Geoffrey Bindman, who was one of Britain’s most distinguished human rights lawyers, lived and died a man of principle.
In normal times, a lawyer who founded the leading law firm Bindman and Partners, who was chair of the British Institute of Human Rights, winner of The Law Society Gazette Centenary Award for Human Rights in 2003, and knighted for his services to human rights, would have received a bevy of tributes on his passing.
But these are not normal times.
Bindman’s death has been greeted with relative silence, particularly from another human rights lawyer who was close to him and whom he knew for much of his career, one Keir Starmer.
Starmer and Bindman were friends, soul mates as human rights lawyers on the soft left of the party, until Bindman took up the cause of defending Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, against the accusation that the party he led was rife with antisemites
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Bindman said he was not aware of ever having experienced such a campaign as was waged against Corbyn’s leadership in his political life as a lawyer and party member.
And Starmer shunned him. Jenny Manson, co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour to whom Bindman belonged, said: “He did not come from the left of the party. He would have been happy with an honourable Keir Starmer as leader of the party, not the Starmer who turned out to be the leader he is.”
This hurt Bindman, who was Jewish, and as a young lawyer in Newcastle had himself suffered from antisemitism that was endemic at the time in the legal profession.
Human rights architect
When I interviewed him three years ago, Bindman recalled the moment antisemitism hit home.
A promising Oxford graduate, he had done his articles and was about to start work as a lawyer, when his uncle, who was himself a solicitor, asked whether his new employer knew he was Jewish.
“So just as I was leaving the office after a preliminary chat with my new boss, I said to him: ‘You know I’m Jewish, don’t you?’ And he said, and I remember his words: “Of course I knew. But since you have mentioned it, perhaps I ought to make one thing clear and this is you could never become a partner in this firm’. “I walked out and never saw him again,” Bindman recalled.
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Bindman had two lives. As an architect of UK equality and human rights law, he served as legal adviser to the Race Relations Board between 1966 and 1976, and later to the Commission for Racial Equality from 1976 to 1983.
He co-founded the legal firm Bindmans in 1974 with founding principles to “protect the rights and reputations of local Londoners” and to act for “progressive organisations and businesses”.
He was knighted in 2007 for services to human rights and appointed honorary Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) in 2011.
In 2023, he received a Lifetime Contribution Award recognising the depth and longevity of his influence on public law and civil liberties work in the UK.
But he cherished almost as much his work in the Labour Party, as councillor, deputy leader of Camden council and chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers.
The two careers collided painfully for Bindman over allegations that blew up around Corbyn’s leadership that the party was rife with antisemites.
‘Legal nonsense’
Bindman had studied antisemitism closely. He was sensitive to the nuances of discourse, the unwritten signs that Jews were not welcome or regarded as alien, that he had encountered in his childhood in Newcastle.
“I have had close involvement with the Labour Party for many years, and I can say that I’ve never really experienced antisemitism among fellow Labour Party members or in Labour meetings,” he told me with feeling.
Bindman’s death has been greeted with relative silence, particularly from another human rights lawyer whom he knew for much of his career, one Keir Starmer
As a lawyer, he was incensed by the involvement of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which found the Labour Party to be in breach of the Equalities Act 2010 for unlawful harassment and indirect discrimination, specifically concerning the handling of antisemitism complaints under Corbyn’s leadership.
Not least because Bindman had had so much experience with the EHRC’s predecessors.
The EHCR made four findings of unlawful acts by the Labour Party. Two referred to Ken Livingstone and a local councillor. They were guilty of unlawful harassment, according to the EHCR, but the Labour Party was also responsible because they were acting as its agents.
Bindman branded this a “legal nonsense”.
“If they were agents, it means every member is an agent of the Labour Party. It made no sense. Those two findings made no sense.”
The other two findings were of indirect discriminatory practices, such as the alleged interference by Corbyn’s office in the conduct of complaints.
“The evidence we’ve got from (Martin) Forde [the barrister who was tasked by Starmer to investigate a leaked report] says they were being asked by the body doing the investigation for help, they were responding much more than interfering. Insofar as they could be said to interfere, it was mainly to help to get the complaints expedited, not to influence the outcome.”
Bindman was unsparing about his conclusion: “I think there has been political manipulation and the allegations were almost entirely bogus. There’s antisemitism everywhere, but it was wrong to single out the Labour Party, to single out Jeremy Corbyn, to start an investigation into the Labour Party.”
Even though he was not a natural follower of Corbyn, Bindman took up his cause.
As a Labour Party stalwart he was saddened when it became clear he was being treated by his party as persona non grata. But as a lawyer, he was incensed at how easily the truth and evidence had been jettisoned for a political operation to unseat Corbyn.
Bindman followed the path his conscience took him. In that, and in these times especially, he was a particularly unusual and brave man.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
