EHRC report investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party

There is extreme bad faith going on in this thread in trying to draw parallels between anti-Semites = Holocaust deniers and blood libellers, people who call for attacks on Jews, etc. - on the one hand and GC women, fighting for our own rights, harming no-one, on the other hand.

Pretending that the former = the latter is base dishonesty.

Women standing up for our own rights are NOT just like anti-Semites. The people who are just like women here are Jews, not anti-Semites.

Just as women's rights to safety as we go about our own business peacefully, enjoying the protections under law as members of a protected characteristic are under attack, so are the rights of Jewish people (NB particularly Jewish women) to go peacefully about their own business, enjoying the protection under law of a different protected characteristic.

TRAs and anti-Semites would like to pretend they are the real victims here, because they do not have the freedom to remove others' rights and physically assault them.

Neither TRAs nor anti-Semites (whether they call themselves far left or far right) are victims. THEY ARE OPRESSORS.

I am absolutely SICK of the gaslighting going on in this thread.

How DARE anyone claim that the right to be anti-Semitic is some sort of sacred legal right, and anti-Semites will be oppressed if it is removed.

I wonder if there are several issues which are getting confused. I can see 3 main areas where antisemitism/transgender issues in Labour might relate to each other:

1. There’s the issue of bullying (name-calling, abuse, threats etc) that I hope we all think wrong.

2. There’s the issue of the Labour Party complaints system, which was a main focus of the EHRC report. (The EHRC says it discriminated against Jewish members but it seems in quite a complicated way - and whose fault this was is currently a major point of disagreement between Labour left and right.) Not clear how changes would impact on Gender Critical members of Labour.

3. Then there’s the more general principles by which people are trying to define and discipline antisemitism, and how these emerge through the EHRC report (also the Labour leadership pledges and the IHRC definition). If you read these and think of it from the perspective of the transgender debate I do think those principles could be used to repress GC speech. @howard94 quoted one passage. Other things that strike me include the way “mainstream” organisations are being given priority in Labour’s response to antisemitism (eg point 8 of the leadership pledges, EHRC references to “stakeholders”) over “marginal voices”. Well, GC voices are marginal, the “mainstream” women’s and LGBT organisations are Stonewall etc and they are all happy with (you might say captured by) genderism.

If you want an example of how antisemitism definitions can be coopted into the gender debate, to the disadvantage of the GC perspective, look at the way the LibDems have used parts of the IHRC antisemitism definition as a basis for their definition of transphobia (www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lib-dems-transphobia-meltdown-is-complete).

It’s almost inevitable that the principles adopted in one area will be applied in another, which is why you have to look at those underlying principles carefully regardless of what you think about a particular issue.

I’m not out to upset anyone, and hope I’m wrong. But I do think there's a danger of introducing principles that could be used against unpopular opinions, if they can be argued to conflict with a minority group. And in Labour, the Greens and LibDems, gender critical voices are the unpopular opinion.

@Digeridont Apologies for the xxyz bit. It was uncalled for

@Digeridont There is no need (or way!) to further clarify my point that the EHRC, following due process and the law, is not a threat to freedom of speech.

The fact that the suppression of speech was lawful, and that due process was followed, doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t a free-speech issue.

There are lots of historical and contemporary instances of bad censorship laws being enforced by due process; and very rarely is there universal agreement on which censorship laws are good and which are bad.

Suppose it were made illegal to misgender someone, and you found it impossible to comply, and you were convicted and fined ‘following due process and the law’.If you were a GC feminist wouldn’t you see that as a free-speech issue?

I’ve concluded [Howard] can’t actually be seeking clarification, or even debate, and I’m out.

Up to you (or @xxyzz ?)

Time for the anti-Semites to return to the BNP or whatever their natural hang-out is. They don't belong on MN and they don't belong in the Labour Party either. Anti-Semitism is as much a part of the Left as it is of the Right, only the reasons differ.

I stopped dumping on the Right when I realised how anti-democratic it was and how much the "moral high ground" was so limiting in political debate

@Digeridont My point is that what TRAs do … is to threaten or even actually use violence to individuals, and to try to shut down or cancel organisations.

With regard to TRA action, I suspect that at some point ECHR will be persuaded to investigate feminist organizations, and will conclude that they are transphobic because according to TRA’s, GC arguments that biological males can't be women “were humiliating, denied the victims’ experience, diminished the issue, had the effect of stirring up and fuelling hatred for trans people and contributed to the creation of a hostile and intimidating environment for trans people.”
(virtually the same wording as ECHR used to describe the effect of KL’s comments on LP members.)

