The Moral Turpitude, Racism & Corrupt Vendettas of Iain McNicol’s
aides didn’t stop them Fraudulently Living off Members’ Subscriptions
Whilst ‘Going Slow’
* Numbers in (xx) round brackets indicate page
numbers in the Leaked Report
Dramatis Personae
Iain McNicol (General Secretary)
Tracey Allen (Manager, General Secretary’s Office - GSO)
Julie Lawrence (Director, GSO)
Emilie Oldknow (Executive Director - Governance, Membership and Party Services)
Patrick Heneghan (Executive Director - Elections, Campaigns and Organisation)
Simon Mills (Executive Director - Finance).
John Stolliday (Director, Governance and Legal Unit - GLU)
Mike Creighton (Director of Audit, Risk and Property)
Claire-Frances Fuller (Head of Internal Governance)
Simon Jackson (Director of Policy, Research and Messaging, Briefing and Rebuttal)
Fiona Stanton (Regional Director, Labour North)
Neil Fleming (Acting Head of Press and Broadcasting)
Carol Linforth (Director of Conference and Events)
Sarah Mulholland (PLP Secretary)
Holly Snyman (Director - Human Resources)
Greg Cook (Head of Political Strategy)
Anna Hutchinson (Regional Director, Labour North West)
Tom Geldard (Director of Digital).
Jo Greening, (Head of International
Affairs)
Karie Murphy (Chief of Staff, LOTO)
Seumas Milne (Executive Director - Strategy and Communication)
Seumas Milne (Executive Director - Strategy and Communication)
This is the first of a 2 part article
on Labour’s leaked report.
The Report demonstrates in all its sordid details the amorality of Labour’s
senior officials up to an including General Secretary ‘crooked’ Iain McNicol.
They say that a fish rots from the head down. It is clear, with the 56% vote
for Keir Starmer, that the rot has spread to much of the rest of Labour’s body.
This
Report is not some neutral
investigation of the misdeeds of Labour’s senior officials. It is a highly politicised and factional document.
The fault line running through this Report is its acceptance that the false and
malicious anti-Semitism campaign waged against Corbyn’s supporters, anti-Zionists
and the ‘wrong sort of Jews’, was genuinely concerned with anti-Jewish racism.
This
Report is based on the assumption that this ‘disinformation
paradigm’ had some basis in fact and was genuinely concerned with rooting
out racism. The Report rejects the suggestion that this campaign, waged for
four years by the BBC and establishment journalists, from the Guardian to the
Sun, was a cynical weapon deployed by opponents of Jeremy Corbyn.
This
is the first of a two-part analysis of the Report. This is a Report in 2 parts
– one good and one bad. It is a report that contains a unique window into what
Labour’s senior officials were thinking and what they were up to and. At the
same time it is both mistaken and dishonest.
This
Report also highlights the real tragedy of Corbyn’s leadership. The fact that
he and his supporters in Momentum came to believe that if they embraced the
weapon of their adversaries that they could turn it against them and thus
defeat anti-Semitism which had been directed against them. Instead they signed
their own death warrant.
It
doesn’t seem to have occurred to Corbyn and McDonnell that the more socialists,
Black and Jewish anti-racists they expelled the more imperilled their own
position became. They never sought to ask why it was that the Labour Right,
which had introduced the ‘hostile environment’ policy, and the Tories who
introduced the 2014 Immigration Act, were so concerned about anti-Semitism.
I
will begin with the good part. This is a Report which resembles George Elliot’s
Daniel Deronda, which was a book in 2
parts –brilliant novel and awkward Zionist sub-plot.
Who Was The
Report Commissioned By?
This
Report was almost certainly commissioned by Jennie Formby or those close to
her. Its aim was to pin the blame for the failure to investigate
‘anti-Semitism’ on McNicol, Stolliday and above all Sam Matthews. Presumably
the intention was to submit it to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s
Inquiry into Labour ‘anti-Semitism’.
