Pam Bromley

Pam Bromley (politician)

Pam Bromley represents the Whitewell Ward of Rossendale Borough Council as an independent local councillor, having been suspended in April 2018 by the Labour Party after being accused of posting anti-Semitic remarks on social media. Ms Bromley was readmitted to the party in April 2019 but Labour expelled her in February 2020.

Pam Bromley and Ken Livingstone are the only people named in the EHRC's report into antisemitism in the Labour Party, published on 29 October 2020.

Offending comments

• 8 April 2016 - Ms Bromley posted a link to an article entitled: “World War 3: Trump Begins Paying His Homage to Rothschilds” and commented:

“Some time back I got hammered for posting an anti-Rothschild meme. However here they are again. We must remember that Rothschilds are a powerful financial family (like the Medicis) and represent capitalism and big business — even if the Nazis DID use the activities of Rothschilds in their antisemitic propaganda. We must not obscure the truth with the need to be tactful.”

• 9 April 2016 - Ms Bromley posted a link to the website of Rothschild & Co on Facebook, with the following comment:

“Right I am fed up of this shush don’t mention the Rothschilds stuff. They are not the only international bankers and financiers but are amongst those who, Jewish and non-Jewish, hold tremendous wealth and power. Here is some hard info about how wealthy and powerful they are. This is their own webpage.”

• 29 April 2016 - Ms Bromley tweeted a link to an article entitled: “Blairites stoop to allegations of antisemitism to attack Jeremy Corbyn”.

• May 2017 - Ms Bromley puts responsibility on former Home Secretary and PM Theresa May for the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.

• 16 August 2018 - Ms Bromley posted a picture showing Uncle Sam passing bombs to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who subsequently dropped them on a burning Gaza.

• March 2019 - Ms Bromley claimed that those reporting the allegations against her were "vicious thugs" and "should be prosecuted."

• On 15 December 2019, following the UK/2019 General Election and Jeremy Corbyn's announcement he was stepping down as Labour leader, Ms Bromley posted on Facebook:

“My major criticism of him – his failure to repel the fake accusations of antisemitism in the LP (Labour Party) – may not be repeated as the accusations may probably now magically disappear, now capitalism has got what it wanted.”

Readmitted

In April 2019, Pam Bromley was readmitted to the Labour Party:

Leaked emails reveal that Corbyn’s team had oversight of Bromley’s case, despite claims that the disciplinary process was free of political interference.

In an email sent on 4 April 2018, one Corbyn adviser wrote:

“Agree with the recommendation to suspend and investigate. Considering she does not have elections coming this May, she has a bit more leeway to apologise and make amends.”

However, Bromley did not apologise and told party officials that she used “Jewish as a blanket term of description without any racist connotations.”

A leaked document obtained by The Sunday Times reveals she also defended the claim May was behind the 2017 Manchester bombing, which killed 22 innocent people. She said:

“If Theresa May was prepared to use methods as unscrupulous as bribing the Democratic Unionist Party to support her minority government, it proves she is no democrat, so I think those fears were not entirely baseless.”

However, Bromley was readmitted after a disciplinary hearing this year. She has since celebrated the decision and said those who make complaints about anti-semitism should be jailed:

“The vicious thugs who make some of these allegations . . . should be prosecuted,” she wrote last week. “We need to go on the offensive.”

Nor has she stopped making controversial posts. Last week, she said Corbyn’s close ally, Emily Thornberry, would not be an appropriate Labour deputy leader, writing:

“No! She’s a member and promoter of LFI (Labour Friends of Israel).”

Instead, she said it should be the MP Chris Williamson, who was suspended from Labour in February, having said anti-semitism complaints were “positively sinister” and the party was “too apologetic” on the issue.

Bromley would not discuss her suspension but said:

“I’ve been cleared of that now.”

Expelled

Pam Bromley, who had been suspended from the party in April 2018, was expelled by Labour in February 2020.

EHRC report

On 29 October 2020, the EHRC published its 130-page report which found the Labour Party responsible for three breaches of the Equality Act 2010. The EHRC said there were “serious failings in the Labour Party leadership in addressing antisemitism and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints”. One breach by Ken Livingstone, the former London mayor, and two breaches by Pam Bromley, a councillor in Rossendale, Lancashire, amounted to harassment of Jewish members under law.

The report details comments by Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley that it says amounted to unlawful harassment because they were found to have antisemitic themes or suggested complaints about antisemitism were faked or smears. It notes that Bromley made repeated Facebook posts with antisemitic themes, for example defending references to the Rothschild banking group, and complaining about a “fog of fake accusations of antisemitism” and calling herself the victim of a “witch-hunt”.

Complaints were made about her in May 2017, but Bromley was only suspended from the party in April 2018, a day after an article in The Times about her comments.

On Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley, the report says:

“As these people were acting as agents of the Labour Party, the Labour Party was legally responsible for their conduct. In each case, the EHRC considered the perception of those affected by the conduct, and Labour Party members told the EHRC that the comments contributed to a hostile environment for Jewish and non-Jewish members.”

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:EHRC discredits itself again even as it settles with Livingstone and Bromley	blog post	15 September 2023	Editor	Pam Bromley and Ken Livingstone said: “Rather than fighting this case for potentially another year or more, we believe we need to refocus our resources on tackling the Israel lobby’s current efforts to stifle pro-Palestine speech in schools, universities and other sectors.”
Document:The EHRC’s report into Labour antisemitism is the real ‘political interference’	blog post	7 November 2020	Jonathan Cook	It is instructive to compare the certainty with which the EHRC treats Councillor Pam Bromley’s ambiguous remarks as irrefutable proof of antisemitism in Labour with its complete disregard for unmistakably antisemitic comments from Boris Johnson, the man actually running the country. That lack of concern is shared, of course, by the establishment media and Jewish leadership organisations.
Document:The attack on Jeremy Corbyn is baseless – there is nothing to support it in the EHRC report	Article	29 October 2020	Chris Nineham	Jeremy Corbyn has a record of opposing antisemitism and all forms of racism that are second to none. It was in fact precisely his campaigning and principled approach to politics that got him elected as leader of the party in the first place.
Document:The shortcomings of the EHRC Report	Statement	6 November 2020	Jewish Voice for Labour	There are just 12 mentions of Jeremy Corbyn in the EHRC report, of which only two concern actions taken by him. It is reprehensible not to distinguish between actions taken by individuals supportive of Corbyn and those taken by people hostile to him – such an omission leads to the impression that all failings were Corbyn’s responsibility.

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