Luciana Berger rejoins Labour Party after apology from leader
Date
2/26/2023 5:36:28 AM
(MENAFN) Luciana Berger, a former Labour MP, is rejoining the party four years after leaving in protest at its handling of allegations of antisemitism. Berger was one of several MPs to resign in spring 2019, citing a “sea of cases” of antisemitism and saying complaints had been ignored. She later joined the Liberal Democrats and stood for election in Finchley and Golders Green but was not successful. Berger has now accepted an apology from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who said the party had experienced a “litany of failures”.
Berger formed The Independent Group with several other Labour and Conservative MPs when she left the party. She said Labour had now “turned a significant corner” under Starmer’s leadership and that she was “pleased to be returning to my political home”. Starmer said he was “delighted” that Berger was rejoining the party, and that Labour had changed significantly since she left. He shared letters the pair had exchanged, in which Berger described the “grim journey” from 2015 to 2019, during which the party had “fallen into the depths of the abyss” under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
In his letter, Starmer said that Berger had been “forced out by intimidation, thuggery and racism” and had made a “brave move”. He added that the day of her resignation would “forever be a stain on Labour’s history”. A report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2020 found that there had been “a culture within the party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it”. The report concluded that Labour had broken equality law over its handling of antisemitism complaints. Corbyn rejected some of the findings and was suspended from the party by Labour’s headquarters.
Starmer said the findings of the investigation were “hard to read” and that it had been “a day of shame for the Labour Party”. He said Berger had suffered abuse and had been left “isolated and exposed” and that the party and British politics were “poorer places” without her. Berger’s return to Labour is seen as significant as it follows the suspension of several members of the party over allegations of antisemitism, and signals a change in direction under Starmer’s leadership.
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