be accused very publicly of anti-semitism on the basis of this comment alone. This is is the Orwellian universe we now inhabit.

      1. Taking a public role in a system I hold illegitimate would make me a hypocrite.
        I’ll be happy to defend any of my comments – I’ll even let my accuser choose between apologising and having me squeeze the shit out of his head.

  3. I direct this plea at the editors of Skwawkbox and the Canary. Please, for god sake endorse a collective transfer of allegiance and membership asap from Labour to the Green Party. A decisive, paradigmatic shift in politics, at least as signficant as Corbynism would follow. Sanity and peace of mind and conscience is the minimum gain in the short term…leave the systemically abusive Labour Party now!!

    1. I left the Labour Party when Blair became leader & returned when Jeremy became leader. Meanwhile, I became a member of the ‘Green Party’………one of the biggest mistakes I have ever made. Pay lip service to Climate Change, but offer nothing but bourgeois contempt for the class struggle.

      1. Can you give a few examples of this ‘bourgeois contempt’ by the Green Party, and some evidence for your claim that they only pay lip service to Climate Change. Cheers

      2. Steve Richards, if c.200,000 ex-Labour Corbynistas joined the Greens with our subscriptions and our similar manifestos – shooting for the same kind of society but from two different directions – I think compromise might come easier than we think and be far more acceptable to me and probably to the Greens than any possible compromise with the corrupt Blairites or Tories.
        Hey, the Greens might even like us once they get to know us 🙂
        We’d completely transform their electoral prospects, and possibly the whole political and MSM landscape – the MSM will think twice before accusing the Greens of AS or treason or sympathising with terrorists – but they won’t be able to dismiss them with a pat on the head any more.
        Three major parties instead of two – two old, bereft of ideas and declining, one young and growing like a weed.
        Even if it forced Starmer and Johnson into coalition they’d both lose credibility with their bases, which could be the death of both parties.
        We don’t lose credibility joining with the Greens and they gain massive canvassing power and hopefully a bunch of MP’s crossing the floor to them if they join with us.

  4. Now that the EHRC is part of the government what independence they had has virtually been removed. The revelation one of its directors is a Tory supporter will suit the government. Problem is, if the report is damning against the party questions will be asked of how impartial the commission is in its conclusions. Another side is, if it finds there is no case to answer there will be those who will call upon the commission to be disbanded

    1. The EHRC was always an establishment whitewashing exercise,that is why Trevor Phillips was put in charge at the beginning.They couldn’t have appointed a more arse licking establishment stooge.

  5. One can smell the stench of corruption of the EHRC from Mars , the membership should stick 2 fingers up to it over any of its ” impartial ” findings

  6. For anyone interested

    Saturday June 27 – 2pm- Palestine – Labour must speak out now to Stop Annexation. With Live link up to Palestine with Samia Al-Botmeh, Birzeit University, plus Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot // Karma Nabulsi (Palestinian writer & campaigner) // Philippa Harvey (NEU Member of TUC Women’s Delegation to Palestine) // Simon Dubbins (Director of International, Unite) // Artin Giles (Vice-Chair, London Young Labour) // Adrian Weir (London Region National Policy Forum Delegate) // Christine Blower, Labour member of the House of Lords & Hugh Lanning (Labour & Palestine.

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    The Arise – a Festival of Labour’s Left Ideas

  7. EHRC
    Irrelevant to internal Labour report and Quislings in party
    This is our time to get on with the clear out
    Start with Blair

  8. The EHRC is well aware that the vast majority of the A/S claims are/were phony and vexatious, a good example of which is Margaret Hodge’s claim that she submitted some 200 incidents of A/S by LP members to the NEC, which turned out to involve 111 individuals, only 20 of whom were LP members (and of course we don’t know how many of those ended up being sanctioned one way or another).

    But the EHRC’s investigation wasn’t set up to look into allegations of A/S in the party, but to look into how the party dealt with the allegations – ie dealt with the cases – and even if they haven’t officially received a copy of the LP leaked document, you can be absolutely certain that they have seen it and read it and, as such, are well aware of the machinations by former staff who were hostile to Jeremy to reflect badly on him AND give his enemies in the PLP ammunition to vilify and demonise him further.

    Anyway, I came across the following ‘article’ earlier from July 2018 whilst doing some research, and it’s just one of hundreds of such articles published at the time so as to force Jeremy to adopt the IHRA definition and its examples in full, as they finally did in the September. Here’s the headline and a few clips:

    Jeremy Corbyn, the anti-racist who turned Labour into the party of anti-Semitism

    But when on Tuesday evening veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge confronted the Labour leader and called him an “anti-Semite and racist” to his face, it crystallised the story — which is that Mr Corbyn has quite deliberately turned the Labour Party into a racist party.

    Labour is now an institutionally anti-Semitic party — and this has been a conscious strategy pursued by Mr Corbyn and his acolytes.

    In turning Labour into a party that is now institutionally anti-Semitic, Jeremy Corbyn’s actions have indeed been deeply anti-Semitic.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6813834/corbyn-turned-labour-into-anti-semitic-party/

    NB So including the headline, Pollard repeated his Big Lie FOUR times in his nasty poisonous black propagana smear piece. Repetition being what black propagandists do!

  9. fao Allan Howard,
    I can give you examples of personal experiences, especially in monthly meetings that I attended regularly. Without doing intensive research to provide you with written examples, I would advise you do the research yourself, if you have the time.. It is my personal experience that the Green Party will not challenge the nature of ‘Capitalism’, nor promote ‘Socialism’. Social injustices were seldom on an agenda, unless it affected the comfortable bourgeoisie & especially when promoting career advances for the bourgeois elites within the Party. Finding any working class kindred spirits in the Green Party was difficult, if not impossible.

