- Saturday, June 25, 2022
By: Pramod Thomas
AN Indian-origin economist and author resigned from the Labour Party over the readmission of former party leader Jeremy Corbyn after ‘just 19 days of suspension’.
Lord Meghnad Desai has resigned from the membership of the Party as it failed to ‘effectively tackle antisemitic racism’.
Lord Desai, 80, said that was forced to take the decision to quit the party after 49 years because Corbyn was readmitted despite findings of ‘unlawful acts’ by the country’s human rights watchdog.
He added that it was ‘very peculiar’ to allow him back without any apology.
“He has been refused the party whip in the House of Commons for a few months, but that is a very lame response to a very big crisis,” Lord Desai said.
“I have been very uncomfortable and slightly ashamed that the party has been injected with this sort of racism. Jewish MPs were abused openly, and female members were trolled. It is out and out racism.”
Adding that he has no plans to join any other political party, Lord Desai said that he can’t continue in an antisemitic party.
The watchdog had found that Labour had broken the law in its failure to handle antisemitism, or anti-Jewish, complaints and there were ‘serious failings’ by its leadership at the time.
Sir Keir Starmer took over as the new party leader this year with the promise of addressing the issue and had suspended Corbyn last month after he seemed to downplay the very critical findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Lord Desai has sent in his resignation letter to the leader of the Labour Party in the House of Lords, Baroness Angela Smith and will now sit as an independent peer.
Reports said that his application to be part of the Crossbench group of the UK Parliament’s Upper House is underway.
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