THE Labour party has received the long-awaited Forde report into the leaking of an antisemitism dossier, it has been confirmed.
The party’s general secretary will take the document – understood to be 138 pages long – to a meeting of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) at 12pm on Tuesday, and will recommend that it should be published as soon as possible.
Martin Forde QC, a barrister and former independent adviser to the Windrush compensation scheme, was chosen by the NEC to chair an inquiry into the “circumstances, contents and release” of the dossier in 2020.
The leaking of the 860-page document more than two years ago reopened divisions within the party.
It found “no evidence” of antisemitism being handled differently from other complaints and blamed “factional opposition” towards former leader Jeremy Corbyn for hampering efforts to tackle the crisis.
Allies of Corbyn used the dossier to say elements of the party undermined his leadership.
Labour was forced to defend its data protection handling and work with the Information Commissioner’s Office over the leak.
%image('13118946', type="article-full", alt="Allies of Corbyn used the dossier to say elements of the party undermined his leadership")
A Labour spokesperson said: “Labour’s general secretary David Evans has now received the Forde report and he will be taking it to today’s National Executive Committee meeting with a clear recommendation that the NEC agree the publication of the report as soon as possible today.”
The NEC meeting will begin at 12pm.
In March this year, Forde wrote to Evans to tell him the content of his report was finalised, and all that was still to be undertaken was “detailed checking for legal and factual accuracy prior to publication”.
It comes after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer rejected accusations that he used a visit to Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial for political campaigning purposes.
Starmer said the tour was part of his duty as a political leader to prevent such atrocities from happening again, after he was criticised for using the memorial as a backdrop for a promotional video that does not mention the Holocaust.
He said: “I think going to a memorial like that is very important for senior politicians.
“We have a duty not just to look back and remember and learn – of course we’ve got that duty.
“But we have the duty now to make sure that we never get into a situation where that could possibly happen again.
%image('14116729', type="article-full", alt="Starmer was filmed at the Memorial To The Murdered Jews Of Europe in Berline")
“So I think it’s very, very important that I went to that memorial.
“I’m very glad I did and I found it very, very moving.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism accused Starmer of “exploiting” a visit to the memorial for campaigning purposes, calling the move as “manipulative and repulsive”.