Bogus
allegations of breaches of the GDPR regulations
on data protection and confidentiality are being used by the Party leadership
to try and suppress this Report. I’ve taken a brief look at the Data
Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR Regs. Section 15 of the DPA 2018 makes
provisions for exemption from the scope of the GDPR, e.g. Article
6 1(e) refers to the public interest. Articles
6(3) and 23(1) of the GDPR provide for exemption from its provisions.
There
are a number of excellent articles on the Report which I’ve listed at the end
of this article.
Craig
Murray’s Report
raises the importance of storing the mass of data involved in compiling this
report, the thousands of Whatsapp and email messages, of which this Report is
only a selection.
Asa
Winstanley’s excellent
article identifies the author of the report as Harry Hayball, a senior
officer in the GLU and Patrick Smith, a former organiser for the Alliance for
Workers Liberty, a former Trotskyist Zionist
group that provided the ideological basis to the witch-hunt, in particular the
concept of ‘left anti-Semitism’.
Why is Starmer so intent on
suppressing the leaked report and avoiding any discussion of the issues raised
in it?
Before
retiring I used to be the legal advisor to a charity. I specialised in
Employment Law and represented workers at Employment Tribunals and the
Employment Appeal Tribunal. I specialised in Whistleblowing see e.g. Lucas –v- Chichester Diocesan
Housing Association which set a precedent on ‘good
faith’.
In
every single Whistleblowing case I fought, the employer, instead of dealing
with the Protected Disclosure (such as dangerous conditions in a private
hospital, fraud etc.) targeted the Whistleblower. Why? Because they were
complicit in the wrongdoing and they were seeking to cover it up.
The Zionists are furious at the 'flagrant' Labour Party Data Breach - strangely enough they weren't outraged when the Compliance Unit leaked details of its victims |
It
is widely accepted that employers should not
to try and identify the whistleblower because that acts as a deterrent to
whistleblowing. In some situations anonymity is guaranteed. For example in the
Administration of the United States. The first thing that Donald Trump did
during his impeachment hearings was to try and find out who blew the whistle on
him so that he could be victimised.
Keir
Starmer was involved in the PLP coup against Corbyn in 2016. There is no doubt
that McNicol and others were in touch with the coup leaders and Tom Watson. Starmer’s
reaction and his instructions to Formby to act as his lapdog have but one
explanation – he was fully aware of what was going on at Labour Party HQ in
Southside.
|
Reading
through the Report the overwhelming impression was that Labour’s senior staff, Matthews,
McNicol, Oldknow etc. simply had no code of ethics or moral compass. They were both personally and politically
corrupt. It is also clear that they should never have been employed as they are
as far from socialism and the fight for a better society as it is possible to
be. It is no surprise that such was the hostility of Labour’s staff to
socialist activists, who they contemptuously referred to as ‘Trots’, a term
embracing anyone from Marxists to left-Social Democrats and indeed anyone who
is a democrat, that they would have felt comfortable working at Tory Party HQ.
The pity is that they weren’t.
Supporting Anybody but Labour
Simon
Jackson, the Acting Director of Policy and Political Research said about Iain
Duncan-Smith that he was ‘better than
most of our shadow cabinet”(42) This is the man responsible
for the deaths of thousands of disabled people through his benefit cuts.
Lisa
Forsyth believed that Corbyn had nothing to do with the victory in the Oldham
by-election in December 2015 and hoped that Theresa May would give him ‘the
boot’ at the local elections in May 2016:
It's in spite of him
tho. Hopfullly May will be the boot (62)
Simon
Jackson, had previously suggested to Anouska Gregorek, Head of Policy
Development, that he would not vote for Labour in a general election when led
by Jeremy Corbyn. (88)
‘Ultimately though, who votes for JC? If it's
a choice btwn him & TMay how do WE vote for him?? I mean we're not fucking
mad.’(42)
People
have been expelled for previous membership or support of the Green Party or
sharing tweets in support of George Galloway yet opposition to Labour was rife
amongst Labour’s senior officers. To oppose your own party and yet live off its
members’ subscriptions is the epitome of personal corruption.