    1. I was a member for many years, prior to Jeremy being elected leader of the LP, and my own experience was vastly different to your alleged experience. Friendly, caring people who sincerely care about the planet and the disadvantaged etc.

      The implication of what you claim to have experienced is that their manifesto is just one big lie from start to finish. And I don’t believe you!

      PS Was it you who said several weeks ago that many Muslim women found Boris Johnson’s description of women in burkas as looking like bank robbers and letter-boxes funny? Yeah, as if!

      1. It would appear that my criticism of the Green Party has caused you some distress & to you doubting the veracity of my experiences in the Green Party. Whether or not you believe me is your problem, but you demonstrate a lack of courtesy & ignorance by attempting to conflate my criticism of the Green Party with comments made by BoJo. There are a large number of young muslim women who dislike the BURQA; dislike the HIJAB & dislike the NIQAB, but what would you know of such things, apart from commenting on something you know nothing about?

        You are an ignorant man & I refuse to lower myself by indulging in an orgy of swapping insults with a moronic half wit.

      2. Steve finishes his diatribe by saying ‘You are an ignorant man & I refuse to lower myself by indulging in an orgy of swapping insults with a moronic half wit.’

        And this is the guy who said in response to a comment I posted recently that he thought what Boris Johnson said about women wearing burkas looking like bank robbers and letter-boxes was funny! Yeah, sure, it was hilarious. If you’re a rascist!

        He also claimed that many Muslim women thought it was funny too. He was lying through his nasty racist teeth of course, because apart from a few with a Tory mentality who probably found it amusing, I have little doubt that the vast majority were shocked and disgusted that he said such a thing. But THIS is the clincher: How on earth would Steve Richards know that many Muslim women found it funny? Oh, right, he went out and spent a couple of days knocking on doors and stopping Muslim women in his local shopping centre and did a survey, asking them if they thought what Boris Johnson said was funny!

        When I responded to him I actually asked him how he could possibly know that many Muslim women found it funny, and did so because I knew he was lying. He didn’t answer my question of course, but NOW he’s kinda changed his tune, and says that: ‘There are a large number of young muslim women who dislike the BURQA; dislike the HIJAB & dislike the NIQAB’. The reality is that the vast majority of young Muslim women don’t give it a second thought. *I* don’t like wearing shoes (or socks for that matter), but I hardly go around thinking to myself when I see someone wearing shoes that I dislike them – ie the shoes (the reality is that I don’t take any notice whatsoever of what footware anyone is wearing, but I am of course trying to make a point).

        Anyway, the thing is that SR lied about THAT – ie that many Muslim women thought what Johnson said was funny – and I have no doubt whatsoever that he is lying about the Green Party and his experience of it. And the reality is that most people are Green in that they are concerned about the environment and wildlife and pollution and the rapidly disapperaing rain forests etc, etc, etc, and Global Warming of course.

      3. You are an ignorant man Howard. So quick to call someone a liar & a racist. How could I know such things about young Muslim women……..it must be by a bit of door knocking? Keep telling yourself stupid stories to reinforce your bigotry ’cause this must have happened this way? If you think in cliches you will continue to draw erroneous conclusions. Did I dare disagree with you?.

        I lived & worked in Blackburn as a lecturer for 5 years & then spent more than 10 years working with the Somali community in Liverpool 8.I shared a flat with a Somali muslim for 3 years. Still keeping in close contact. Many Somalis, however, are the wrong type of Muslim as they drink alcohol, some even owned night clubs such as the ‘Somali’ & the ‘Casablanca’.in Liverpool 8. Although both retired, my wife works as a charity fundraiser for immigrant groups on Merseyside & I often help her & organise fundraising events, the last one being @ Speke Hall.What do you know ignorant man……just do what you’re good at & call people names.

        I couldn’t care less what you believe, but civility will cost you nothing.

      4. I don’t believe a word you say about ANYTHING, and I have never used this word on here before, but YOU are a lying racist scumbag:

        Islamophobic incidents rose 375% after Boris Johnson compared Muslim women to ‘letterboxes’, figures show

        Perpetrators abusing Muslim women in the street ‘directly referenced’ MP’s comments, report finds

        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-muslim-women-letterboxes-burqa-islamphobia-rise-a9088476.html

        Hmm, and no doubt you found THAT hilariously funny as well! Fuck off you piece of fascist excrement!!

    2. Steve Richards – yes,the Greens are a bit middle class and tree-huggy and yes, many would definitely resent five times their number of Corbynistas suddenly joining them.
      I think our numbers and our subs would change their finances and their minds though, especially once the media began taking them seriously instead of treating them as an end-of-segment human interest story.
      Obviously we wouldn’t use our numbers to hijack their party, we’d just look for some little compromises on the manifesto, that’s all.

      1. fao David McNiven,
        the big argument as a Socialist was that the laissez faire, market driven mass consumerism; exploitation of resources & continual economic growth aka ‘Capitalism’ was destroying the world & it was only Socialism in a society created to benefit the people & the planet. There was also the argument that the Green Party bourgeoisie were also rampant EU Remainers, more supportive of the liberal globalist ideologies of Tony Blair than any form of Socialist control..

        Globe trotting & globalisation may appear attractive to the comfortable middle classes & many want to continually raise the price of petrol to limit use of cars, but high fuel prices increases the cost of food & heating, with consequences for the poor. Battery cars are still beyond the purse of most working class people & public transport is driven by diesel; both bus & train. Increasing the price of aviation fuel by adding VAT was also unpopular with the ‘Jet Set’ Any suggestions to limit globalism & advocate local markets & economies was always met with accusations of ‘nativeism’ & being a ‘little Englander’. We live in interesting times..

  10. With, say, 200,000 of us and 48,000 of them – who’d influence who? 🙂

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