Jeremy corbyn has brought the labour party to its knees | thearticle

It would be a great pity if the historic decisions that Parliament must confront over Brexit next week were to distract attention from the descent of the official Opposition to depths that

no major party in this country has ever plumbed before. The last time that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigated a political party was a decade ago. Then it was the

British National Party. Now the EHRC is threatening to investigate the Labour Party. It was a Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who set up the EHRC in 2006. It combined the roles of

previous watchdogs on race, disability and sex discrimination. In 2009 the Commission investigated the BNP and ruled that its membership criteria, which required members to be “indigenous

Caucasian”, were illegal. The BNP was subsequently taken to court and obliged to change its rules. Now the EHRC has issued a public warning to the Labour Party. The Commission has received

detailed complaints about anti-Semitism that are sufficiently serious to require the party to respond. Labour, it says, may have “unlawfully discriminated against people because of their

ethnicity and religious beliefs”. “Our concerns are sufficient for us to consider using our statutory enforcement powers,” a spokesperson for the EHRC said. If the party’s response is deemed

to be inadequate, the Commission will launch a statutory investigation and large fines may be imposed. It is difficult to exaggerate the gravity of the predicament into which Jeremy Corbyn

has landed the Labour Party. It is not merely embarrassing for a party that boasts of its anti-racist credentials to be the subject of an inquiry on the grounds of discrimination. Under such

an investigation, the entire lamentable record of Labour’s failure to deal with anti-Semitism will be exposed, including texts and emails by Corbyn and his office. Court injunctions may be

imposed to prevent party officials from discriminating against Jewish members. It is hard to see how Labour could recover from such a humiliation without a change of leadership. Even that

might not be enough to save Labour from this existential crisis. After all, a similar investigation finished off the BNP. Faced with such a catastrophe, how did Labour react? One of the

members of its governing body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), tweeted that it was the EHRC, not the Labour Party, that should be closed down. Huda Elmi, one of the Corbyn supporters

who now dominate the NEC, wrote that the Commission was “a failed experiment”. “We need to abolish it,” she demanded. Ms Elmi’s reaction tells us all we need to know about Labour’s

attitude, not only to anti-Semitism, but to criticism of any kind. A Corbyn government would inevitably interfere with the rule of law, because the party he has created considers itself

above the law. Many people are bewildered by Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis. Some supporters assume that it is much ado about nothing, a hullabaloo got up by hostile media. A few even blame

the victims. They are wrong. Worse, they are in denial. The threshold for an investigation by the EHRC is high. Hundreds of allegations of anti-Semitic conduct, including threats of violence

and worse, have been made. The party’s response has been to threaten its critics. Last year Mishcon de Reya warned Labour on behalf of Margaret Hodge MP that the party had made a “veiled

attempt to silence” her. Mishcon is a formidable law firm; it has been gathering evidence of anti-Semitism. And Mrs Hodge is on the warpath again. Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour is drinking in

the last chance saloon. The moral turpitude into which it has sunk now threatens to engulf not only its leader, but the party itself.