This
principle of not supporting another party did not extend to the Right of the
party, still less Labour Party staff themselves, one of whom remarked that ‘with a bit of luck this speech will show a
clear polling decline.’ (96)
Senior
staff in “SMT Group” spoke openly with one another about hoping that the
Liberal Democrats “can do it” in the
Manchester Gorton by-election: (63)
Jo
Greening hoped that ‘with a
bit of luck this speech will show a clear polling decline.’ (57)
John
Bigham – being the admin of a
Conservative Party Facebook Group is not enough to suspend
In
January 2017 Rob Reddan complained about Bigham, attaching screenshots in which
Bigham wrote that he did not support the Labour Party:
“I
will always be a member but i will never get behind the party [while] Corbyn is
leader”
“I
will never allow Trotskyite and Marxist scum to drive me out of the party”
Reddan’s
complaint was forwarded from “Legal Queries” to “Disputes”. The complaint was
not logged anywhere, and no action appears to have been taken. (537)
In
March 2017 another staff member flagged Bigham to Louise Withers-Green,
attaching screenshots of him attacking Corbyn and numerous members of the
shadow cabinet. Withers-Green responded “This,
although not nice isn’t bad enough for us to do anything about”. (538)
Further
complaints were received about Bigham on 18 and 21 December 2017, concerning
posts in which he called Corbyn a terrorist sympathiser and, about Diane
Abbott, wrote:
It’s
about time she got put in a box with the lid fastened firmly
On
21 December 2017, “Skwawkbox” published
an article on Bigham’s comment about Abbott, noting that:
Andy Bigham is a well-known poster to
members of political discussion groups on Facebook. He posts anti-Labour
comments and articles so frequently that members of non-Labour groups often assume
he is a Tory.
Julie
Lawrence emailed the Head of Internal Governance Claire-Frances Fuller:
Hi
CF, can you take a look and advise on action we should take? Fuller
replied to Lawrence
I don’t think this would be considered a
death threat by the police or would warrant a suspension.,, Unless there is any
further evidence of addition posts/comments (539)
At
11.28am, Fuller emailed saying “Cancel that. We can suspend.” Oldknow messaged
in “SKEI”:
[22/12/2017, 11:28:44] Emilie Oldknow:
We’re suspending this character. It will go out later today. Please don’t brief
until he has been told
Bigham
was then suspended on the basis of his post about Abbott.
When
Disputes Officer Megan McCann followed up in February 2018, however, she noted
that “a warning seems to me most
appropriate”. A series of questions about the post were then sent to
Bigham, including:
Are you intending you stir up violence
towards Diane Abbott?
How do you think you would feel if
someone posted a comment like this concerning you? (539)
McCann
then lifted his suspension and two days later Reddan submitted further evidence
about Bigham, with screenshots of over 100 posts showing Bigham
· saying he had
voted Conservative
· supported
Conservative Party policies
· and posting a
racist image that listed “Islamisation of the UK”, “Back the IRA & Muslim
terrorists” and “open borders to ‘refugees’” as “Jeremy Corbyn’s 10 pledges to
rebuild and transform britain”.
No
action was taken. Further evidence was also sent to “Disputes” that Bigham
supported Conservative Party posts encouraging people to join the Conservative
Party. On 19 April 2018 Reddan submitted another complaint but Martha Robinson
in Complaints replied that it did not warrant action. Reddan responded that:
People were suspended for 'liking' or
sharing green party tweets, or agreeing with other parties tweets on twitter in
the run up to the 2nd leadership election.
This individual has openly stated that
he voted conservative at the last election... posted an offensive article about
Diane Abbott, is forever praising conservative policies on social media...
accusing anyone who voted for Corbyn of being as good as anti-Semitic and stating that anyone who speaks out
against the state of Israel is also anti-Semitic and yet is happy to support his
wife making remarks about Muslim immigrants as if it is ok to target Muslims
and still nothing is done.
