Labour’s Comrade Delta Moment?
There is a long history on the left of sexual harassment cases being handled poorly. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) infamously stitched up a sexual assault case resulting in the party’s membership collapsing and them being ostracized on the wider left. The party held a kangaroo court that purposefully set out to undermine the victim in order to protect the perpetrator. Following the news of this case the SWP haemoragged member’s disgusted by the party’s treatment of the victim.
The Alliance for Workers Liberty (AWL) did similar, choosing to prioritise the perpetrators present and future over the victims recovery and search for justice. The handling of these cases affect the organisations to this day with those who have connections to them or their members being regularly (and rightly) denounced. It could be argued that following the behaviour of some MPs this week the Labour Party has chosen to join their ranks by engaging in victim blaming and the undermining of the sanctity of the party’s own Sexual Harassment processes. Yet we have seen little backlash from Labour Members, definitely nothing remotely close to the mass resignations from the SWP.
In both the cases of the SWP and AWL, it must be noted that they didn’t have over 20 Members of Parliament and other high profile members such as Councillors very publicly make out as if the alleged perpetrator was dragged through a tortuous process that caused stress for themselves and their family for malicious and political reasons. The SWP and AWL also didn’t have LabourList — which effectively serves as the Labour Party’s unofficial media outlet — promoting the MP’s line, that this was an unfair and malicious complaint made by someone who had a political vendetta with the aim of preventing an innocent person from becoming a Member of Parliament. These comments across social media sent a damning message to victims of sexual harassment that if they do come forward they will be treated with contempt, and accused of maliciously lying for political motivations.
It is the same tired trope we see time and again once more being peddled, that the victims of politicians only come forward maliciously and for political reasons to destroy an individual’s career, or that the allegations are lies to smear a candidate in an election process. We saw it in the US with Anita Hill, with Christine Blasey Ford and are seeing it at the moment with Tara Reade. This week Labour MPs took the same line, that their friend, or factional ally, is an upstanding member of their community and the party, that they are a decent person and could never have done such a thing.
Following an NCC panel which decided the fate of the accused, after receiving the case from the NEC who referred it on following a decision to suspend after reviewing the evidence anonymised, the NCC decided to allow the accused back into the party with the charges not proven.
Sexual harassment cases are incredibly difficult to prove, evidence is often lacking, especially physical evidence. Only 17% of victims will report and of those 17% many will be historic cases where evidence was not preserved, all that is left to go on is their memory and word of what happened. Victims often take a long while before deciding to come forward, men in particular with Survivors UK stating the average time for men to come forward is 26 years after the incident. For women the average is also years following the attack, victims internalise shame and stigma which contributes to them not wanting to acknowledge what happened to them.
The period directly following sexual violence (umbrella term which includes sexual harrassment) is often marked by feelings of denial and shame. This denial and shame is often experienced in silence, with the victim choosing not to confide in anyone at all. The victims internalisation of shame and denial often depend on other factors too such as: family relationships, religion, social and cultural backgrounds, etc.
What is most interesting is that in the US example cases previously mentioned above, we are aware of the victim’s identity and they were of an opposing political camp to the perpetrator, so it was easy for apologists of the accused to suggest politics as being the primary motive. The victims bravely gave testimony and shared their stories, only for it to be torn apart by the accused’s allies and apologists in the hope of painting them as a liar and discrediting the claims.
In this case though we do not know who the victim is, they may or may not be a member of the party, they may or may not be of the same faction- without any of this information it is quite something for political allies to have jumped to such a conclusion so quickly, without any detail or knowledge other than the accused’s word that the allegations are false and that they are innocent.
All of this has been said, statements and tweets written, with no knowledge of the allegations themselves. Sexual harrassment complaints cover a broad spectrum of sexual violence and the process is often used for domestic abuse and other serious allegations. The point here is that we have no detail of the case, we know not of the age or gender of the victim or whether it was an explicit message or a serious sexual assault. If it were a serious sexual assault we then do not know the nature of it, whether or not violence was exercised or substances played a part or whether or not the victim was conscious. We also do not know if the allegations made are regarding a recent or historic incident, there are so many details that as outsiders to the case we could not possibly know. This is why it is so concerning that so many Members of Parliament are blindly defending a political ally, with no real knowledge of what they are defending.
The defence therefore is based on blind factional loyalty with no considerations being taken for the victim or of the allegations made. Those defending Athwal have no idea of the allegations they are actually defending. They do not know how serious they may be, only the NEC who saw them as legitimate and serious enough to suspend him, a few members of party staff who would’ve overseen the case, external investigators and the NCC panel as well as the victim and the respondent will have any idea of the details of the case. It would be quite easy then for the accused to create their own narrative, particularly if they have wealth and power and political allies ready and willing to accept their telling of the story if they offer one.
When a survivor comes forward with their allegations, they do so in the search for justice and accountability. It is always a brave act and being believed is instrumental to recovery. Survivors need support, instead we have seen members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) respond with suspicion and actively deny that recovery, potentially adding to the already existing trauma the alleged victim is surely experiencing. Their accusations that the allegation was malicious and politically motivated also adds to deeply ingrained societal myths surrounding false allegations which according to the Crown Prosecution Service occur in only 0.62% of cases.
It is concerning that so many members of the PLP have been not only complicit in a culture that disbelieves victims but greatly contributed to it. Excusing or disbelieving sexual harassment allegations for political reasons, sends the message that if you are in a particular position of power and have a certain status you are untouchable from allegations of sexual harassment as they can simply be written off as politically motivated. Victims reading these comments, as well as seeing messages of support for an alleged perpetrator, will only be given yet another reason to continue suffering in silence thinking they will not be supported or believed.
It should also be noted that the accused was not found innocent, as that is not the job of the NCC, and that being cleared of wrongdoing by a small panel within the Labour Party isn’t the exoneration allies are claiming it to be. We cannot know the reasoning behind the NCC’s decision, however, based on commonalities in these types of cases, some more accurate assumptions could be made. With that in mind the most obvious assumption would be that for whatever reason the evidence at hand may not have been strong enough to prove the allegations despite previously being strong enough for an anonymised NEC panel to decide on a suspension. This outcome does not mean it did not happen and that the allegations are false. The burden of proof for these cases are always difficult to achieve, even when using a more likely than not approach. Those sharing sympathies and support to the alleged perpetrator who they view as having been victim of a political stitch up by the left of the Party would do well to remember this.
This conduct from so many of our members of parliament is a huge stain on our party. A particular cause for concern is seeing an NCC member liking the perpetrators statement moments after it was posted on Twitter following the outcome. One is to wonder then upon seeing this if the stitch up that happened was actually the respondents reinstatement rather than their suspension which some engaging in conspiracy theories have suggested was as a result of a malicious and politically motivated attack and not a legitimate allegation of sexual harassment. The main takeaway from this incident is that the left have a long way to go before understanding and responding correctly to allegations of sexual harassment.
My solidarity goes out to the victim whose bravery I can only admire, first for surviving and continuing to and second for coming forward whilst knowing what they were up against. I know how it feels to not be believed and to see people support your alleged abuser over you, I cannot imagine how it would feel to see people in power in your community and country doing this. With this in mind, combined with expertise gained from working with survivors and the knowledge of the rarity of false allegations I will always believe survivors as I know they do not lie, abusers do.
I previously wrote about this case in November 2019 when the respondent was first suspended, debunking the conspiracy theory that it was a political stitch up, you can read that here: https://medium.com/@veritynevitt/political-alliances-trump-members-safety-3323cb2adac3
