Labour party

News broke this morning that the former head of the Equalities Commission Sir Trevor Phillips had been suspended from the Labour party over allegations of Islamophobia. Phillips has spent his career documenting the realities of race and integration in British life.  The think tank Policy Exchange has now released the correspondence between Sir Trevor and the Labour party disciplinary department. Phillips is a senior fellow at the research institute.

Is Barry Gardiner running for Labour leader or not? The question is almost as confusing as whether Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have resigned from the Royal Family. In the former case, two journalists had the story that Gardiner was standing and would be backed by Len McCluskey, who has become unhappy with Rebecca Long Bailey's current prowess. In the latter, the couple issued a statement saying they would step back as 'senior royals' and work to become financially independent. But then in both cases, the story took a very awkward twist. Buckingham Palace then issued a statement saying the discussions were at an 'early stage', with briefings suggesting the couple hadn't consulted any other royals on their announcement.

Despite the muttered predictions from some of the leadership campaigns, Labour's ruling National Executive Committee has today decided on a set of rules for its leadership contest that even a really committed conspiracy theorist would struggle to badge a 'stitch-up'. The timetable is very slightly longer – Jeremy Corbyn will remain Labour leader until 4 April when his successor is announced – and the rules on registered supporters applying to be able to vote are the same as in the 2016 contest. Candidates have a week to get enough nominations from MPs and MEPs (the threshold is 22).

The candidates to replace Jeremy Corbyn have been busily launching their campaigns and giving political interviews this weekend, with the party deciding the rules for the contest at a meeting of its ruling National Executive Committee tomorrow. There are still a couple of candidates left to launch their official campaigns, including Rebecca Long-Bailey, who appears to have disappeared to a location far more secretive than any prime ministerial holiday, and Ian Lavery. But here's what we know so far about each of the candidates: Keir Starmer: considered the frontrunner in the contest, the shadow Brexit secretary launched his campaign last night with a moving video.

The Labour party has lost the plot. That is the only explanation for the bizarre, self-destructive antics it has been engaged in since its drubbing in the December election. It has learnt nothing. It is blissfully and stupidly carrying on down the path of Remainerism and/ or Corbynism that lost it the election. Instead of taking a breather and asking why working-class voters rejected it en masse last month, Labour is doubling down on its unpopular nonsense. Pretty much every door-stepping canvasser and opinion pollster said the same thing about Labour’s historically awful showing in working-class ‘red wall’ constituencies: it was down to the party’s betrayal of Brexit or to its embrace of eccentric Corbynista blather — or both.

Jess Phillips is expected to launch her bid for Labour leader this evening, having only said up to this point that she is seriously considering a bid to take over from Jeremy Corbyn. She is both the candidate most identified with the 'moderate' side of the party and the most high-profile, but that doesn't mean she is launching with a particularly well-formulated policy platform. In fact, while Phillips is well-known for her dislike of Corbyn and her altercation with Diane Abbott pretty early on as an MP, it's not quite as easy to work out what she thinks. Phillips has largely exerted her influence in Parliament in two ways. The first is as a campaigner on issues she knows a great deal about from her pre-parliamentary life, including domestic abuse and cuts to school funding.

The defeat of Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party has afforded little respite to British Jews. Residents of Hampstead and Belsize Park woke on Sunday to storefronts and a synagogue daubed in the Star of David and ‘9/11’, apparently invoking the conspiracy theory that Jews were behind the September 11 attacks. December has been sweeps month for anti-Semitism across Europe. Two teenagers were charged after allegedly beating a rabbi in Stamford Hill while shouting ‘kill Jews’. A man was arrested on suspicion of racially or religiously aggravated assault after a United Synagogue official was attacked near his east London home. An Israeli student was assaulted on the Paris Metro for speaking Hebrew.

The 2019 general election will be remembered as one of the most consequential elections in Britain's recent history. Aside from rejecting a more economically radical Labour Party, the British people used the election to provide what their elected representatives had been unable to provide: an answer to Brexit. For Boris Johnson and the Conservative party, the election was a triumph. They won their largest majority since 1987 and the largest majority for any party since New Labour's second landslide in 2001.

Despite being beaten by an Old Etonian with 'de Pfeffel' as his middle name, the Labour Party has descended into a rather predictable round of the Four Yorkshiremen, with competing factions arguing variously that voters in former 'red wall' seats will only return to Labour if it is led by a northerner, a woman and preferably someone who grew up in a cardboard box. Sir Keir Starmer doesn't appear to be any of those things. He may end up being the only man standing against a group of female contenders. He is a Northerner only in London terms, and as former Director of Public Prosecutions, doesn't sound like he's come from a tough background.

The first meeting of the parliamentary Labour party since the party's disastrous election defeat began with a round of applause. Only it wasn't for Jeremy Corbyn. Instead MPs clapped in tribute to those colleagues who had lost their seats in the party's worst election showing since 1935. The reaction the beleaguered Labour leader received was mixed at best – with the session, which ran on for over two hours, dominated by angry outbursts from surviving MPs. Addressing MPs, Corbyn apologised for his role in the result: 'I am very sorry for the result for which I take responsibility. I will continue to lead the party until a new leader is elected.