Jews are familiar with the malice, prejudice and stupidity that governs the Labour Party’s complaints process when it comes to anti-Semitism. They will find no comfort in the news that other allegations of racism get short shrift too, even when the complainant is a prominent Labour politician.
The party has said there is no case to answer against a councillor accused of telling Labour MSP Anas Sarwar that Scotland wasn’t ready to vote for a ‘Paki’. The incident is alleged to have occurred in 2017, when Sarwar contested the Scottish leadership against left-wing union fixer (and eventual victor) Richard Leonard.
Sarwar went public with his claim and Davie McLachlan, then Labour leader on South Lanarkshire Council, was suspended. But in an omen of what was to come, McLachlan was subsequently invited as a guest of the party at a charity Burns Night do.
McLachlan said yesterday that he had been ‘badly maligned’ by ‘false accusations’; Sarwar said he was ‘disappointed with the process and outcome’.
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