Reddan did not receive a reply. No action was taken. (541)
After
a complaint was emailed to Jennie Formby, she forwarded it to Sophie Goodyear,
Head of Safeguarding and Complaints who argued that being an admin of a
Conservative Party Facebook group was not sufficient grounds for an
auto-exclusion, but his statement that he supported the Conservative Party and
had voted for them was. Finally on 11
June 2018, Bigham was auto-excluded from the party (541-542)
Labour Party headquarters where the plotting of the Blairite sabotagers took place |
Emily
Benn
The
GLU declined to act on complaints about Emily Benn, who had retweeted and
posted on Facebook a tweet saying that
“Anyone
disappointed by Corbyn's male dominated line-up should consider joining the
Women's Equality Party [WEP]” (204/5)
On 6 November 2015, as criticism mounted, Oldknow wrote:
We are going to have to get some specifics on the Emily Benn
tweet and quick.
We need to put to bed this in relation to not suspending her.(205)
Stolliday maintained that the post may have been from “some over-enthusiastic local volunteer
running [the account] on her behalf”, and suggested that “next week we write to Emily asking her to
clarify that point.” He added that he thought the cases were “entirely different”. Oldknow agreed
arguing that “we aren't dealing with sane people here” although
complaints had come from numerous Labour members, and members of Labour’s
governing NEC.
Oldknow dismissed the complaints on the grounds that those
making the complaints were insane. Such
a comment by a member would, in itself, be grounds for investigation or
suspension.
On 12 November, Iain McNicol wrote to Benn about her tweets.:
“In order to help me consider whether a formal investigation
is required in this matter I would be grateful if you could answer the
following questions”
No one else was sent questions from the General Secretary
prior to a suspension or investigation. I certainly wasn’t. (206)
Owen Smith Challenges Corbyn in the Summer of 2016 – McNicol
Did His Best To Stop him Standing
In
July 2016 Owen Smith challenged
Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. To do this he needed the nomination of 20% of
the combined total of MPs and MEPs. The Right argued that Corbyn also needed to
be nominated by the same number of MPs.
Solicitor's letter to Crooked McNicol reminding him of his responsibilities |
Prior
to the NEC meeting of 12th July McNicol did
all he could to stop Corbyn standing, necessitating
a letter being
sent
from solicitors acting for Jim Kennedy of Unite to McNicol telling him he had a
duty to act in good faith. It was like asking a fox to become a vegetarian.
McNicol
sought advice from James Goudie QC, whose opinion was that Corbyn needed to be
nominated. Mark Henderson QC advised to the contrary. Goudie proved that lawyers, like prostitutes,
could always be bought if the price were right. Rule 2.Bii stated that:
‘where
there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each
year prior to the annual session of conference. In this case nominations must
be supported by 20% of the combined Commons members of the PLP and members of
the EPLP. Nominations not attracting this threshold shall be null and void.
The
rule was crystal clear. There was no vacancy as Corbyn was the incumbent not
the challenger. Crooked McNicol invited
Goudie not Henderson to the NEC meeting. Notwithstanding this the NEC voted
18-14 to allow Corbyn to stand. A subsequent legal challenge by a rabid
Zionist, Michael Foster, failed
and Corbyn went on to win.
On
15 July 2016, the Director of GLU, Stolliday, who was responsible for
overseeing the Party’s legal defence, said he was “praying we lose in court”. (119) McNicol said "this is the first time the unions have actually
chosen to f*** the party rather than support it".
Judge
Foskett took the unusual step of allowing Corbyn to have his own legal
representation separate from the party. This was because Corbyn suspected McNicol
might concede the case. The High Court acknowledged that Corbyn could not trust
the party apparatus and McNicol to represent his interests fairly.
The
staff got to work purging as many Corbyn supporters as possible. Staff boasted
privately about creating a “new stasi system”, the scale of the
operation was initially hidden from the NEC, with one staff member admitting “we don't want the NEC to have much of an
idea how many there are to review (we're worried they'll get scared)”. (119)
One
way of purging the left was to draw up a list of 68 MPs and their twitter
handles. A list of banned words was drawn up for example. ‘traitor’ and anyone using these words to attack the MP was suspended.
