 Regular viewers of Tiskey's hour will know I spent much of the year trying to be fair to Keir Starmer. I didn't expect him to be erratical, but I thought, you know, there was an off chance that he would try, like he said, to unite the party. Any hopes, however, that I might have harboured were dashed on October the 29th. That's because on that day the EHRC report into Labour and anti-Semitism was released and what should have been a day for sober reflection became one where factional warfare was unleashed because Keir Starmer decided to suspend his predecessor for telling the truth. We can look back at the key events of that day and also how myself, Rivka Brown and Aaron Bostani responded to Keir Starmer pressing the nuclear button. The Labour Party I lead accepts this report in full and without qualification. We will implement all recommendations and we will implement them in full. That process starts today. I have already instructed my staff to start work with the Commission to implement the recommendations at the earliest possible opportunity. We will provide the Commission with our action plan to achieve all of this within six weeks. We will establish an independent complaints process and it will be in place as soon as possible in the new year. We will ensure that neither the Leader, the Deputy Leader or our officers will have any involvement in the outcome of complaints initiated under the Labour Party processes. And we are already addressing the backlog of anti-Semitism cases. In fact, there have been more cases completed in the last six months than in the whole of 2019. But we will go much further and we must go further because as the report makes clear, this cannot be solved just by changing the party's processes and structures. We also need a culture change in the Labour Party. It must become once again an open and welcoming place for people from all backgrounds and all communities. Under my leadership, zero tolerance of anti-Semitism will mean precisely that. If you're anti-Semitic, you should be nowhere near this party and we'll make sure you're not. And if after all the pain, all the grief and all the evidence in this report, there are still those who think there's no problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, that it's all exaggerated or a factual attack, then frankly you are part of the problem too and you should be nowhere near the Labour Party either. So that was Keir Starmer's response. That's the official Labour Party response at their press conference responding to the findings of the report. Jeremy Corbyn also gave an interview this morning where he gave his thoughts on what the report came up with. As you'll all know by now, he struck quite a different time. The report's findings. Which findings do you disagree with? I think they don't acknowledge the work that I did to ensure there were proper processes brought into place. But let's be clear. Start off, one anti-Semite in the party is one anti-Semite too many. And when I became leader of the party, some complaints were received. I asked Chami Chakrabarty to undertake a review of all this, which she did. She made a number of recommendations on processes which were not implemented quickly enough. Under Jenny Formby's period as General Secretary in 2018, much more progress was made very quickly. But the numbers have been exaggerated in my view. The public perception in the opinion poll last year was that one third of all Labour Party members were some or other under suspicion of anti-Semitism. The reality is it was 0.3% of party members had a case against them which had to be put through the process. And so I think it's clear that we do not accept, I do not accept, Keir Starmer does not accept, none of us accept anti-Semitism in any form whatsoever. So it was that response, that interview he gave there. You might say that wasn't the most sensitive thing to say in that, but I don't really care. What happened was he got suspended for saying something which to me seems completely reasonable anyway. Let's get the response from the Labour Party's spokesperson. In light of his comments made today and his failure to retract them, subsequently the Labour Party has suspended Jeremy Corbyn pending investigation. He has also had the whip removed from the Parliamentary Labour Party. There's some sort of news from the NEC about people struggling to find out what particular rule he was supposed to have broken. As far as I understand that still hasn't been made clear, what sentence he said that was so concerning to the people in the, well, we're told it's people who are in the Labour Party disciplinary office, not Keir Starmer's office, but we'll see. Let's look at reactions to that though. So Starmer gave an interview and response to Corbyn's suspension. Here it is. I made it clear that we won't tolerate anti-Semitism or the denial of anti-Semitism through the suggestion that it's exaggerated or factional. And that's why I was disappointed with Jeremy Corbyn's response and that is why appropriate action has been taken which I fully support. Well this is an investigation that started today. It's very important for me not to interfere with it. It has to be done properly in accordance with the rules, but it will look into the statement that was made. In response to that, or actually it might have been at a similar time, we've got Corbyn's response to his suspension. Shocked and very disappointed. I've been in the Labour Party all my life and I want to make it absolutely clear anti-Semitism has no place whatsoever in our party or our movement. I've opposed it and racism in all its forms all my life and that is what I've made clear during my leadership of the party and I'll make clear today as a member of parliament and proud to be one. You said you will strongly contest your suspension. Will you be taking legal action? What are we doing is appealing to the party and those that have made this decision to kindly think again. All I've done is pointed out that this terrible issue of anti-Semitism does exist and anyone that has anti-Semitic views has no place in the Labour movement or the Labour Party and we have to deal with it. That is why I set up a process to deal with it. All I pointed out was there was a public perception of a third of Labour Party members under suspicion of anti-Semitism. The reality is very different. It was 0.03% but that is 0.3% too many and I think we have to chase it out as we are trying to do. That is important because I want to make clear to all communities, the Jewish community