Labour must make sure that it deals with race openly, as it has promised

Sir Keir Starmer, as he often reminds us, has spent the last four years changing the Labour Party and preparing it for government. For that act of statesmanship, he should be thanked.

Every democracy needs a strong principal opposition party that can present itself as a plausible replacement government. This the UK now possesses, for the first time since Labour lost power in 2010. Vindicated by public opinion, Sir Keir has had remarkable success in his endeavours.

There is one area, however, where the difficult legacy of the past continues to haunt him and his colleagues – race.

As The Independent reports today, the Labour Party under Sir Keir, for some inexplicable reason, took it upon itself to attack and attempt to gag the respected Black barrister Martin Forde KC. Mr Forde was commissioned by the party to report on its culture, factionalism and management during the antisemitism scandal, and to make recommendations in light of his findings.

He explored a “hierarchy of racism” and a “toxic” culture of factional disputes between the party’s right and left. The vast majority of Mr Forde’s 165 recommendations have been acted upon. The national executive committee of the Labour Party acknowledged: “The [Forde Report] is clear that the culture of factionalism led to a situation where allegations of racism and harassment weren’t being addressed. Elected representatives, our members, and the public rightly expect better from a progressive left-wing party.”

That was followed by a further, separate and damning investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which concluded that Labour was “responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination”.

Sir Keir oversaw the implementation of substantial internal reforms, and, eventually, expelled Jeremy Corbyn from the party. That was symbolic of a wider and deeper change within Labour.

We now learn, however, that far from being supported and thanked for his efforts, Mr Forde has been sent threatening letters by solicitors working on behalf of the Labour Party. It is crass beyond belief. His offence – which is not an offence in law – was to speak openly and make “highly prejudicial comments about the Labour Party”.

If that were actually a crime, then half of the country, at least, would be locked up by now. Mr Forde was informed, impertinently and menacingly, that “all options” were open. That might reasonably give rise to the fear that he would be reported to the relevant regulatory authority – which could harm his professional reputation and livelihood.

It is, in fact, the Labour Party that has been making “highly prejudicial” remarks about Mr Forde. Sir Keir, if he was aware of this letter to Mr Forde, should have known better, given his own high standing in the profession.

Rather than responding in the traditional manner, with denialism, Labour really should have treated what Mr Forde was warning about party candidate selection as a prompt to take further action. In the words of the prominent barrister: “A high proportion of Black and Asian councillors or prospective MPs felt they’d been subjected to disciplinary action which had been deliberately timed to exclude them from qualifying processes or selection.”

Mr Forde rightly finds it objectionable – and it is indeed ironic – to have “people saying to me, ‘You don’t know how to behave as a professional.’ I’m afraid that Black professionals get it all the time ... I am sure that people will definitely see it as a collateral attack on a Black professional.”

The recent fiasco over the attempted deselection of Diane Abbott as a parliamentary candidate also constitutes powerful proof that the Labour Party still appears unable to manage the race issue in a consistently seemly and fair manner.

It is a problem, not least, because the new House of Commons will have more members from ethnic minorities than ever before – most of them on the Labour benches – and they will expect, and have every right to, just treatment as their careers progress.

The Labour government, if elected, will also need to navigate a careful path with its policy around Israel-Palestine, because the war in Gaza has, in some places, become a handy weapon for Islamophobes across the political spectrum who have never previously expressed much interest in the Middle East.

Labour’s manifesto commitments in this area – to introduce a Race Equality Act and to reverse the Conservatives’ decision to downgrade the monitoring of antisemitic and Islamophobic hate – are encouraging signs of public policy positions moving in the right direction, as will be the highly diverse new intake of Labour MPs. But this bullying treatment of Mr Forde suggests that the party still has work to do to get its own house in order.