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Chakrabarti and the Purge

29th August 2016

Chakrabarti and the Purge

Below are sections from the Chakrabarti Report on anti-Semitism commissioned by the Labour Party and submitted in June 2016. This is part of an article by Mike Phipps already published on the LRC website. The full article is :
here

Shami Chakrabarti is a distinguished human rights barrister. From 2003 to 2016 she was Director of Liberty, the organisation set up to protect civil liberties in the UK. Earlier this year she was commissioned by the Labour Party to investigate allegations of anti-Semitism in the Party. The first two sentences of the Report read, “The Labour Party is not overrun by antisemitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law.”

Shami was clearly disturbed by the lack of due process in the Party’s complaints procedure. At present we see a wholesale purge being conducted in the name of the NEC to prevent as many Corbyn supporters as possible from voting in the leadership election. Shami’s criticisms as to the lack of natural justice are more relevant than ever.

Investigations are carried out by persons unknown into Party members, who may then be suspended on vague allegations such as ‘being rude’ or, apparently, using the term ‘Blairite’.

There is no clear appeals procedure. Suspension can be for an indefinite period. The intention is clearly to deprive the member or supporter of their right to vote.

The Labour Party was founded by the trade unions. No unionised workplace would tolerate these kangaroo court procedures being used against their members for an instant. We must campaign for the NEC incoming after the Party Conference to install a complaints procedure that follows the elementary rules of natural justice along the lines of Chakrabarti’s guidelines.

What Chakrabarti recommends (in quotes) by Mike Phipps

“I recommend the drawing up, and adoption of, a readily accessible complaints procedure.” Further: “It is completely unfair, unacceptable and a breach of Data Protection law that anyone should have found out about being the subject to an investigation or their suspension by way of the media.” And: “The Labour Party should seek to uphold the strongest principles of natural justice, however difficult the circumstances, and to resist subjecting members to a trial by media.” And: “I do not subscribe to the view that every allegation of misconduct within the Party is a factional mischief, but nor do I feel that every investigation warrants immediate publicity (a punishment in itself), nor administrative suspension (with the inevitable shame and opprobrium that is likely to follow) - even if the allegation has attracted public controversy.”

“I find it regrettable, to say the least, that some subjects of recent suspension and disciplinary process, under the Party’s disciplinary procedures, found out about their suspensions and investigations as a result of media reporting rather than notice from the Party itself. Staff or elected officials should never feel it necessary (even during a pre-election media frenzy) - to operate a presumption of suspension. If anything, the presumption should be against interim suspension.” And: “Indeed, if the principle of proportionality had been properly applied in recent times, I query whether so many people would ever have been suspended at all.”

When a disciplinary measure is taken, there should be a right of review. There should also be a time limit on bringing disciplinary charges in relation to uncomradely conduct and behaviour.

There should be limits to how long parties can be put in special measures and run from the centre. “I recommend that the NEC gives urgent attention to any parts of the country that have been under “special measures” for more than six months” and “I recommend that going forward, no Labour Party unit in any part of the country should be subject to such a regime of executive control for more than six months without review by the NEC.”

The full Report is available with an Appendix on Key Recommendations on Rule Changes to the Rule Kook (2016) after p.31 here: