LISA NANDY believes the row over Labour’s suspension of veteran anti-racism campaigner Trevor Phillips for alleged Islamophobia highlighted how “badly discredited” the party’s complaints process had become.
The Labour leadership candidate said on Tuesday (11) that was she was “troubled” by certain views on Islam put forth by the former chairman of UK’s equality watchdog, and “really troubled” over the way the party handled such issues.
Labour had suspended Phillips for comments, “which targets or intimidates members of ethnic or religious communities, or incites racism, including Islamophobia”, including some remarks he had made about Pakistani grooming gangs in the UK.
Phillips had alleged that the move was “payback by Corbynistas for public criticisms I made of the leadership’s failure to tackle anti-Semitism in the party”.
He said it would be a “tragedy” if the current ways of Labour lead to a “spectacle of a great party collapsing into a brutish, authoritarian cult”.
Notably, Phillips was among 24 eminent figures had publicly denounced Labour’s alleged anti-Semitic stance last year. The group had also accused party leader Jeremy Corbyn of having “a long record of embracing anti-Semites as comrades”.
Phillips said his suspension could be “an attempt to scare the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which I used to lead and which is investigating Labour's handling of anti-Semitism”.
“Weaponising Islamophobia to attack political opponents may seem like clever tactics but trying to intimidate a legally independent organisation is pure political gangsterism,” he added.
A Labour spokesman, however, maintained that the party took “all complaints about Islamophobia extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures, and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken”.
Subsequently, Phillips had urged the three Labour leadership hopefuls—Nandy, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Sir Keir Starmer—to state their stand on his case, describing it as a “test for the kind of party these candidates want to lead”.
The government’s anti-Semitism adviser, Lord Mann, said: “It is a mark of leadership... either back the investigation or back Trevor Phillips.
“To suspend the first head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission is not a sit on the fence issue.”
In a media discussion, Nandy said the case “shows how far we [Labour] have lost the trust of everybody”, and called for the party’s complaints process to be handled by an “independent” panel that was “not subject to political interference”.
“I think this just highlights how badly discredited the Labour Party has become and the Labour leadership has become about the way that we handle complaints,” said the Wigan MP.
“There is a particular problem in the case of Trevor Phillips. He was the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Labour is currently being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for institutional anti-Semitism.”
Elaborating on Phillips’ alleged Islamophobic statements, Nandy said: “I have admired a lot of the work that Trevor Phillips has done on combating racism over the last few years but I have also been troubled with some of the things he has said about Islam.
“He has also made a series of comments about how Muslims are different and how Muslims think in particular ways and have particular attitudes.”
She added that complaints on Islamophobia should be taken “seriously”, but “it doesn't mean that you presume guilt”.
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