Board of Deputies' Pledges for Labour: JVL Responds
JVL, the Election and the Future: afterword by Mike Cushman
This paper was written before the Board of Deputies issued their ten pledges to suppress free thought in the Labour Party. It is a matter of great regret that all the leadership candidates and all the deputy candidates with the honourable exceptions of Richard Burgon and Dawn Butler have rushed to sign. They may have signed from fear of the vitriol they would have been subject to if they had not signed; or because they see the pledges as a convenient way of driving socialists out of the Labour Party; or from a commitment to silence just criticism of Israel; or a mixture. Whatever the reason signing is collusion in an attack on Labour Party democracy. The pledges do nothing to advance the essential cause of tackling antisemitism.
The pledges do not acknowledge the heroic work of Jennie Formby and her team to clear the backlog of cases she inherited from her predecessor. The process is still far too slow but it is better than it was. Progress would be faster if the Party were not deluged with spurious cases which inhibit dealing with the minority that expose troubling behaviour.
We would welcome pledges that are based on natural justice and demand the Party moves from an investigation process which demands the accused prove their innocence of opaque and ambiguous charges to one which places the burden of proof, where it should lie, on the accuser.
The Board of Deputies has shown no love for the Labour Party at almost any time in its history. It displays infernal cheek in suggesting that the JLM has the standing to provide training given its record of offering hectoring instruction rather than an education process based on empathy and developing understanding of complex issues. The BoD seems to be ignorant of the Party’s engagement with the widely respected Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism to provide education in this area. It further shows its ignorance of how to advance understanding by talking about training and not about education.
The BoD seem to have a totalitarian view of the world where opinions at variance to theirs are to be silenced. ‘Fringe organisations and individuals’ are to be ostracised. So the many hundreds of Jewish members of JVL are not to be heard in their own Party while outsiders like the BoD are to determine our policy – I think not.
When members are suspended no guilt has been determined yet the BoD want to penalise any who associate with them – the very essence of a witch hunt. The act of claiming there has been a miscarriage of justice is itself to be an offence. It is as though the Oval 4 and the Birmingham 6 and many others had never existed; we must remember that those who queried their convictions were derided until they were proved right.
This is only a very partial list of the problems with the pledges. They were not issued in good faith and will not ‘End the Antisemitism Crisis’. The crisis will end when those who daily utter false or grossly misleading or exaggerated accusations cease their slurs and put their energy, not into pouncing on a poorly worded tweet, but into tackling those who would harm British Jews.
JVL must continue to assert its right to speak to the Party and to wider society on behalf of its members and supporters. Speaking out may be costly and risk subjecting us to abuse and worse but to be silenced would be to abandon the core Jewish value of Tikkum Olam – to heal the world. Seeking fairness and equality in Britain and justice and peace internationally are too important to be squashed by a squalid pledge card.
The full article is at: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/jvl-the-election-and-the-future/
Letter to Labour leadership and deputy leadership candidates Mon 13 Jan 2020
The version posted here is to those known to have endorsed the demands made on them.
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Labour leadership candidates
Dear
We understand from media reports that you have acceded to a request from the Board of Deputies of British Jews to make 10 commitments regarding the Labour Party’s handling of allegations of antisemitism against party members.
We would like to draw your attention to some implications of endorsing the BoD’s pledges.
1. Handing over crucial elements of implementation of party rules to outside bodies would undermine the independence of the party.
2. Demands such as setting time limits for the completion of discipline procedures would depart from the principles of natural justice and due process ((an accused person is innocent until proven guilty, procedures which give an accused individual a fair hearing, fair representation and a right to appeal).
3. The demands would compromise data protection obligations. As the general secretary has pointed out in a related context, the party has “very strict responsibilities under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 to safeguard members’ data and ensure it is processed only for clearly defined and lawful purposes.”
4. The insistence on putting the Jewish Labour Movement in control of educational input deprives the party of agency in determining how and by whom its members are to be educated. Furthermore, this was an organisation that refused to campaign for the Labour Party in the 2019 election.
5. The Board of Deputies is asking that you disregard the views of Jews with whom they disagree, singling out Jewish Voice for Labour even though it represents significant numbers of Jewish members of the Labour Party. We remind you that the Board does not represent all Jews. Most significantly it does not represent many thousands in the fast-growing Charedi community, most of whom do not believe that the Labour Party is riddled with antisemitism and have put on record their alarm at the suggestion that it is.
Undertakings such as those called for by the BoD are not within the gift of an aspiring leader of a democratic party in which rules are made by the members through their conference (and National Executive Committee). Endorsing the BoD pledges will be interpreted by the bulk of members as contemptuous of the independence of the party and a threat to their right to a legitimate, legally defensible process in the event of being accused of breaching party rules.
They are also demands that, in the view of many respected commentators and activists, retard rather than advance the cause of combating antisemitism (prejudice and discrimination against Jewish people) as part of a broad anti-racist campaign.
We urge you carefully to review the implications of these pledges and take into consideration the range of views within the party, including the knowledge and experience of hundreds of Jews represented by our organisation, who campaigned actively for Labour in GE2019, regardless of the stance of the particular candidates standing in their constituencies.
We would respectfully ask you to assure members that, as leader, you would abide by the party’s agreed policy with respect to rights for Palestinians, opposition to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and an end to the siege of Gaza, and that you will stand by the caveats recommended by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee in 2016 which protect free speech on these principles of human rights.
Signed:
Leah Levane and Jenny Manson
Co-chairs, Jewish Voice for Labour
