What do Jewish members make of Keir Starmer’s efforts to tackle antisemitism?

Keir Starmer has made tackling antisemitism and rebuilding trust with the Jewish community his “first priority”. In October 2020, Britain’s independent equality watchdog confirmed the party’s failure on antisemitism. The EHRC found Labour in breach of the Equality Act, committing unlawful harassment and discrimination against Jewish people.

In response, Labour’s new leadership has enacted institutional and cultural changes, aiming to tackle anti-Jewish racism and make the party safer for all members. Measures included:

• reforming party rules to create an independent complaints process
• establishing an antisemitism advisory board
• producing an antisemitism action plan
• delivering education and training
• committing to action, zero-tolerance and culture change

But what has been the impact of these changes on Jewish members and supporters? A year on from Labour’s EHRC shanda, JLM sought our members’ views on the party’s progress. We analysed results from over 360 Jewish respondents (representing 15% of JLM’s total Jewish membership). Two thirds of Jewish respondents were party members, with roughly 30% separately stating they had left Labour under the previous leadership – due to concerns over antisemitism.

Our results are encouraging. For the first time, we have evidence of progress. Jewish members feel significantly safer in the party, believe Starmer is sincere in his efforts to address antisemitism, have new trust in the party to tackle antisemitism, have confidence in the complaints process and feel that positive cultural and procedural changes have been made. Respondents were emphatic about the contrast between the Corbyn and Starmer eras too, with feelings of safety in the party, and trust in leadership, dramatically improved.

It is beyond shame that Labour became unsafe for Jewish people. It’s therefore immensely positive that our evidence suggests a marked improvement in how secure Jews feel in Labour. Under the new leadership, fewer Jewish Labour members feel unsafe (decreasing by 76 percentage points under Starmer), and more feel safe (increasing by 65 points). However, there is still work to be done. 15% of members still report feeling unsafe, while some respondents highlighted discrepancies between improvements in the party nationally, in contrast to toxic cultures that still exist in local parties.

Regaining the trust of Britain’s Jewish community is a moral priority. Labour’s antisemitism problem was painful for British Jews, a tiny community with collective historical trauma. Many Jews, supportive of Labour’s policies and values, felt unable to vote for the party at the last election. Our survey shows that trust in the party to tackle antisemitism has transformed, increasing by 83 percentage points under the current leadership. That Jewish respondents so overwhelmingly expressed trust in the party and Starmer’s sincerity to tackle antisemitism is immensely positive.

Over the past few years, many Jews felt unable to reconcile their Jewish identity with Labour Party membership. Indeed, our survey found 54% of Jewish members knew of Jewish friends or family who left Labour over antisemitism. We hope that our findings of improved safety and trust will inspire confidence in Jewish supporters, who have been waiting for signs that things have changed. There have already been signals that Jewish members are starting to rejoin, including Louise Ellman and Jewish peers.

It’s often said that Labour has tested the faith of its Jewish members. One interesting finding was that a majority of respondents (70%) felt that attention to antisemitism in Labour had reinforced the importance of their Jewish identities. This confirms what we know anecdotally that the issue has awakened Jews up and down the country, and encouraged Jews to explore their own identities.

While primarily a moral priority, tackling antisemitism is also of electoral importance. Labour’s antisemitism problem not only lost Labour Jewish parliamentarians, councillors and members, it lost Jewish voters. In elections where the party gained votes, it lost them amongst Jewish voters, with an estimated 45,000 Jewish voters in 2015 failing to vote Labour in 2019. It’s likely other elections were affected, too. It’s often been mused around Friday night dinner tables that in 2017, the problem damaged Labour’s ability to win and hold seats in the ‘bagel belt’ of outer London constituencies with large Jewish populations. Some commentators have even speculated that antisemitism could have cost Labour that election. With Labour needing to overturn a large Conservative majority, demonstrating improved credibility and competence on this issue will only help Labour’s electoral prospects in key seats across the country.

With addressing antisemitism a litmus test of Keir Starmer’s leadership, our survey provides an early barometer to measure Starmer’s performance against his commitments to the Jewish community. Our survey found confidence amongst Jewish members that their complaints would be taken seriously, while nearly 90% of respondents believed the party has “made positive changes to its policies, processes, rules and culture in relation to antisemitism”. These are areas identified by the EHRC as requiring change so progress here is significant. Keir Starmer deserves credit. While Boris Johnson is accused of covering up abuse in his party, in Labour Keir Starmer is cleaning up.

We should be honest that this issue will remain a problem for Labour and the wider left. There is still a ‘softcore denial’ of the problem within our movement. For too many, the greatest injustice was not the existence of the antisemitism problem, but the belief that its extent was ‘exaggerated’. This continues to cause hurt. A failure to be honest about the scale of the problem under Corbyn’s leadership was integral to Labour’s failure to deal with it. Thankfully, this is no longer an issue.

Labour’s antisemitism problem caused lasting damage that will take time to repair. While our members feel significant progress has been made, they were equally clear that the problem is not yet solved. There is still work to do to embed cultural change and elements of the problem might never be able to be tackled – for example, the denial and dismissal of Labour’s failure on antisemitism.

However, for the first time we have evidence that the party has transformed for Jewish members. The dramatic contrast between Jewish members’ perceptions of trust and safety under Corbyn and Starmer speaks volumes. As one member said: “Things are improving. Starmer is serious on this topic. It will take time, but he’s making good progress.”

The views of JLM members count. We’ve been part of the labour movement for more than a century and are the only Jewish group affiliated to the Labour Party. More importantly, JLM members have been at the coalface of Labour’s antisemitism crisis. We may have joined to help make a Labour government a reality, but that hasn’t stopped us calling out the party when it has compromised on racism, without fear or favour. So when our members tell us trust is being regained, we speak with credibility.

These signs of progress should matter to everyone on the left. For many of our members, Labour’s problem was so acute that they felt unable to champion other progressive causes within the party that were important to them. We hope that evidence of improvement will continue to inspire more Jewish people to come back to the party, so we can all work together to tackle prejudice, injustice and inequality.

JLM have tweeted a graphical summary of the full survey results.