‘Liar’ Lee Harpin, the JC's Political Correspondent was Previously Arrested for his part in the Hacking Scandal at the Daily
Mirror
Audrey
White is a legend in her own lifetime. A woman who has fought oppression,
sexual harassment and bigotry in all its forms all her life. Lee Harpin, the
Jewish Chronicle’s Political Editor, who lied about her repeatedly, has spent
his journalistic life defending racism and ethnic cleansing. Harpin isn’t fit
to shine Audrey’s shoes.
This week
the Jewish Chronicle has been forced to
print the adjudication of IPSO, albeit 5 months late. IPSO is normally
seen as the tame creature of the newspaper industry. It is some measure of the
Jewish Chronicle and its Editor Stephen Pollard’s contemptible behaviour that IPSO
has criticised them in such strident terms.
The Jewish
Chronicle printed 4 articles, which consisted of a series of lies, about Audrey
White. They were
“Ex-Militant Tendency activist accused of bullying Louise Ellman lied
about date of birth to rejoin Labour”, published
online on 25 February 2019 – now deleted
“Plot to oust MP Ellman spearheaded by a former member of the Trotskyist
Militant Tendency”, published online on 25
February 2019. This article is still online
“Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman ‘considering her future’ in party amid rumours of more resignations”, published online on 1 March 2019
Arendt still online
The articles alleged that
Audrey had:
1.
been “expelled” from the
Labour Party in the 1980s
2.
“lied” about her date of birth on her application to re-join the
Party in 2015, “on the day Jeremy Corbyn
became leader.”
3.
been “amongst a group of
militants who repeatedly interrupted” their MP Louise Ellman while she
delivered a speech at a constituency meeting.
4.
“received a number of formal warnings from the Party over allegations of
bullying against Party members “,
5.
“falsely claimed that a Labour councillor was under investigation by the
police for having ‘cruelly taunted’ a ‘disabled pensioner suffering from
cancer’”. One article reported that the complainant had been a member of
the Socialist Party.
The Jewish Chronicle employed the
Jonathan Freedland ‘defence’ viz. that it had relied upon ‘confidential sources’ for its claims.
All the allegations proved to be
false. When Audrey sent the Jewish Chronicle proof that their allegations were
lies they simply refused to print any correction. That was why IPSO, normally seen as a fangless
poodle added the following rider:
Independent Press
Standard Organisation Ruling against Jewish Chronicle
The
Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this
complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer
questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses
had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct
during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable.
The
Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards
department.
In the past
4 years, the Jewish Chronicle has waged such a, deceitful, distorted and
downright dishonest campaign against Labour Party activists and Jeremy Corbyn.
The Jewish Chronicle has quite knowingly accused a host of anti-racists of
anti-Semitism. It is therefore no surprise that at the end of the day they and
‘Liar’ Lee Harpin simply resorted to inventing facts.
 |
| 'Liar' Lee Harpin |
It has been
one of the minor themes of this McCarthyist campaign that Louise Ellman and
Luciana Berger, two Zionist Labour MPs, were forced out because they were
Jewish. The reality is that they were not wanted because of their right-wing Zionist
politics. Many of the people seeking their removal were themselves Jewish
including my friend, the late Sam Semoff. Little facts like these never got to
make it into the pages of the JC, which is an expensive propaganda sheet.
 |
| Without the efforts of Councillor Nick Small, Liverpool might have a new hospital |
One of the people propagating the
lies about ‘anti-Semitism’ in Riverside was Ellman’s best friend, Councillor
Nick Small. Small has been at the centre of the ‘anti-Semitism’ allegations. It
was Small who directly intervened in 2011 with the Legal Aid Board to stop
them funding Sam Semoff, who was pursuing a judicial review against the government
decision to put the rebuilding of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital out to PFI.
The contract was given to Carillion, a get rich quick company who went bankrupt
last year. Much of Carillon’s building work turned out to be below standard. See
Remembering Sam Semoff – an American
in exile fighting to defend the NHS
Small was
successful and Sam was forced to drop his legal action. The hospital is still
waiting to be built. According to the Health
Service Journal the Royal Liverpool University Hospital Trust is
seeking an extra £300
million because of the actions of Nick Small. The hospital was
originally estimated to cost £335 million. If anyone should have been expelled from
the Labour Party it was Councillor Nick Small, the neo-liberal cuckoo in the Labour
Party.
Small objected at one
meeting of Riverside Labour Party to the suggestion of Helen Marks, herself
Jewish, that if there is an increase in anti-Semitism it is clear that it is the actions of Israel, which describes itself as a Jewish
state, that is at least in part, responsible for that increase. Small
called this anti-Semitism when in fact it’s so obvious that it barely needs
stating. The 2010
Incidents Reports of the Community Security Trust stated that:
The year 2009 saw a
record number of anti-Semitic incidents as a consequence of reactions to the
Gaza conflict at the beginning of that year,which acted as a ‘trigger event’ affecting
the incident totals for January, February and March 2009.
The full Report
of Jewish Voices for Labour’s investigation into the Jewish Chronicle’s lies can
be read here.
‘Liar’ Lee
was also involved in the hacking scandal at the Daily Mirror and he was at one
point arrested by the
Police. Over the past few years Harpin has repeatedly lied and traded in disinformation.
He has become a practitioner in the dark arts of Black Propaganda, as part of
the Jewish Chronicle’s Fake Anti-Semitism Campaign. The full IPSO decision can
be found here.
I had the
privilege to meet Audrey when I was doing an interview with RT’s Sputnik. Audrey
was nominated as one of BBC Radio 4’s ‘100 most influential women of the
century’ (for defending women from sexual abuse in the workplace). Audrey was
also heavily involved in raising money for a plaque dedicated to the 49
Liverpool Councillors who were surcharged for defying the Tory Government and
bankrupted in the 1980’s. She invited me to attend the unveiling of the plaque at
the Casa Club in Liverpool on the eve of the Labour Party Conference in
Liverpool in 2018.
