Luciana Berger has been given a new role in the United Kingdom's Labour Party after she left the party in 2019 over concerns with the way antisemitism had been handled while the party was under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
Berger's new role will be leading a cross-government mental health strategy with a focus on lowering the suicide rate in Britain.
Assuring a crowd at the Jewish Labour Movement conference, Party Leader Keir Starmer announced Berger's return and added that he would “never let antisemitism sneak back into the Labour Party undercover."
The BBC reported that Starmer had given Berger an apology for her previous experience in the Party, describing it as a "litany of failures."
Starmer told the conference, according to the Guardian, “I see no greater cause in my leadership than this. This is my role.”
The Labour Party was the target of a number of antisemitism complaints, as was its former leader, and a 2020 investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that the party had "significant failings in the way the Labour Party has handled antisemitism complaints."
The commission found "specific examples of harassment, discrimination and political interference in our evidence, but equally of concern was a lack of leadership within the Labour Party on these issues, which is hard to reconcile with its stated commitment to a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism..." and "serious failings in leadership and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints across the Labour Party, and we have identified multiple failures in the systems it uses to resolve them. We have concluded that there were unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination for which the Labour Party is responsible."
Luciana Berger's experience of antisemitism
Berger, while heavily pregnant, had been the subject of a no-confidence motion in her constituency after she criticized Corbyn. The motion was withdrawn after a key opponent referred to her as a "disruptive Zionist," the Guardian reported.
In addition, Berger had been subjected to online and in-person abuse to the extent that she required police protection at a Labour conference. A man had been jailed in 2017 in relation to the abuse.
In an X post, Berger expressed, "I am delighted to be back helping @UKLabour deliver the change our country really needs. The mental health crisis demands a cross-government strategy. The next Labour government will deliver it."
I am delighted to be back helping @UKLabour deliver the change our country really needs.The mental health crisis demands a cross-government strategy. The next Labour government will deliver it. https://t.co/5aCuNfCQhw
— Luciana Berger (@lucianaberger) January 14, 2024