A Labour cabinet member on Preston City Council has been suspended from the party over comments made in a WhatsApp group that have been blasted as antisemitic by members of the city’s Jewish community.

Carol Henshaw, who held the climate change portfolio and represents the City Centre ward, lost the Labour whip late last week.   It followed a council meeting on Thursday at which a formal question to the authority’s leader about the issue, from a member of the public, was blocked by town hall chiefs.

Had it been heard, councillors would have been told of a WhatsApp exchange last August in which Cllr Henshaw queried whether what she described as “this far right s**t” – believed to refer to the riots across the country following the Southport child murders – was being “funded by Zionists”.

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The city council had accepted the question at the start of last week, but U-turned 24 hours before the meeting over concerns that it would “prejudice” an investigation by the regional Labour Party in the North West, which the authority says it was only made aware of on Wednesday.

However, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has been told a complaint was made to the national party in January by a different Preston resident, who was advised more than a month ago that a probe had been opened.

Meanwhile, the would-be questioner has decried what he says was a “determined” attempt by the council not to allow the matter to be raised in public – and rubbished the suggestion it could be prejudicial to the party inquiry, because that “is not a legal process”.

The LDRS has seen screenshots from the WhatsApp group – named “Labour Group Social”, although only around half of the city authority’s Labour councillors are thought to be members of it – dated 10th August, 2024.

Cllr Henshaw messaged to say she had seen a number of individuals, some of whom she named, “outside Barclays bank with placards demanding hostage release and saying anti semitism is racism”.

“Dreadful,” she added.

The gathering was a vigil for the remaining Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during the 7 October terror attack, some 10 months earlier.

In response, Amber Afzal, cabinet member for planning and regulation, asked: “Do they mean release of all hostages?” to which Cllr Henshaw replied – “Only their hostages”.

She added:  “It was very difficult walking past.  Twice.  They asked me if they had my support.   I just said I supported all human beings.”

Cllr Afzal sympathised with the difficulty her colleague said she had experienced, before adding:  “I would tell them to ask Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire instead of killing negotiators.”

After a couple of messages from other group members, Cllr Henshaw wrote:  “I saw something recently saying that this far right s**t is because a) it’s being funded by Zionists b) our new government has agreed to drop it’s [sic] objection to the ICJ arrest warrant for Netanyahu and c) arms exports to Israel have been suspended.  Does anyone know if there’s any truth in this?”

Council leader Matthew Brown then interjected, writing:  “I would suggest Whats App [sic] isn’t the place to discuss these matters”.

The LDRS approached Cllrs Henshaw, Afzal and Brown for comment.   Cllr Henshaw and Cllr Brown said they were unable to do so, with Cllr Brown citing the ongoing Labour Party investigation.

A transcript of the WhatsApp conversation later found its way to Preston Labour member Harry Spillman, who submitted the question withdrawn from last week’s council meeting which, if it had been asked, would have condemned what he called an “outpouring of antisemitic bile”.

The 77-year-old – who moved to Preston around a decade ago and has been a Labour Party member, with a short hiatus, for more than 50 years – told the LDRS he was dismayed that the local Labour leadership had “failed to deal with” the matter in the months after he first flagged it up late last summer.

Mr. Spillman, who describes himself as a “secular” Jew” and says he has a track record of fighting racism in all its forms, said he couldn’t “sit back and do nothing” when he was made aware of the remarks by Cllrs Henshaw and Afzal – and questioned why some councillors had stayed silent.

“Why [were others in the WhatsApp group] not doing what I, from the outside, have [had] to do?   Why [were] they not reporting the people who [made] these comments?”

Mr. Spillman said he believed “everyone’s redeemable” – and stressed he had never sensed any personal antagonism towards him from within Preston Labour for being Jewish, not least from Cllr Henshaw, whom he regarded as “a friend”.

However, he said he had nevertheless sat next to people who had made antisemitic comments “to me or around me, without thinking it could have any detrimental effect on me”. To that end, he called for “compulsory education on antisemitism from a reputable Jewish organisation” for all Preston Labour councillors in order to stamp out the problem.

As a one-time Labour parliamentary candidate and former county councillor in East Sussex, he said the way the issue had been handled by the party was “dubious”.

“The process in the Labour Party is, if you’re investigating somebody for antisemitism, you suspend them while you’re investigating them – and then if they’re found not guilty, they’ll be reinstated,” Mr. Spillman explained.

“Anybody saying [such things] in the constituency of Keir Starmer would [have been] suspended.”

He said that by raising the issue he had sought to do nothing other than uphold the zero tolerance approach the Prime Minister had taken to rooting out antisemitism in the Labour ranks.

Jeremy Dable, the Jewish representative on Preston’s faith covenant, said he was disgusted by the “straight moral equivalence” drawn in the WhatsApp discussion between “ordinary people” taken hostage from Israel on 7th October “and people arrested and put in prisons in Israel”.

A Labour spokesperson said:   “The Labour Party takes all complaints extremely seriously and they are fully investigated in line with our rules and procedures. Where behaviour is found to have fallen below the high standards we expect, action will always be taken in line with Labour Party rules.”

