Polly Toynbee says “a party can’t be a little bit racist. The damning findings [of the Equality and Human Rights Commission] had to be swallowed whole”, as justification of the ban on Jeremy Corbyn from running as a Labour candidate (Starmer is right to stop Corbyn standing for Labour at the next election – but he mustn’t purge dissent, 15 February).
It sounds impressive, but surely the logic here is flawed. A party, like a person, can be more or less racist. Indeed, most people are probably “a little bit racist”, as implicit association tests consistently show. And a party with an ideology declaring racial superiority, or even a party that has no such explicit ideology, but which consistently discriminates against one group, can be said to be more racist than one where racist attitudes are held by a fringe minority.
