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The quote you've selectively used there is actually quite interesting,
because while it criticises 'a lack of leadership within the Labour
Party', it stops short of apportioning blame for this.You mean it stops short of specifically calling out Corbyn by name as the sole owner of the problem. And so it should. The role of EHRC was to determine whether a breach of equality law had happened, and it determined that it had, and that that was the fault of the leadership. Now, the leadership IS wider than simply Corbyn. But anyone reading that report is left in no doubt that Corbyn bore primary responsibility, since he also appointed the leadership team and approved the processes. He is the leader. He bears responsibility. Which makes his minimisation of the problem so grotesque.
As for your Forde report quote, that Jeremy Corbyn didn't engage in
requests to interview him was neither here nor there. Loads of people
declined to be interviewed, including many of those responsible for
the outbursts that sparked Forde being called in to investigate in the
first place. So to interpret that as 'not tackling the issue and not
taking it seriously' (by which you mean the issue of antisemitism) is
disingenuous at best.The EHRC report says Corbyn didn't take the issue seriously. Forde goes quite a bit further: "there is enough evidence of direct intervention to support the conclusion that such interference went ebyond what was the legitimate interest of LOTO, most notably in relation to cases which involved allies of Jeremy Corbyn".
See the case of Glynn 'Jews in the gutter' Secker, whose investigation was lifted after Seamus Milne interfered to let him off the hook because 'Corbyn was interested in this one'. They didn't even use this example in the judgement!
And actually, it does matter how many people had been 'institutionally
discriminated against' when you're talking about the scale of
something. That EHRC found evidence it had happened in two cases where
it deemed the Labour Party was directly responsible. It also found
wider evidence of antisemitic behaviour - but not that much wider.
Nevertheless, the findings were acknowledged by Jeremy Corbyn when he
made the statement to which you object. And the gravity of it was
accepted. Nevertheless, the point that the scale was exaggerated still
stands.If an institution is proven to have discriminated against a group of people on two occasions, then they have actually done so on many more. That's literally the point.
And you misunderstand Corbyn's point on that facebook post. He's not talking about the EHRC examples - even he wouldn't be that crass. He's referring to a bit of hagiography created by Bad News For Labour which he began to rely on after many years of telling us that he had no idea how much antisemitism there was in the party. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-corbyns-claim-that-labour-antisemitism-numbers-are-exaggerated
As for the the tip of the iceberg thing - I read the same bit of the
EHRC report and if that iceberg consists of 18 further borderline
cases and evidence of antisemitic conduct among members (that were not
deemed the responsibility of the leader of the opposition), then it's
not exactly an iceberg, is it? More a perfectly visible snowball.Page 8 of the report. I know you saw the phrase "This is by no means the full extent of the issues we identified within the files in our sample; it represents the tip of the iceberg" because it's directly above "18 borderline cases". You can argue with EHRC if you want. I wouldn't have the nerve.
But ultimately, you're saying Jeremy Corbyn should have had no right
to reply, which is pretty wild IMO.He's perfectly entitled to say whatever he wants within the law, and nothing about what he said was illegal. By the same token, I'm entitled to point out that what he said was inappropriate, tone-deaf, and unprofessional, and I can see why the whip was instantly removed.
The quote you've selectively used there is actually quite interesting, because while it criticises 'a lack of leadership within the Labour Party', it stops short of apportioning blame for this. Now, you may say it's the leader's job, the buck stops with him, etc. But that would be to ignore the Party's own internal rule, its structure and the very real evidence of interference in the process from both sides, not just from 'the left'. The EHRC has been quite careful in using the term 'leadership' because as far as it was concerned, that didn't just mean the leader of the opposition, a fact made plain by its distinguishing the two in the summary of its findings. So he was not specifically called out for a failure of leadership in that judgement, as you initially argue. Quite the reverse, in fact - the Labour Party as a whole was criticised for lapses in process, procedure, complaint handling, training. etc.
As for your Forde report quote, that Jeremy Corbyn didn't engage in requests to interview him was neither here nor there. Loads of people declined to be interviewed, including many of those responsible for the outbursts that sparked Forde being called in to investigate in the first place. So to interpret that as 'not tackling the issue and not taking it seriously' (by which you mean the issue of antisemitism) is disingenuous at best.
And actually, it does matter how many people had been 'institutionally discriminated against' when you're talking about the scale of something. That EHRC found evidence it had happened in two cases where it deemed the Labour Party was directly responsible. It also found wider evidence of antisemitic behaviour - but not that much wider. Nevertheless, the findings were acknowledged by Jeremy Corbyn when he made the statement to which you object. And the gravity of it was accepted. Nevertheless, the point that the scale was exaggerated still stands.
As for the the tip of the iceberg thing - I read the same bit of the EHRC report and if that iceberg consists of 18 further borderline cases and evidence of antisemitic conduct among members (that were not deemed the responsibility of the leader of the opposition), then it's not exactly an iceberg, is it? More a perfectly visible snowball.
But ultimately, you're saying Jeremy Corbyn should have had no right to reply, which is pretty wild IMO.