A truly dark day for British politics

Dominic Sandbrook described the suspension as a shaming moment, 'utterly without precedent'.

"Even a few years ago, for one of the two great parties to cast out its own former leader, less than a year after he stepped down, would have been unimaginable.," he said. "But Jeremy Corbyn always said he wanted to rewrite the rules of British politics; and now he has."

He said rarely had any defenestration been more richly deserved. Corbyn's staff interfered with complaints proceedings, he said, failed to treat the issue with the care it deserved and harassed insiders who drew attention to the party's failings.

"What finished him off, though, was not the report, but his reaction to it," he said. "As always, he blamed everybody but himself. Allegations of anti-Semitism, he said, were 'exaggerated' by Labour's enemies in the newspapers — the same papers that had, in reality, exposed his own unforgivable complicity."

He said Corbyn was yesterday's man and 'this is really a story about his successor, Sir Keir Starmer.'

"Perhaps this is really the start of something: a tumultuous, historic fightback against the extremists who, under Jeremy Corbyn, were allowed to take control of a once-great party," he said. "If so, I hope Sir Keir succeeds. In troubled times, Britain desperately needs a credible Opposition."

The Daily Express

Paul Baldwin said it had been a truly dark day for British politics.

" A leading British political party - the Labour Party - stands guilty of giving succour to racists and Jew-haters everywhere," he said. "The party which was once supposed to be a pillar of socialist decency, indeed a vital bulwark against the far right, has been found to be institutionally antisemitic.2

He said it was a time of deep reflection for any Labour supporter or voter.

"Just when you thought Labour's day of shame could surely get no worse – Jeremy Corbyn opens his mouth," he added. "Even now, after the Party and new leader Sir Keir Starmer “fully accepted” the Commission's findings that Labour illegally harassed and discriminated against Jews, Corbyn still wasn't having it."

He warned it should not be a one day wonder – 'glossed over by Sir Keir's pained apologies and Press Office spin.'

"The swamp needs draining," he said. "A new face at the top, albeit a strained and contrite one, isn't even close to enough.

"New policies and systems are being brought in – which is welcome, but it isn't even close to enough. The Labour leader needs to go through the Corbynite and Momentum undesirables in the Party and figure out who else was complicit in turning a blind eye to racism.

"Then he needs to sack them wholesale."

The Guardian

Keith Khan-Harris, author of Strange Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and the Limits of Diversity, said the publication of the EHRC report was not the end 'of this sorry period in the history of the Labour party.'

"By their very nature, legal and institutionally focused documents of this kind cannot resolve political arguments over divisive phenomena such as antisemitism," he said. "Antisemitism can sometimes be fought, marginalised and even suppressed through legal means. Individuals can be suspended and expelled. But it cannot be understood through legalistic and institutional research alone."

He said one of the dangers of the EHRC report was that it could divert attention away from entrenched problems such as the unspoken assumptions in an organisation of what constitutes 'normal behaviour.'

"Even if the Labour party under Starmer develops an exemplary disciplinary process, this is just the start of the work that needs to be done," he warned. " Culture change is an incredibly difficult project for any organisation, but it is long overdue.

"Labour needs to become a party where ideological disputes are no longer prosecuted without restraint and where abuse is no longer a normative way of responding to differences of opinion."