London Police Investigate Allegations of Anti-Semitism Against Labour Party Members

Police Commissioner Cressida Dick confirmed an ongoing investigation on November 2 into reports of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. (Wikimedia Commons)

London’s Metropolitan Police announced on November 2 that it has started a criminal investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism based on online posts from Labour Party members.

Investigators gave no details on the investigation’s progress except that police have contacted prosecutors.

According to the New York Times, Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, speaking to BBC Radio 4, confirmed the announcement, saying, “We are now investigating some of that material because it appears there may have been a crime committed.”

Appropriately, Dick’s appearance on a different radio program two months ago set the investigation in motion. The British radio station LBC received a dossier (which it claimed was an internal Labour document, according to the BBC) of Facebook comments that included 45 cases of suspected anti-Semitism by Labour members. LBC then brought in former Metropolitan Police investigator Mak Chishty to review the dossier.

Chishty identified 17 of the 45 as cases that should have been reported to the police, and said four of the 45 would require criminal investigation as hate crimes. Dick says that when LBC gave her a copy of the dossier during an interview in September, she gave it to hate crimes specialists to initiate an investigation, the New York Times reports.

Politico highlighted Dick’s clarification that the investigation concerned individuals only, saying, “We’re not going to investigate the Labour Party, and we would always want institutions and political parties…to be able to regulate themselves.” However, the ability of the Labour Party to self-regulate and police its individual members has become a source of controversy.

Following the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, the U.S. media has directed its attention to anti-Semitism, specifically within the context of U.S. electoral politics, but accusations of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party date back long before the recent tragedy.

In 2016, after Labour suspended two of its members for anti-Semitic statements, party leader Jeremy Corbyn announced an independent inquiry into anti-Semitism and other types of racism in the party. The BBC noted that the inquiry identified an “occasionally toxic atmosphere” in the party. Corbyn himself faced scrutiny this past March over a Facebook comment he sent to the painter of an anti-Semitic mural in 2012.

In July, the Labour party adopted a new code of conduct on anti-Semitism that did not include all the examples of anti-Semitism in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. The party accepted the full definition in response to public outcry but added a statement that Labour still supported free speech regarding Israel.

The party has struggled to review a backlog of cases to involving anti-Semitism allegations against members but has taken institutional steps to accelerate the process. In September, the National Executive Committee, the Labour Party’s highest governing body, approved a plan to double the number of members in the party’s disciplinary arm, the National Constitutional Committee.