Sir Keir Starmer has just announced he will not be restoring the Labour whip to Jeremy Corbyn following his comments about the extent of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party being exaggerated for political purposes.
A panel of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee last night reinstated Corbyn as a member, but this morning Starmer said he would not do the same with the whip. You can read his full statement below.
The reaction last night from Jewish groups to the NEC’s decision had made very clear that if Starmer accepted Corbyn back into the party on the basis of the non-apology he had issued, it would undo the new Labour leader’s work repairing relations with the Jewish community. In his statement, Starmer focused on the failure of the complaints system, and made clear that a new independent process must be set up as soon as possible.
Starmer would not have been able to claim, as he has done up to this point, that the Labour Party is ‘under new management’ if he ended up having to justify the readmission within 19 days of a man who presided over an explosion of anti-Semitism in the party.
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