Jeremy Corbyn has called on faith leaders, such as the Chief Rabbi, who have concerns over Labour’s handling of racism to “engage” with him directly.
Speaking at the launch of Labour’s ‘race and faith manifesto’ today, Corbyn repeatedly declared that antisemitism had “no place whatsoever” within the party or wider society.
Answering questions on antisemitism, he said: “There is no place for it, and I ask those that think things have not been done correctly to tell me about it, talk to me about it but above all engage.
“I’m very happy to engage with anybody. My whole life has been engagement with people. Sometimes you agree with them, sometimes you don’t, but you only learn by that process of engagement.”
The Labour leader did not explicitly address the criticisms made by the Chief Rabbi in The Times today, but invited him as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury and others to “talk to us about what their concerns are”.
Corbyn declared that he would have an “open door to all the faith leaders” as Prime Minister, and that no community would be “at risk” under a Labour government.
He also argued that Labour’s handling of disciplinary cases had improved, adding: “When people commit antisemitic acts, they are brought to book, and if necessary expelled from the party or suspended or asked to be educated better about it.”
The Chief Rabbi has made an unprecedented intervention through an article in which he says Jewish people have been “treated by many as an irritant, as opposed to a minority community with genuine concerns”.
In the Times piece, Ephraim Mirvis describes antisemitism within the Labour Party as a “poison” that has been “sanctioned from the top”, and calls on readers to “vote with their conscience”.
A Labour spokesperson said: “A Labour government will guarantee the security of the Jewish community, defend and support the Jewish way of life, and combat rising antisemitism in our country and across Europe.”
Introducing Corbyn at the campaign event, Lord Alf Dubs – who fled Nazi persecution as a child – said he was “bitterly disappointed” by the Chief Rabbi’s criticism of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn.
Labour’s race and faith manifesto sets out a range of policies aimed at improving representation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) and faith communities, as well as address historical injustices.
Below is a full list of the policies included in the manifesto, which can be read in full here. The wording is taken from the manifesto text.
- Eliminate racial inequality from our economy and extend pay gap reporting to ethnic minority groups and tackle pay discrimination on the basis of race.
- An equality audit all our policies before, during and after implementation.
- Commission an independent review into the threat of far-right extremism and how to tackle it.
- Enhance the powers and functions of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, making it truly independent.
- Appoint a Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief to work across government to promote Freedom of Religious Belief in the UK and abroad.
- Develop a comprehensive Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community equality strategy to tackle persistent inequalities, in particular within housing, education and criminal justice.
- Ensure the views of communities with or without faith are respected and protected across our society.
Historical Injustices
- Create an Emancipation Educational Trust to ensure the historical injustices of colonialism, and the role of the British Empire is properly integrated into the National Curriculum, to teach powerful Black history, which is also British history.
- Consider ways to formally recognise and commemorate the contribution by soldiers across Africa, India, China, the Middle East and Asia to the world wars.
- Ensure that Black and Asian soldiers who fought in Britain’s colonial armies receive a full apology and compensation for the discriminatory demob payments they received compared to their white counterparts serving at the same rank in the same regiments in World War Two.
- Issue a formal apology for the first Amritsar massacre, and hold a public review into Britain’s role in the second.
Climate Justice
- Deal with the injustice of least polluting countries, more often than not the developing nations, at the sharp end of the havoc climate change unleashes.
- Support international calls for compensation to those nations already suffering loss and damage, and also take serious and urgent steps on debt relief and cancellation.
- Stop all aid spending on fossil fuel production overseas, redirecting it towards clean, renewable energy for all.
- Recognise that trade and investment, not aid, is the most important issue in helping countries to develop.
Economic Empowerment
- Extend pay gap reporting to BAME groups and tackle pay discrimination on the basis of race.
- Launch an inquiry into name-based discrimination within the first 100 days and consider rolling out name-blind recruitment practices if necessary.
- Establish a Race Equality unit within the Treasury to work alongside the new Department for Women and Equalities that is able to review all major spending announcements for its impact on BAME communities. This will include transparency and accountability of the diversity of third parties bidding for and receiving significant public funds.
- Commit our National Investment Bank to address discrimination in access to finance. Take action to ensure that BAME and women business owners have access to government contracts and spending.
Brexit and Valuing Migrants
- End the rip-off charges for passports, visas, tests and other documentation imposed by the Home Office. Only charge the much lower real cost of processing these applications.
- Defend the 1998 Human Rights Act and advance human rights legislation by incorporating the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination into British law.
- Remain a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Stronger, Safer and Respected Communities
- Strengthen protection for religious communities and amend the law to include attacks on places of worship (synagogues, temples, mosques and churches) as a specific aggravated offence.
- Review current levels of funding to the Places of Worship Protective Scheme to ensure it is proportionate to risk.
- Maintain funding in real terms for the Community Security Trust.
- Take steps, working with the relevant Sikh organisations and the police, to address the gross under-reporting of Sikh hate crime.
- Review the Prevent programme to assess both effectiveness and potential to alienate communities.
- Work with social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to combat the rise of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia, and extremism expressed on social media.
- Work with partners across Europe to challenge the rise of Islamophobic and antisemitic rhetoric, including from other European governments, e.g. Hungary, Poland.
Inclusive Public Services
- Support religious education about all faiths in all schools.
- Review the curriculum to ensure that it enriches students and covers subjects such as racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and black history and continues to teach issues like the Holocaust.
- Launch a wide ranging review into the under representation of BAME teachers in schools within the first month of government and develop a comprehensive strategy to recruit and retain BAME teachers.
- Work with community groups, local authorities and schools to develop a robust plan to tackle the injustice of higher exclusion rates of young people from BAME backgrounds, particularly black Caribbean pupils.
Health…
- End NHS access charges for resident migrants and refugees. Ensure all services are made accessible to BAME patients, including LGBT BAME and disabled BAME groups.
- Invest an additional £1.6bn a year in mental health services to ensure new standards for mental health are enshrined in the NHS constitution and ensure access to treatments are on a par with those for physical health conditions and ensure culturally sensitive mental health provision for different ethnic minority communities.
- Ensure proper levels of support for the provision of religious and culturally sensitive social care services.
- Improve coroners services to ensure they meet the needs of faith communities. For example with ‘out of hours’ services and where possible minimally invasive autopsies to ensure quick burials when required by faith communities.
Criminal justice…
- Tackle racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, and review the Lammy review recommendations within the first 100 days of government and set targets for swift implementation where this is necessary.
- Alongside a wholesale review of Prevent, we will investigate the disproportionate number of young Muslim men in the prison population.
- Tackle the disproportionate levels of BAME children in youth custody.
- Improve training for staff at the Home Office on religious belief and practice and increase support for BAME LGBT asylum seekers.
Representation in Public Life
- Review the recommendations by Sir Lenny Henry to the House of Lords Communications Committee within the first 100 days in government and set targets for swift implementation where appropriate.
- Build on the Bernie Grant Shadowing Scheme.
- Consider how to ensure increased diversity at all levels, including the judiciary and elected mayors.
- Conduct an urgent review into the implementation of all-BAME shortlists.
- Introduce unconscious bias training for members of all selection panel members.
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