in particular, you are very welcome in the Labour Party. It is your party. It is the party that has always fought against racism and it is unacceptable that you should be treated in any bad way whatsoever. So he was referring there to a salvation poll which was done in 2019 which found that the average number that people fell upon in the public and as to what proportion of people in the Labour Party had complaints about anti-Semitism lodged against them, the average was 34%. In fact it is 0.3%. That is why Jeremy Corbyn is saying it was exaggerated. I am going to go to Rivka and Aaron for their thoughts on these events in one moment. First of all, any of you that are new to this show and to this channel, do hit subscribe and we go live three times a week and I think it is probably pretty important for independent left-wing institutions to be growing at this point in time because the people at the Labour Party are really fucking up. Rivka, I want to go to you. What do you make of Corbyn's comments and his suspension? I was not entirely surprised by Corbyn's statement. It takes the same sort of approach that he has taken throughout this whole process which is a principled one but often quite an unstrategic one. I think he knew that the statement he made today would get him in trouble and it has. I am appalled that it has but we have been headed this way for a long time and now that Corbyn is not leader of the Labour Party, he is much more vulnerable to this kind of thing and to disciplinary action for making these kinds of staunch remarks than he was previously. I think he is completely right, though. This is a view that many people, including many Jewish people, including many Jewish people within the centre left agree with which is that anti-Semitism is a real problem in the Labour Party but that it has been inflamed by people with an interest in the left's demise in the Labour Party and more generally and the idea that Jeremy Corbyn was an existential threat, the appearance of James Cleverley on the front page of the telegraph the week before the election saying that Jews will leave this country. Of course that was all cynical bad faith nonsense and I'm afraid he is right to point that out. Was it smart to point that out at this point? Definitely not and I think that like other members of the Labour Backbench like Nadir Wittem for example he should have just kept his eyes on the report and not kind of broadened this out into a kind of ideological battle between the left and the right. He should have just said look the report which was relatively soft, quite straightforward, reasonably fair was largely right. We had a bad complaints process. There are many reasons for that some of which you can find in the report that was leaked earlier this year as you mentioned but instead he took it as a personal attack which it was actually quite careful not to be and in so doing he kind of offered himself off as a bit of a sacrificial lamb and I'm very very sad that Kirsten almost sort of took the bait but yeah. Corbyn wasn't putting the bait down to be suspended but I do I do see what you mean in terms of what was quite frustrating about today is one that people said by saying this Corbyn is denying what was in the report because he's not you know I read the report and nowhere did I think oh this makes it seem that it was reasonable to say Corbyn is an existential threat to Jewish life in in Britain you know the things that were said about the party under Jeremy Corbyn yep there was a problem but the way it was reported was exaggerated you know that doesn't mean that when anyone talks about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party they're exaggerating no but it clearly was in many cases exaggerated. Now there is a separate issue of whether Corbyn should have brought this up today because as we say the report wasn't actually about whether or not Labour was full of anti-Semites. The report was about whether the complaints process worked well whether two people said something on Twitter and whether the training was good right and I think you know taken on those terms it didn't need to be this damaging but I think the suspension of him is obviously appalling if he was on the shadow cabinet you can say that wasn't the kind of speech I wanted my my people to be saying so I'm gonna which is in my power I'm gonna say you're not going to be in my shadow cabinet but you can't suspend someone from a political party in a two-party system for telling the truth. I mean arguably Corbyn would have been suspended either way right like he could have said I accept everything in this report I accept responsibility and there would have been the same people begging for his blood and he you know in the way that we saw with Rebecca Long Bailey which was a kind of non-event until for example the board of deputies released a statement saying like we think Kestalma should seriously consider Rebecca Long Bailey's you know suitability for the shadow cabinet it would have been something similar and then it would have been the same story so I don't know whether there was really an out for him because I think the same people would have made the same kind of calls for his for his head. Well I'm just really glad first and foremost we've got more than 6,000 people watching tonight because I'm sure you know I know how I feel and I'm sure many of our viewers feel utterly powerless in the face of just not just an injustice because generally Corbyn at the end of the day is just one person it's an appalling story and what is happening is what I think is disgrace it's disgusting it reveals that Kerstama doesn't really have much respect I think for due process and the rule of law quite worrying if he wants to be the prime minister but also this was such an immense opportunity for us all to move forward and learn right I didn't look at the HRC report and think let's get it behind us and by the way that's how most people at the top of the Labour Party look at these things it's a PR problem not all of them but many of them will look at it like that and I thought this could be a huge learning opportunity for so many of us and I read the report and I thought this is a brilliant document it's very sober like you say Michael it had a very limited ultimately sort of ambit it wasn't there to discuss his labour and institution and cement it was it was a very legally confined document and I read it and I thought this is this is really good I'm really grateful and happy to live in a country where there are official