OFFICERS from Scotland Yard are investing anti-Semitic hate crimes by Labour Party members.
It’s understood the force have a copy of an internal party dossier detailing 45 cases. That report was initially leaked to London radio station LBC, who then handed it on to the Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick in September.
According to the broadcaster, one case in the dossier included a party member who posted on Facebook that a Jewish Labour MP was “a Zionist extremist MP ... who hates civilised people, about to get a good kicking”.
A serving Labour councillor was also accused of inflicting “10 years of hell” on a child, calling him a “Jew boy”.
In another post, two MPs were threatened with being thrown off the top of a building.
Another saw a party member post a statement on social media that read: “We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all.”
It was also alleged that a member had chased a girl, aged six or seven, around with air freshener, saying she smelt of curry and calling her “a chocolate monkey”.
Speaking on the Radio 4 Today programme Dick said the investigation was focussing on the individuals accused of the crimes: “We are not going to investigate the Labour Party. We would always want institutions and political parties and similar to be able to regulate themselves,” she said.
“However, if somebody passes us material which they say amounts to a crime, we have a duty to look at that and not just dismiss it.
“We have been assessing some material that was passed to me, in a radio studio of all things, about two months ago and we are now investigating some of that material because it appears there may have been a crime committed.
“We are liaising immediately with the Crown Prosecution Service and I hope we will be able to clear that up very quickly.”
Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson said the Scotland Yard announcement was “thoroughly depressing”.
But he added: “Sadly I’m not surprised.”
“If people have committed hate crimes, then they need to be dealt with by the full force of the law. There is no role for them in the Labour Party,” he said. “If this does one thing, it will be able to silence a very small number of people who still believe that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist in my party or in other parties.”
He went on: “That hampers the campaign that many of us have had over many months now to try and deal with this problem as quickly and as swiftly and as forcefully as we can.”
A spokesman said: “The Labour Party has a robust system for investigating complaints of alleged breaches of Labour Party rules by its members.”
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