Jeremy Corbyn has dramatically rejected a watchdog’s ruling that he failed to act to stamp out antisemitism, insisting he tried to “root out the cancer”.
The former Labour leader blamed “an obstructive party bureaucracy” for stalling reform, saying: “My team acted to speed up, not hinder the process”.
“As Leader of the Labour Party I was always determined to eliminate all forms of racism and root out the cancer of antisemitism,” a statement said.
“One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”
Mr Corbyn added: “I do not accept all of its findings”, but said: “I trust its recommendations will be swiftly implemented to help move on from this period.”
The statement is certain to fuel accusations that the former leader is refusing to accept personal responsibility for the scandal widely seen as among the party’s most shameful episodes.
It will increase pressure on Keir Starmer – has been given until 10 December to draft an action plan to implement the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s recommendations – to discipline his predecessor.
The long-awaited EHRC report found that Labour broke the law by failing to prevent “acts of harassment and discrimination” against Jewish people.
Mr Corbyn’s leadership “did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it,” it said.
There were three breaches of the 2010 Equality Act “relating to “political interference in antisemitism complaints”, a “failure to provide adequate training to those handling antisemitism complaints” and “harassment”.
Its actions were “inexcusable and appeared to be a result of a lack of willingness to tackle antisemitism rather than an inability to do so.”
But Mr Corbyn’s statement said: “I have campaigned in support of Jewish people and communities my entire life and I will continue to do so.
“The EHRC’s report shows that when I became Labour leader in 2015, the party’s processes for handling complaints were not fit for purpose.
Reform was then stalled by an obstructive party bureaucracy. But from 2018, Jennie Formby [the former general secretary] and a new NEC that supported my leadership made substantial improvements, making it much easier and swifter to remove antisemites.”
Alasdair Henderson, the EHRC’s lead investigator, rejected Mr Corbyn’s claim that complaints of antisemitism were overblown.
“We found two specific unlawful acts and 18 more in the sample that we found,” he told a press conference.
“And, as we said, that’s the tip of the iceberg there were a lot more instances of antisemitic conduct by members of the party in that large group of files that we looked at, which didn’t quite meet the threshold for us to say it was an unlawful act but were definitely there, and were taking place. So I just point you back to our findings.”
