Chuka Umunna should be attacking the Tories, not falsely accusing Labour of institutional racism

With Labour ahead in the polls and the Tories on the ropes, a Blairite sabotage attempt was predictable. The failed coup of 2016 wasn’t because they believed Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t win, it was because they feared he could. 

In 2016, a UN report singled out The Sun and The Daily Mail for inciting racial hatred. That Trevor Phillips courted these outlets to attack the Labour leader on Sunday, is shameful. But then this is the man who, as chair of the Equality body, was forced to apologise for propagating "bogus and alarmist" falsehoods that Britain was blighted by race ghettos.

I was involved in rolling out race training with the police in the wake of the MacPherson report. Just when we were making progress, Phillips told the Metropolitan Police board that institutional racism didn’t exist. "Time to move on", so they did and the Met remains institutionally racist as a result. 

It was Labour right winger, Chuka Umunna, who fed the media frenzy by scurrilously labelling fellow members, “attack dogs” and accusing his own party of "Institutional racism". A term that is indelibly linked to the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. 

Scrutinising Labour against Macpherson’s established parameters, Umunna’s allegation is not substantiated by the evidence. Labour has the most diverse Shadow Cabinet in British history, five of whom are BAME women. Of the 52 BAME MPs elected to parliament in 2017, 32 are Labour. Several seats with a high BAME population, switched from the Tories to Labour, achieving an incredible 11.5% increase in the vote share in the 75 most ethnically diverse areas. 

And then there’s the Labour leader’s record on race. Jeremy Corbyn has literally been on the front line, fighting racism, antisemitism and fascism, his entire life. To accuse him of racism is farcical.

Given that Labour is the natural home for those of us committed to fighting oppression, injustice and racism – in all its forms, it’s not surprising that the Chakrabarti report found that, although there’s much work to do on antisemitism, the Labour Party is not institutionally racist.

  

So where are these “racist" "attack dogs” hiding and who are they?

Is it the junior doctor who worked a double shift, got racially abused on the way home, then donned his rosette to campaign for his Labour candidate? Why? Because he knows that you can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.

Is it the teacher who went into the profession to inspire and educate children but found herself acting as “a shock absorber against the impact of Tory cuts”?

Or, is it arch Corbyn fundamentalist, Chelley Ryan, whose twitter timeline is riddled with this kind of filth,

“To minimise the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, is Holocaust denial. 6 million Jews were killed, not 270,000. I am reporting & unfollowing this person and I hope a lot of my followers do the same. These people give Corbyn and us all a bad name. We must call it out!"

These are real people. Labour and Momentum members. I'm appalled that friends who pounded the pavements alongside right wing MPs are now being targeted for abuse - by them. Irrespective of whether the candidate was Left or right wing, Momentum indiscriminately mobilised foot soldiers to knock on doors - in every marginal last year.

The abuse continued on Sunday, when The Telegraph depicted Labour members as a vicious dog with a Muslim pulling its tail. Apart from being deeply offensive, it’s indicative of a moral crisis at the heart of Britain’s political discourse. Wherein denigrating Muslims remains an acceptable form of racism. Have we learned nothing from Jo Cox’s tragic death at the hands of a far right fundamentalist? 

Propping up the Tories

As Tony Blair said when he ousted Larry Whitty from the NEC chair, “All change is the difficult”. Nowadays, General Secretaries are elected (not appointed) and we have moved on from a time when Formula 1 tycoons could hope to buy tobacco advertising exemptions – from a Labour leader.

Although the move away from the corporatisation of New Labour is clearly hard to accept, Tony Blair’s recent attempts to sabotage the party’s democratically elected leader, are unacceptable. No doubt Blair’s unfettered attack on Jeremy Corbyn will have boosted Momentum membership last week but to have given cover for the Tories was unforgivable.

The astonishing admission by Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland Secretary, that she was clueless about the history and political sensitivities of the region when appointed, went viral on social media. Instead of leading with that news item, Tony Blair, who claims the Good Friday Agreement as his legacy, helped to bury it.

Peace in Northern Ireland is in the balance, thanks to Theresa May’s reckless incompetence, yet Tony Blair, and 36 hours later, Chuka Umunna, turned their guns on their own leader?

It’s akin to a Liverpool player tackling their defender so that Chelsea can score a goal. If you have more in common with the other team (war mongering, de-regulation, austerity, privatisation), either get off the pitch or just go and play for the other side.