Met Police to investigate whether Labour members guilty of antisemitic hate crimes

Commissioner Cressida Dick says specialist officers will 'see if a crime has been committed' after party members accused of calling for violence against Jews

The Metropolitan Police is to investigate a number of Labour members over potential antisemitic hate crimes.

Specialist officers will look into whether party members broke the law when making a series of offensive comments about Jews.

Cressida Dick, the Met Police commissioner, said she would ask hate crime experts to investigate after being presented with evidence of Labour members appearing to call for Jews to be murdered.

She told LBC: "We take hate crime very seriously.

"If somebody makes an allegation to us, absolutely we will take it seriously, we will scope it, we will see if a crime has taken place.

"I will pass this to my experts to deal with. We'll see if a crime has been committed."

It comes after the radio station was handed a dossier of antisemitism cases that were considered by Labour's disciplinary Disputes Panel.

They show people thought to be Labour members making a series of highly offensive comments about Jews.

In one post, a member wrote: "We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all."

Referring to Jewish people as "devils" and suggesting the Red Sea would be an "ideal destination" for them, they added: "No need for gas chambers anyway as gas is so expensive and we need it in England."

Another person called for a Jewish MP to "get a good kicking".

A third wrote: "One cannot understand the state of the world without understanding Jewish power, and one cannot understand the nature of Jewish power until one understands the nature of Jewish thinking."

And a sitting Labour councillor was accused of inflicting "ten years of hell" on a child, including calling him "Jew boy".

LBC showed 45 cases to the Met's former hate crime chief, Mak Chishty, who said at least 17 should be investigated as race-hate incidents. A further four should be investigated for potentially criminal hate crimes, he said.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Labour Party has a robust system for investigating complaints of alleged breaches of Labour party rules by its members. Where someone feels they have been a victim of crime, they should report it to the police in the usual way."

It comes as Labour's ruling executive meets to decide whether to adopt in full the internationally-recognised definition of antisemitism that has been at the heart of the party's bitter internal dispute in recent months.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) will vote on whether to incorporate in Labour's code of conduct all 11 examples of antisemitism listed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

Police were stationed outside the party's central London headquarters ahead of the meeting, as pro-Corbyn protesters opposing the IHRA definition were met by a rival group of activists clad in Israeli flags.