In contrast to the Labour Party, which used the EHRC’s report, based on the law, as evidence to exclude people from their party using due process. I think there is a material difference - one I agree is chilling to free speech, the other I think is the natural consequence of disagreements due to free speech within the bounds of current law.

Certainly, when LP excluded people from their party they used the ECHR’s report as evidence and used due process, but they knew that if they decided to reject the ECHR’s view of what was acceptable speech they would be sanctioned by the ECHR. . So whether or not you agree with ECHR’s finding, and with the consequent restriction on what KL and other LP members can say, this is surely a public issue, a free speech issue – not just an internal LP issue.

So I do not share your view that the the two are equivalent or that one sets a precedent for the other. It could even be seen as an attempt to conflate two issues, one of which has very strong support on this board, one of which is more controversial.

I repeat that my intention has been to compare the ECHR investigation into complaints about anti-semitism with a hypothetical ECHR investigation into complaints about “transphobia”. And to draw attention to the possibility that – as SugarPlumElf has put it - . the kinds of arguments used in the EHRC report could easily be used against gender critical women. …

… not to compare the the ECHR investigation into complaints about anti-semitism with “what TRAs do … to threaten or even actually use violence to individuals, and to try to shut down or cancel organisations"

I’d have been interested to know if this clarification would have affected your view that I might have been trying to conflate two issues. I guess I’ll never know.

On your point about legal action, it's clear from the EHRC’s website that they are not threatening sanctions at this time. They say they are requiring the Labour Party to draft a legally binding action plan, which they will monitor, which in turn could lead to enforcement action. Their words are:

“Our investigation found that the Labour Party has committed unlawful acts.

We have published a report about our findings, including our recommendations for change.

The Labour Party is now legally obliged to draft an action plan to tackle the unlawful act findings we made. This should be based on our recommendations.

Once the action plan is agreed, we will continue to monitor it. If the Labour Party fails to live up to its commitments in the legally binding action plan, then we may take enforcement action.

Sanctions later then, if LP don’t do as they’re told.

Xxyzz I was giving the poster the benefit of the doubt, until their most recent post. There is no need (or way!) to further clarify my point that the EHRC, following due process and the law, is not a threat to freedom of speech. So I’ve concluded they can’t actually be seeking clarification, or even debate, and I’m out.

This from yesterday's Times.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/former-labour-leader-jeremy-corbyn-flees-westminster-for-isle-of-wight-2s9fg50l2

Pictures from his trip, which was taken despite public health advice cautioning against travel from London to areas of low infection, show him in the company of Stephen Smith, a Labour activist suspended for alleged antisemitism on social media

As one of the comments said- the Isle of Wight has a population of 100,000 yet Jeremy Corbyn manages to get a photo opportunity with the one resident kicked out of the Labour Party for anti-semitism.

No idea why people are engaging with the blatant anti-Semites on this thread. They are no more sincere in their 'innocent' enquiries about what people meant about the EHRC investigation than TRAs are when they come on to MN to ask supposedly 'innocent' queries.

Sartre put it well:

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

Time for the anti-Semites to return to the BNP or whatever their natural hang-out is. They don't belong on MN and they don't belong in the Labour Party either.

@Digeridont Before I respond to your post can I ask you to clarify one point for me?

In my previous posts I’ve compared the ECHR investigation into complaints about anti-semitism with a hypothetical ECHR investigation into complaints about “transphobia”.

But the second paragraph of your post seems to bear the interpretation that I’m comparing the ECHR investigation into complaints about anti-semitism with “what TRAs do … to threaten or even actually use violence to individuals, and to try to shut down or cancel organisations.”

Could you clarify?

@howard97A My point is that what TRAs do (no implication that you are one) is to threaten or even actually use violence to individuals, and to try to shut down or cancel organisations. In contrast to the Labour Party, which used the EHRC’s report, based on the law, as evidence to exclude people from their party using due process.

I think there is a material difference - one I agree is chilling to free speech, the other I think is the natural consequence of disagreements due to free speech within the bounds of current law. So I do not share your view that the the two are equivalent or that one sets a precedent for the other. It could even be seen as an attempt to conflate two issues, one of which has very strong support on this board, one of which is more controversial.

On your point about legal action, its clear from the EHRC’s website that they are not threatening sanctions at this time. They say they are requiring the Labour Party to draft a legally binding action plan, which they will monitor, which in turn could lead to enforcement action. Their words are:

“Our investigation found that the Labour Party has committed unlawful acts.