However no MPs from the party’s left was included so any attacks on them were
deemed fair game. There was just one Asian MP and no black MPs on McNicol’s
list. Despite high levels of online abuse directed at Corbyn, who in the 2017
general election received more abuse on Twitter than any other politician, he
was not included in the list of MPs. (130/131) Right-wing abuse was
acceptable.
The
same day, Richard Shakespeare, Labour’s lead developer, suggested that Labour
reject membership applications from anyone who came to the join the Labour
Party via Momentum:
The
appropriately named Councillor John Ferret, leader of Portsmouth Labour Group,
was reported by numerous people for a string of abusive comments, including
referring to Unite as “Stasi”; saying he would “rather vote Tory” than for “any…
Trot outfit aligned to Momentum”; calling Corbyn a “terrorist (138/9)
John
McTernan, a
former Blair adviser, whom Jon Lansman welcomed
into Momentum, whilst expelling me, was reported from 25 July onwards for
abusive language on Twitter including describing Labour MPs who nominated
Corbyn as “morons”; tweeting twice
that Corbyn was a “traitor”;
describing “Corbynistas” as racist; telling an SNP MP that he should “Come down to Peckham and try saying that,
mate”; and writing in the Daily Telegraph that Corbyn’s supporters were “online trolls”.
McTernan
actually attacked
the Tory government for not ‘crushing the
rail unions’ in that well known Labour supporting newspaper, The Telegraph
on 10th August 2016.
No
action was taken against him and the staff decision was “No action - removed at referral”. On 18 August, however, Dan Hogan
did report a member of McTernan’s CLP, Omar Baggili, who - in response to an
article by McTernan in “The
Telegraph” urging the Conservative government to “crush the rail unions once and for all” - tweeted at him
“seriously
John why haven’t you got yourself a Tory membership card. They’re anti unions
& pro privatisation like you.”
Baggili
though was suspended for “abuse”. (140)
Jeremy Corbyn greeting people after the 2017 election |
General Election – Protecting only Right-wing MPs
Protecting
Tom Watson during the 2017 election was a high priority. £50,000 of members’ money was conjured up
whereas Labour candidates in Tory marginals were denied any help whatsoever because
McNicol and Labour’s staff worked on the assumption that Corbyn woud lead the
Labour Party to disaster.
On
22 April Patrick Heneghan declared
that ‘we need to throw cash at Tom's seat, Even if just 50k for that. We
can't let him lose for want of money’ to which McNicol responded: ‘Am off to bed.
But obviously protect toms seat.’ (87)
Operation Cake – Launching a Coup Against Corbyn
Julie
Lawrence, a former NALGO official in the South-East set in train what they
hoped would be a new coup. Two parliamentary by-elections were coming up in
Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent and the staff were praying that Labour would lose.
Julie
Lawrence, Director, GSO described Corbyn as ‘a
proud and selfish man with a team to match.’ (so selfish that Corbyn was one
of the few MPs not caught up in the expenses scandal) She hoped that if Labour
lost the elections ‘we could have another
leadership election.’ This was ‘Operation Cupcake’. (85)
However
Labour held Stoke-on-Trent North though it lost Copeland. To Katy Dillon, a
Press Officer and later Broadcast Officer ‘ the
result on thursday was bittersweet’. She would much have preferred if the
Tories had won both seats. (62)
It
is clear that Tom Watson was kept informed about developments and was part of
the planning for Operation Cupcake. McNicol told Oldknow told to ‘pull together. Operation Cupcake’.
Oldknow told Lawrence and Heneghan that ‘Iain
told TW to prepare for being interim leader.’ (85)
June 2017 General Election Campaign
‘The people have spoken. Bastards’ (103)
The
General Election was a difficult time for Labour’s witchhunters. Most of them
were desperate to see the back of Corbyn and if that meant supporting the
Tories then so be it. You can imagine
their reaction when Corbyn achieved the largest
swing since 1945 and gained about 30 seats.
