The row over Jeremy Corbyn’s readmittance to the Labour party – but not as a Labour backbencher – is a messy state of affairs for Keir Starmer, who had hoped to make dealing with antisemitism in the party a cut-and-dried matter. But as a demonstration of the flawed nature of Labour’s disciplinary process, it makes a rather neat analogy.
Political parties are, by nature, political. Therefore some politicisation of the complaints process has always been inevitable. Though Corbyn as leader would protest he could have no control over suspensions of MPs or members, the reality is that when a high-profile disciplinary case emerges, the leader’s office always wants a say – and Labour staff always want a nod. Yet with the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report giving a firm rebuke to political interference from the leader’s office in disciplinary cases, Starmer has had to make a determined public separation between church and state, in this case, the elected national executive committee panel. His choice is between interference, and going against the EHRC, or looking impotent. That fear of looking like a leader who has lost control of party discipline – and having decisions forced on them – is exactly why party chiefs have been cautious about an independent process, which the EHRC recommended. It is now seen as the least worst option, and of course must be implemented as a legal requirement after the EHRC report. Starmer was faced with an NEC panel decision to reinstate Corbyn, one rumoured to have been smoothed behind closed doors with unions acting as a deal broker, which blew up spectacularly and threatened the shaky truce with Jewish communal organisations, which had been slowly rebuilt following the EHRC report and Corbyn’s suspension for his comments after the report was published. Perhaps he and others in the party believed a swift and firm reprimand would be in the best interests of party unity. Instead, it ended up pleasing nobody. Senior party sources, as well as allies of Corbyn close to the NEC and to trade unions, believe Starmer’s decision to withhold the whip was made in panic, perhaps a late realisation it would have been better to wait the many months for the independent panel to be set up. “There are serious concerns that Starmer has panicked again,” one senior leftwing figure said. “Not great qualities in a leader.” Another said Starmer was being “badly advised and only on the basis of short-term PR considerations”. But waiting for the independent process would also have had its downsides, and Corbyn’s advisers made it clear he did not want to wait for that to happen. One source close to the party’s NEC said that independent process would be far less susceptible to public and political pressure than elected members of the party’s governing body. And more significantly, that independent process could probably not work with the oft-used disciplinary concept of “bringing the party into disrepute”, which means whatever you want it to. There is no direct reason why restoring party membership should mean restoring the whip; indeed, MPs have had the whip suspended but retained their Labour membership in the past. But as Corbyn’s former adviser James Schneider pointed out on Wednesday morning, the two usually go hand-in-hand. The difference is that decision is Starmer’s to make. With only the power left to suspend the whip, Starmer will hope that gamble will pay off to restore some goodwill among the main Jewish communal bodies, though as one communal source put it: “Maybe with this move they’ve stopped digging but they’re still in a hole.” • This article was amended on 18 November 2020 to remove extraneous text that was introduced inadvertently during the production process.