We have published a report about our findings, including our recommendations for change.

The Labour Party is now legally obliged to draft an action plan to tackle the unlawful act findings we made. This should be based on our recommendations.

Once the action plan is agreed, we will continue to monitor it. If the Labour Party fails to live up to its commitments in the legally binding action plan, then we may take enforcement action.“

Taken from www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/ymchwiliadau-ac-archwiliadau/investigation-labour-party

@Digeridont Apologies. That last post should have been addressed to you, not @bellinisurge

@bellinisurge I’m not a TRA. What have I said that makes you think you think I am?

You say ‘shut down debate’. I would say ‘respond to a stream of abuse’

With regard to @samG76’s argument, the free speech issue . This is not simply an issue of the labour party excluding someone who disagrees with their views. It is about the about the labour party being threatened with sanctions by a statutory authority on the basis of what one of their members said. Doesn't that make it a free speech issue?

For me the reason why Corbyn had to be suspended was about process - overseeing an incompetent complaints system that ignored the majority of complaints and interfering in the process of others. This wouldn't just have affected antisemitism but also GC women's complaints or any other poor treatment/harassment/bullying/failure of process etc within the party. By effectively ignoring this behaviour it allows a toxic corrupt culture to develop which is at odds with what should be a democratic party.

@bellinisurge That was gracious, thank you.

@SugarPlumElf I suspect you would find an TRA saying ‘calm down’ patronising and suspect them of trying to minimise concerns and shut down debate. I find the same here.

I also agree with @samG76 - this is not a point about free speech but about the rules of being in the Labour Party. In the same way as I would expect a GC feminist to get thrown out of Stonewall for her views, the Labour Party has acted to exclude those who don’t agree with their views. It’s their action - based on evidence from the EHRC, yes - but their decision. The Labour Party haven’t tried to prosecute anyone, or shut down any organisations they are part of, or encourage violence against them - they’ve just excluded them from their organisation. This is in contrast to TRA actions against GC feminists.

@xxyzz

Wow !

And your attempt to piggyback your support for Ken Livingstone's disgusting racism onto women's support for our own rights is shameless.

It's just like those TRAs who try to piggyback onto gay rights and pretend that opposing women's rights is just the same as opposing Section 28.

We see you. Your attempt to conflate hate speech and free speech don't fool anyone.

The women on here can see quite clearly that there are ZERO parallels between supporting women's rights and supporting a bunch of Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites.

It's one long continual fight for women, the misogyny and hatred for us never stops.

agreed on Scottish hate crimes bill, Sugarplum. That is a matter of free speech.

*@samg76 The free speech point isn't really relevant. No one is saying Ken Livingstone ought to be prosecuted.

I’d say it’s relevant because what KL said was related to the ECHR finding that that the Labour Party had committed unlawful acts.

I’ve pointed out that according to the Report the supposed effect of Livingstone’s action was that it “was humiliating, denied the victims’ experience, diminished the issue, had the effect of stirring up and fuelling hatred for Jews and contributed to the creation of a hostile and intimidating environment for Jewish Labour Party members.”; and that this is exactly the sort of wording that TRA’s use to describe the supposed effect on trans people when a woman says that biological males can't be women.

@RedDogsBeg No, that's exactly what is happening to women including those within the Labour Party. TRA's and their supporters are the ones regularly denying female victims experiences

I agree,RedDogs, that this happening to women, but as you said in your previous post EHRC are not interested in protecting women.

However, they and the trans lobby in general are very interested in controlling the language of gender-critical feminists.

I suspect that at some point ECHR will decide to investigate feminist organizations, and will conclude that they are transphobic because according to TRA’s, their arguments that biological males can't be women “were humiliating, denied the victims’ experience, diminished the issue, had the effect of stirring up and fuelling hatred for trans people and contributed to the creation of a hostile and intimidating environment for trans people.”

The free speech point isn't really relevant. No one is saying Ken Livingstone ought to be prosecuted. It is a matter of whether his ill-thought out and tendentious views are compatible with being in the Labour party, and reasonably enough they have taken the view that they aren't.

In a similar way I might describe my enjoyable Saturday on a pheasant shoot, and it would be of no interest to the authorities. But if I was the chairman of the League of Cruel Sports, I might face some consequences.This would be nothing to do with free speech, but rather the incompatibility of my views with the position I hold.