Time for the extremism commissioner to look at all Britain's political parties?

When I proposed the motion (which was unanimously agreed) that Cumbria County Council should adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of Anti-Semitism, I said that none of Britain's political parties are wholly free of Anti-Semitism and none of them can afford to be complacent about it.

Had we been talking about Islamophobia, I might equally have said that none of Britain's political parties are wholly free of prejudice against Muslims and none of them can afford to be complacent about that form of racism either.

It is hardly a secret that the Labour party has had huge difficulties with Anti-Semitism and this is one of the main reasons why they have lost more than ten MPs, some of whom are now part of the Independent Group which is trying to register as "Change UK"

Nor it is a secret that UKIP's present leader has become joined at the hip with Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (who uses the name Tommy Robinson) and essentially turned UKIP into as much an Anti-Muslim extremist group as it is an anti-Brexit party.

A survey of the results of complaints of Anti-Semitism against members of political parties by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism makes uncomfortable reading for the Conservatives, Greens, Lib/Dems, SNP and UKIP, and horrifying reading for the Labour party.

An excellent article by Paul Goodman on Conservative Home, written in response to the suggestion that the Conservative party has a problem with Anti-Muslim prejudice, suggests that the call for an independent investigation is a sound idea, and that the best way to do it would be for Britain's Anti-Extremism commissioner to carry out a review of all the political parties.

His article concludes as follows:

"This site encourages Sara Khan, the Lead Commissioner for Countering Extremism, to hold an investigation into racial and religious prejudice among all the main parties, and to make recommendations. 

We believe that anyone looking at the evidence impartially would swiftly conclude that the Conservative problem is real, fairly small – and a lot less sizeable than Labour’s. 

But we could be wrong. Which is why some independent person or body should have a look. 

The bulk of Khan’s work to date seems to be massing evidence about extremism which will be published before the summer. Putting the political parties under the magnifying glass would be a natural extension of it."

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