How I got expelled from the Labour Party

It’s now two years since I was kicked out of the Labour Party (of which I’d been a member since the mid-1980s). If I didn’t mention this at the time, that’s because I only found out about it a year after it happened.

In April 2024 I submitted a statement to the party’s National Constitutional Committee opposing a recommendation by the National Executive Committee that I be expelled. I was told I would be informed of the outcome in due course. After twelve months I’d heard nothing, so I emailed the NCC asking for an update on my case. I said I assumed that the NEC’s recommendation for expulsion had been endorsed by the NCC, but it would be helpful to have that decision confirmed.

In response, on 15 May last year I received a letter from the NCC, dated 16 May 2024, stating that I had indeed been “EXPELLED” (in block capitals) from the party. That was the first I’d heard of it. A search through my emails from the previous year revealed no evidence that the letter had ever been sent. I’d been expelled, but apparently nobody had bothered to tell me.

This was rather annoying, because if I’d known about my expulsion at that time, six weeks before the general election, I could have supported Jeremy Corbyn’s independent campaign in Islington North or Andrew Feinstein’s challenge to Keir Starmer in Holborn & St Pancras. As it was, I had thought I was still a Labour member, and having put quite a lot of time and effort into resisting expulsion I was reluctant to give the bureaucracy a legitimate excuse to get rid of me, by publicly campaigning against the party.

The story of my expulsion begins back in 2019, a period when an ultra-Zionist crank named Ben Santhouse was reportedly inundating the Labour Party with complaints about the antisemitism he claimed was rife among the membership. The leaked 2020 Labour Party report The Work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in Relation to Antisemitism, 2014–2019 included a section on what it claimed was Santhouse’s obsessive and disruptive activity. It alleged that this one individual was responsible for half of the antisemitism complaints and a third of the antisemitism cases that the party dealt with during 2019.

The leaked report was scathing about what it described as Santhouse’s “typically poorly evidenced” submissions and observed that “this complainant appears to have a poor understanding of antisemitism”. Further: “The quality of the complaints submitted by this same individual — almost always screenshots of streams of Facebook posts, without identifying which comments are being complained about and why — are often poor quality.”

(I should add here that last year the Guardian revealed that the Labour Party had paid out £2m in damages to 20 individuals named in the leaked report, one of whom was Santhouse. He complained that he had been misrepresented as “a vexatious complainant who made disproportionate and unfounded allegations of antisemitism against individuals”. The party evidently conceded that this was defamatory.)

I wrote about Santhouse back in 2020, little realising then that I was probably one of the people he’d complained about. However, in September 2022 I received a letter from the Complaints Team in the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit containing a list of “draft charges” against me. I was alleged to have engaged in conduct that may reasonably be seen to “demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on race, religion and belief” and “involve antisemitic actions, stereotypes and sentiments”.

The attached so-called evidence for the charges consisted of 13 screenshots of Facebook posts by yours truly during the period 2017–19. The individual responsible for compiling 12 of them had multiple Facebook tabs open when the screenshots were taken and must have been scrolling through the pages of many other party members, screenshotting their posts too. I can’t say for sure who this individual was, but the compilation of my own posts, which was obviously not based on any attempt to establish antisemitic content, bore a striking resemblance to the leaked report’s description of Santhouse’s MO.

I sent a very long and detailed response to these draft charges. It obviously had some effect, because the accusations of actual antisemitism were effectively thrown out by the NEC panel dealing with my case.

In April 2022 I received a Notice of Outcome of Investigation from the GLU, which stated that the NEC found that my use of the terms “witch-hunts” and “hysteria” had “undermined the Labour Party’s ability to campaign against racism” (contrary to the Code of Conduct: Antisemitism and other forms of racism), and that my comment telling leading witch-hunter Adam Langleben to “fuck off” was “personally abusive” (contrary to the Code of Conduct: Social Media Policy). I received a formal warning, which would remain on my Labour Party membership record for 18 months, and I was also required to complete an online e-learning module.

Obviously I didn’t agree with these findings. In my lengthy reply to the draft charges I had pointed out that the term witch-hunt by no means excludes the existence of witches. Back in the day there were individuals who did engage in practices that were then characterised as witchcraft. The witch-hunts grossly exaggerated the phenomenon, though, and innocent people were falsely accused and condemned. The article in which I used the term “hysteria” covered an attack by a Labour councillor on a peaceful demonstration outside Labour’s 2019 conference. As for Langleben, I was ironically quoting his own abusive comment back at him. All the same, I had been cleared of the false charges of antisemitism originally levelled at me by the GLU, so I saw this as a result.

A follow-up letter from the GLU, however, which informed me of the process through which to access the training module, failed to acknowlege the NEC’s rejection of the accusations of antisemitism. I was told that the panel had found that I had “engaged in conduct that might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on the protected characteristic of being Jewish”. I wrote an indignant reply pointing out that the NEC had done no such thing: “How could they? I have never in my life demonstrated prejudice or hostility towards anyone on the basis of their Jewish identity. On the contrary, I have an established record of opposing antisemitism, including inside the Labour Party.” I stated that I would take up the training course only after the GLU withdrew this smear.

My letter received neither a reply nor even an acknowledgement from the GLU. However, in June 2022 I was given notification that my party membership had been adminstratively suspended because of my failure to complete the training course within the required four-week period. At intervals after that, the Sanctions Training Team sent me reminders that I had still to complete the training. Each time, I wrote back stating that I wasn’t prepared to sign up to the course until the false accusation of antisemitism in the original letter had been withdrawn. Eventually, I received a final warning that if I didn’t complete the course by 4pm on 26 January 2024 the party would take further disciplinary action against me to resolve the matter. The next month the GLU issued me with a Notice of Investigation, prompting this rather shorter response.

The NEC followed up in March with a list of charges, to be presented to the National Constitutional Committee, which predictably repeated the smear that the NEC panel “had come to the conclusion that he had engaged in conduct that might reasonably be seen to demonstrate prejudice or hostility based on the protected characteristic of being Jewish”. The NEC urged the NCC to expel me on the grounds of my “repeated, brazen refusal to adhere to the rules of the Party as conduct that is prejudicial and grossly detrimental to the Labour Party”. My response to the NEC’s charges can be read here. Obviously my arguments were never going to be accepted by the NCC. Hence my expulsion in May 2024.

Still, all is not lost. I was told I could apply for readmission to the party after five years. So roll on 2029.

First published on Medium in May 2026