The Committee expressed significant concerns
about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on
a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was
regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee
considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was
unacceptable. The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of
IPSO’s Standards department.
Audrey
White made her name in 1983 when she became a pioneer in the fight against
sexual harassment at work. She was the manager of a clothing store in
Liverpool. When her area manager sexually harassed four women in her team, she
complained – and was sacked.
The staff
were too scared of losing their jobs to stand up for her. Audrey began picketing
the store the next day. The picket was maintained, with banners and petitions, from opening to closing time for five weeks. ‘And no one crosses a picket line in
Liverpool!’
‘On the picket we had dockers, car workers, staff
from unemployed centres, union members, local activists.’
We didn’t even know the phrase
‘sexual harassment’ back then.
We learned
how bad things were: women came up to us on the picket and said, “I had a wonderful job but my boss would do
this, so I had to leave.” And, “I
didn’t go along with what the boss wanted, so I got demoted”. When the
company finally agreed to meet with us, they wouldn’t discuss the sexual
harassment complaints, even though I’d got statements from the girls. They
claimed I’d been sacked because I wasn’t ‘bubbly’ enough.
Once we
lined up pickets at the Manchester and London stores, the company relented. I
remember phoning the pickets from London and saying, “You can take the pickets
off because we’ve won!”
My story shows that a woman can win – even a woman
in a shop in 1980’s Britain.
In 1988, Audrey’s story was made into a film – Business As Usual. Here she is with Glenda
Jackson, who played her character. See
Audrey White - Fighting back against sexual harassment
PRESS RELEASE FROM MERSEYSIDE PENSIONERS’ ASSOCIATION
– Nov 28, 2019
Anti-Labour smears of Jewish Chronicle exposed by Independent
Press Standards
Merseyside Pensioners Association welcomes the
findings of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) in upholding
the complaint by one of our members against the Jewish Chronicle for publishing
smears and falsehoods against Labour activists in Liverpool.
Audrey White, who was nominated as one of BBC Radio
4’s ‘100 most influential women of the century’ (for defending women from
sexual abuse in the workplace) was targeted by the Jewish Chronicle with a
litany of lies and falsehoods reported by Lee Harpin – an ex-News of the World
journalist arrested in connection with the phone-hacking scandal.
Harpin penned four separate articles containing
incendiary and unsubstantiated claims discrediting the 68-year-old pensioner
and Labour activist from Liverpool, Riverside. IPSO’s committee stated that
“the publication’s (Jewish Chronicle) conduct during IPSO’s investigation was
also unacceptable” and has been escalated to IPSO’s Standards Department.
The “significantly misleading claims” published by
Harpin and the Jewish Chronicle included the accusation that Audrey (and other
activists) had ‘bullied’ local MP Louise Ellman by acting as “a group of
militants who repeatedly interrupted the MP” during a constituency meeting; as
well as claims that Audrey had “lied about her age” to re-join the Labour
Party; was previously “expelled from the Labour Party” and a “former member of
the Socialist Party.”
Evidence provided to IPSO, including a recording,
exposed these reportings to be patently false and “significantly misleading.”
Malcolm Kennedy ex-Lord Mayor of Liverpool also fed the smears by ludicrously
comparing one Labour constituency meeting to a ‘Soviet show trial’ — audio
recordings of the event found that this too was “significantly misleading” and
that constituency meetings were not “rowdy” as characterised by the paper.
The Jewish Chronicle also reported that Audrey had
made a “false claim” that a local Labour Councillor was under police
investigation for taunting a disabled Corbyn-supporting pensioner who suffers
from cancer. Evidence from Merseyside Police’s Hate Crime Unit provided to the
Press Standards Investigation concluded that it was “not false to make this
claim” and that the publication had provided a “serious and misleading
impression of Audrey’s conduct towards Labour politicians.” This conclusion is
particularly welcomed by our organisation as the “disabled pensioner” is
critically acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Phil Maxwell, a valued member
of the Merseyside Pensioners Association.
The findings make clear that the reporting of the
Jewish Chronicle and journalist Lee Harpin fall far below the professional and
ethical standards expected of journalists working today — particularly as
pertains to accuracy and fact-checking (the most basic principles of
reporting).
Merseyside Pensioners Association has itself been a
target of the Jewish Chronicle and we condemn the personal attacks, fake news
and fabrications employed by this journal (and others) to peddle the narrative
that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has been overrun by ‘militants’ and/or is
‘institutionally anti-Semitic.’ Tragically anti-Semitism continues to exist
across society (as well as all major political parties) and politically
motivated misreporting of this nature undermines serious efforts to tackle
racism in all its forms.
The adjudication in particular exposes the divisive
and politically-motivated tactics being used by certain areas of the press and
Labour Party to promote the impression that Louise Ellman MP was ‘bullied‘ out
of the Labour Party by local activists. Not only does irresponsible journalism
like this smear innocent people, it creates division within our communities and
tarnishes the reputation of our city (Liverpool) — a city all-too-familiar with
the willingness of powerful and unaccountable newspapers to slur ordinary
people (without reply).
The MPA congratulates Audrey in persevering with a
nine month struggle to clear her name and we look forward to the Jewish
Chronicle publishing the remedy as mandated by the ruling. We also ask for a
suspension of these kind of politically motivated press-smears against Labour
activists, as we fight an election for the Corbyn-led Labour government our
country needs.
See also
IPSO
hammers Jewish Chronicle for attacks on Labour supporter – and its conduct
during investigation
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