Cllr Henshaw will sit as an independent councillor while the Labour investigation, which the party says is pending, proceeds.  Cllr Afzal, who represents the Garrison ward, remains a Labour member and city council cabinet member.

What happened when – and why

Savannah Dable, a member of Preston’s small Jewish community, has led regular ‘silent vigils’ in Preston city centre for the more than 200 Israeli hostages snatched by Hamas during the 7th October attack in 2023.

It was during one of the gatherings last August that Cllr Henshaw passed by and subsequently remarked upon it in the Labour group’s WhatsApp chat.

Mrs. Dable says when she was made aware of the exchanges by Harry Spillman, she, too, was shocked and raised the matter at a local level by approaching various councillors.  However, she says that by November, she felt the need to make a complaint – which she directed to the national Labour Party.

She says was advised that the party could not proceed without more proof than the transcript obtained by Mr. Spillman.  That evidence eventually materialised in January in the form of screenshots of the chat – enabling Mrs. Dable to make a fresh complaint.

“They wanted my witness statement and the additional documents, which [were] the screenshots – and I uploaded everything at the beginning of February, ” she told the LDRS.

“Then they emailed me back to say, ‘This [has been] accepted, now we’ve opened [a] case, it will be allocated to someone – here’s your reference.’” Mrs. Dable said.

She had heard no more since – and at no point was she made aware of any involvement from the Labour Party in the North West, whose investigation was the reason given by Preston City Council for withdrawing the question from Mr. Spillman at last week’s full council meeting.

Having been told on Wednesday that the matter would not be discussed at the gathering, the pair joined a small group outside the town hall in the hour before the meeting began, handing out copies of the question to members – and bearing a banner that read:  ‘We won’t be silent’ and “Say ‘no’ to antisemitism”.

Inside the council chamber, meanwhile, Preston’s mayor Phil Crowe – chairing the meeting – explained that the question had been pulled because its subject matter was “being investigated by the regional Labour Party”.

The authority’s monitoring officer, Caron Parmenter, said “official confirmation” had been received on Wednesday and that it would “clearly…be inappropriate today to listen to the question that was being proposed, as that would prejudice the investigation”.

However, the statements prompted Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Jewel to ask a question of his own about the part of the council’s constitution under which Mr. Spillman’s poser had been ruled out  – given that it did not appear to have fallen foul of any of the listed reasons for public questions to be refused. He added that it reflected “a really dangerous sentiment” – and smacked of Labour “avoiding scrutiny”.

Council leader Matthew Brown reiterated that the decision had been taken on “advice that’s been received, including from our senior officers”.

“I’m not going to comment any further on this, because [it is] an internal matter that is being taken forward by the regional Labour Party – and I’m not allowed to comment any further.

“But what I will say is that the party will take all allegations of antisemitism and discrimination very seriously.”

The authority’s chief executive, Adrian Phillips, stressed that he and Ms. Parmenter had been responsible for the decision – not Cllr Brown.

Pressed by Cllr Jewel over what aspect of the constitution permitted them to make that call, Mr. Phillips added:  “Myself, with the monitoring officer, believed that we had the authority within the relevant parts of the constitution to withdraw that question at that time.

“We have been in correspondence with the questioner and offered a discussion with that individual – and that would remain confidential.”

Caron Parmenter said Harry Spillman would be free to ask his question again once the Labour Party investigation was over.

In a statement issued before Cllr Henshaw’s suspension, a Preston City Council spokesperson said: “A live investigation by the Labour Party is ongoing and so [we] are unable to comment on the case at this time.”

Speaking after the suspension was revealed by the Labour Party, Mr. Spillman told the LDRS he believed denying him his question “and then having it all come out in the way it has done” was going to make the authority “look very silly”.

Why the wait – and the silence?

While the Labour Party’s investigatory process has silenced its own members, the city council’s Liberal Democrat opposition group leader, John Potter, said the authority “must not set a precedent that political leaders can pick and choose what public questions to answer”.

“Whatever internal processes Labour now conduct, that is separate from the right of any Prestonian to ask a question of its council and its leaders,” he said.

He also said the lengthy timeline of the saga begged the question:  “Why hasn’t any action been taken before now?  Do Preston Labour think the comments are not contentious – or did they just want to cover it up?

“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, so I’m happy an investigation is now taking place. However, to deny a member of the Preston public the right to ask a question at council makes Preston Labour look guilty – and adds to the perception that the Labour leadership are simply trying to sweep the allegations under the carpet.

“In my 15 years on the council I’ve never known a public question be refused,” Cllr Potter said.

Meanwhile, Conservative group leader Stephen Thompson said it was “disappointing” that Harry Spillman’s question had been withdrawn from the agenda.

He added:  “I believe the matter has been referred to the Labour regional office [and] we await the result from their inquiry. Anyone accused of anything is innocent until proven otherwise.

“Unfortunately, there seems to be an undercurrent of antisemitism in Preston. The Conservative group are concerned and will monitor the situation.”

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