Formal complaints on Corbyn and other MPs sent to Labour party after EHRC report

Formal complaints against the former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and more than a dozen other Labour MPs have been submitted to the party in response to what Jewish groups described as the “damning” Equality and Human Rights Commission report on antisemitism.

Campaign Against Antisemitism said Keir Starmer must implement reforms and hold its members to account. “To that end, we have submitted complaints against Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and 15 other sitting MPs, and have given Labour six months to conduct transparent investigations and finally deliver justice for the Jewish community.”

In a joint statement, the leaders of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust said the report was “a damning verdict on what Labour did to Jews under Jeremy Corbyn and his allies”.

They added: “It proves why British Jews were so distressed and it disgraces those who attacked us for speaking out against anti-Jewish racism.” The Jewish community “never wanted this fight, but we had to defend ourselves and are proud to have done so”, they added.

“Jeremy Corbyn will rightly be blamed for what he has done to Jews and Labour, but the truth is more disturbing, as he was little more than a figurehead for old and new anti-Jewish attitudes.”

They welcomed Starmer’s start on tackling antisemitism “but the scale of the challenge that lies ahead should not be underestimated.”

Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi, said the report was “a historic nadir for the Labour party”.

“The impact of this report reaches well beyond the issue of antisemitism or the Jewish community, by sending a powerful message that the politics of scapegoating and hatred will never succeed,” he said.

The Jewish community would work with Starmer to rid the party of antisemitism, he added. “My hope is that all those who have suffered such painful discrimination and abuse will draw strength from the findings of this report and that we will all see, under new leadership, a very different Labour party in the years to come.”

The Jewish Labour Movement said it had been warning about “deepening casual culture of anti-Jewish racism” since 2015. “We were told that this racism was imagined, fabricated for factional advantage or intended to silence debate. Today’s report confirms that our voices were marginalised and our members victimised.”

It added: “The blame for this sordid, disgraceful chapter in the Labour party’s history lies firmly with those who held positions of leadership – those who possessed both power and influence to prevent the growth of anti-Jewish racism, but failed to act.”

The Labour leadership “must now set out bold and decisive steps to radically change the culture of our party”, the movement said.

Gideon Falter, chief executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said the report “utterly vindicates Britain’s Jews who were accused of lying and exaggerating, acting as agents of another country and using their religion to ‘smear’ the Labour party. In an unprecedented finding, it concludes that those who made such accusations broke the law and were responsible for illegal discrimination and harassment.

“The debate is over. Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour party became institutionally antisemitic … Corbyn and those around him who took part in or enabled the gaslighting, harassment and victimisation of Britain’s Jewish minority are shamed for all time.”

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said the report confirmed “the depth of the endemic anti-Jewish racism in Labour”.

“Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories and Jew hate are unacceptable in all walks of life, and certainly nobody expected it to fester in a political party founded on anti-racism, but it did. Today is not the end of this dark chapter, but an opportunity for the Labour party to consign this shameful period to history, take responsibility and begin the journey back to any sort of morality.”

Corbyn said on Thursday that Jewish Labour members were right to expect the party to deal with antisemitism “and I regret that it took longer to deliver that change than it should”. But he added: “The scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party.”