organisations which look into allegations of racism or antisemitism or sexism or homophobia in public bodies and can write a report which is this productive I was really happy about that but then that was completely and utterly torn to shreds by the idiocy of Kerstama who now is such a weak individual he's not willing to defend his own decision and so this has been outsourced to David Evans the general secretary who when asked what charges against Jeremy Corbyn are sufficient for him to have lost the whip he can't say again do you want somebody like that in charge of the British apparatus in charge of education criminal justice the health care system I don't you know I just on a very basic level these people don't seem to care very much about due process so like I say I'll go back to my regional point I'm very happy we've got so many viewers tonight because left institutions critical institutions independent institutions have never been more important I just think Aaron's kind of attitude is a good case study for why the report and Starmer's response to it and the suspension of Corbyn is so ineffective because so many of the people that may have been really good recipients for the kind of reports recommendations and the kind of people that the report needed to speak to and needed to understand how the Labour Party needs to change its culture change as the as as Starmer put it have been turned off by this decision to suspend the former leader of the Labour Party you know so many people now who might have kind of been brought around to the idea that actually yeah we do need a college change and maybe we are we should just like you know face forward and and accept that there is a problem and now just going to lapse back into resentment and disengagement and possibly denial and that's like a very dangerous phenomenon for the Labour Party and for Jews yeah I mean I I think that's so right this could have been an opportunity to sort of start speaking sensibly about anti-Semitism and to remove this debate from from the factionalism which has massively confused it I mean one problem with the EHRC report is that it doesn't well it in a way didn't set itself out to answer the question of who in the party is responsible for this it looked at this organization which itself is a completely factually driven organization which was subject to a civil war at the time and they're sort of judging it as if it was a conscious agent instead of like this field of chaos which for so many of the last five years it was so you can critique the report for that but in terms of the conclusions I think it was something that we could have discussed and we could have moved forward non-factionally I think probably Keir Starmer could have created a consensus around accepting the vast majority of the proposals in that particular report but I think what he has done by suspending someone for saying that and he didn't say Jeremy this is also how some of the media reporting is they're saying that Jeremy Corbyn said the EHRC was exaggerated he hasn't said that what he has said and as we've said maybe that was a bit of a you know a bit of a side note because he wasn't actually you know he maybe should have said that a different day but the fact that anti-Semitism existed in the Labour Party what was massively exaggerated in the media if you're telling people if you say that you get expelled suspended from one of the two major parties in a two-party system that is a severe threat to democracy that this idea that you can't say what what everyone knows to be true you know every any time I hear someone who says like it hasn't been exaggerated if I hear someone who says you know there's anti-Semitism in the Labour Party it's really upset me it's made me feel unsafe you know it's hurt my community yeah I believe you if you say no one's ever exaggerated anti-Semitism in the Labour Party I mean that's that's incredible you know that's incredulous sorry I mean yeah it's and it's important to distinguish between people because there was a kind of like linguistic slip that you know Stammer used in his speech he said you know people who deny racism in the Labour Party anti-Semitism in the Labour Party who say that it was exaggerated or use of factual reasons those are two different things there are people who deny it there are people who say that it's all a smear that it's a witch hunt and we know who those people are and then there are people who say no it's a real problem but it was exaggerated and those are very very different viewpoints and as I was saying I just I can only think of a very few number of people that wouldn't say that you know certain media outlets have have exaggerated and played on Jewish fear and I think actually that's quite a common place if not like almost universal view I can cannot think of many people who would say that media played on Jewish fear to claim for example an existential threat was awaiting British Jews on the other side of the election like that's an absurd claim to have made and a dangerous one and so I think yeah it's important we distinguish between people who are denialists and people who are just rationalists. There's this argument that Keir Starmer seems to be making which is to move factionalism from the debate about anti-Semitism you have to deny it ever involved factionalism. Lisa Nandi was on Radio 4 today saying that she was asked by Evan Davies actually who's given a very softball interview as in you know everyone I've heard who's been interviewed about this today from the Labour Party it's all focused on well should he have been suspended even quicker than he was the sort like Keir Starmer didn't immediately say in the press which is why you have to call out them the press for who they are saying no actually we're going to be reasonable we're going to use due process they've undermined that possibility because they haven't but he was he was saying to Lisa Nandi you know surely he think that some complaints were sort of used by factional opponents of Jeremy Corbyn or by the other party like I mean surely you do and she was like no I think that's exactly the wrong way to think it's like well then you you're lying sorry yeah it's also like really damaging for Jewish people particularly Jewish people on the left who were also you know that's my lived experience for crying out loud like to see people you know like Ian Austin like many others abuse Jewish trauma in order to win factional points that was also part of the labour and feminism crisis why are we not talking about that