Refusal to apologise or withdraw flawed comments about pair in political attack on Corbyn’s Labour, after incurring huge costs in abandoned defence, is a disgrace
Pam Bromley and former London mayor Ken Livingstone have accepted a settlement in their case against the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for its flawed comments to name them, in its report on so-called ‘Labour antisemitism’, as the only two alleged perpetrators of unlawful acts of harassment, The EHRC will pay all its own costs, as will Livingstone and Bromley, although theirs were far smaller and were covered by a fundraiser set up by former Labour MP Chris Williamson.
In a statement, the pair noted the significance of the asymmetrical settlement:
We believe that, deep down, the EHRC understands that its investigation was flawed and that it acted unlawfully. That’s probably why they were willing to settle the case without recovering a penny of their exorbitant costs.
The EHRC, however – despite its report already being discredited by expert legal analysis and especially by the findings of Labour’s own (largely ignored) Forde report that antisemitism was ‘weaponised’ for factional gain – still doubled down by claiming it had acted properly and complaining about the costs it had incurred in defending its actions.
Even in settling the case, the body – which defended one of its senior figures after she was exposed as a substantial Tory donor and has been condemned by a former director as unfit and ‘not independent’ – has discredited itself yet again.
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