SCOTLAND Yard has launched a criminal investigation into allegations of anti-Semitic hate crimes within the Labour Party.
The force is acting on a dossier of information handed to Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
A force spokesman said: "On Tuesday September 4, the Met Commissioner was handed a folder of paperwork following a radio interview with LBC Radio in London's Leicester Square.
"The complainant alleged that the documentation included evidence of anti-Semitic hate crimes. The contents have been examined by specialist officers.
"A criminal investigation has commenced into some of the allegations within the documentation. Early investigative advice is being sought from the Crown Prosecution Service."
LBC received an internal Labour dossier detailing 45 cases involving messages posted by party members on social media, including one which read: "We shall rid the Jews who are a cancer on us all."
The broadcaster passed the leaked material to former senior police officer Mak Chishty, who said that 17 instances should have been reported to the police for investigation and another four were potential race hate crimes.
These were the message detailed above; the sharing of a link to an allegedly anti-Semitic blog, and an entry referring to "a Zionist Extremist MP...who hates civilised people, about to get a good kicking".
The fourth related to a party member being accused of putting a child through "10 years of hell", using racial slurs against him and referring to him as "Jew boy".
It was also alleged that the member had chased a girl, aged six or seven, around with air freshener, saying she smelled of curry and calling her "a chocolate monkey".
Ms Dick stressed that the Labour Party itself was not under investigation.
"We are not going to investigate the Labour Party. We would always want institutions and political parties and similar to be able to regulate themselves," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"However, if somebody passes us material which they say amounts to a crime we have a duty to look at that and not just dismiss it.
"We have been assessing some material that was passed to me, in a radio studio of all things, about two months ago and we are now investigating some of that material because it appears there may have been crime committed.”
The Commissioner added: "We are liaising immediately with the Crown Prosecution Service and I hope we will be able to clear that up very quickly."
The Labour Party said it had not been contacted by the police but was ready to co-operate with the investigation.
A spokesman said: "The Labour Party has a robust system for investigating complaints of alleged breaches of Labour Party rules by its members. Where someone feels they have been a victim of crime, they should report it to the police in the usual way."
Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, said the Scotland Yard announcement was "thoroughly depressing" but "sadly, I'm not surprised".
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, he said: "If it does one thing, it will dispel the myth that has been propagated by some people in my own party and beyond it that there is an anti-Semitism in my own party and we are determined to root it out.
"I've not seen the details within the dossier, I just know it exists.”
He added: "I don't know how it ended up in the hands of the police but I'm very pleased it has done because we've not just said that we want to root out anti-Semitism in the Labour Party but if people have crossed the line on criminal behaviour through hate crime and I'm afraid it doesn't surprise me that some have, then I'm very pleased that this is being taken seriously by the police."
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