Even
worse everyone else at Southside was celebrating. Labour’s witchhunters could
hardly turn up looking as if they were in mourning (which is what some
staff did when Corbyn first won the leadership). Fortunately Julie Lawrence
was on hand to offer ‘some safe space
time’ to these sensitive souls before they had to go and
pretend to share the joy. (102)
However
Iain McNicol made it clear that ‘I'm not
in smiling and mixing and doing the 2nd floor.... It’s going to be a long
night’. Tracey Allen spoke for everyone when she declared that
‘We will have to suck
this up. The people have spoken. Bastards’. (103)
Teddy
Ryan, a Regional Organiser was extremely unhappy now that Corbyn was back. He
poured out his heart to Kat Buckingham:
I don't like living in a world where I'm
not allowed to go round threatening people as I see fit (108)
You can see this point. Even worse they had to
reinstate Christine Shawcroft, a left-wing NEC member who had been suspended
for supporting the Independent Muslim Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lotfhur Rahman, whom the High Court, in an openly racist decision, basing itself on
anti-Irish laws a century ago, had removed. (106/107)
In
May 2017 Labour HQ assigned staff to a “secret key seats team”, based in a
separate building, Ergon House - “all
secret to LOTO”.(92)
Hundreds cram into Momentum meeting before Brighton Labour Party's AGM |
The Suspension of Brighton and Hove Labour Party
On
July 9th 2016 at a packed AGM of Brighton & Hove District Labour
Party, over 600 members voted for a new left Executive by a 2-1 majority. Momentum, which was then on the left, had
held a monster
meeting at Brighthelm Community Centre. I have never seen so many people at
a meeting there. The large hall was packed, so was the cafe behind it and still
people could not get in.
Warren Morgan, Progress Leader of the Council coordinated the making of false allegations of spitting against an innocent party member |
Another member of Labour's right-wing mafia, Sue Teddern, was prepared to lie and frame an innocent member, Matt Tully - the staff member denied that he was spat at and the CCTV confirmed that |
As
soon as the AGM was over Council leader Warren Morgan and former Councillor
Emma Daniels lied
about a spitting incident that never happened. They were backed up by Morgan’s
successor, Daniel Yates. The allegations were bare-faced lies, invented to
defeat the democratic will of the largest meeting in the history of the local
Labour Party. Brighton City College where it was held had CCTV which proved
that there was no spitting incident. The investigator, Karen Buckingham, who
had made up her mind before even leaving her office, refused to look at the
video of the incident because that would have put her in a difficult position.
Her excuse was that looking at it would have been a breach of the Data
Protection Act! Today ‘Confidentiality’
is the go to pretext for official liars.
Nonetheless
the party was suspended courtesy of Ann Black, the then Head of Disputes. I have covered this in depth here
and here.
Three days later Stolliday discussed overturning the result with Katherine Buckingham
who was sent down to Brighton by Anne Black to ‘investigate’ what happened. The
only problem was that she had already made up her mind.
Morgan even called for the innocent victim of his lying allegations to be expelled - there were no depths to which he wouldn't sink |
The
lies and deception of Labour’s senior officials beggar belief. Warren Morgan
asked in mock horror whether he was being accused of engaging in a conspiracy.
The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. Stolliday discussed overturning the result
without even a cursory thought as to such minor questions as the morality of
overturning the democratic will of 600+ Labour Party members. These people had
the mentality of General Pinochet staging a coup d’etat against Allende.
The
allegation that the ‘SWP and Trots’ marched
to the meeting and stuffed the ballot box is an absurd lie. Membership cards
were carefully checked. The meeting was
so big that it had to be held in 3 separate sittings. Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who
is now an MP, chaired the meeting. Stolliday wanted to overturn the AGM. Buckingham wanted to 'act now and worry about the rules and legalities later.
Buckingham going through the motions of holding an Inquiry when she had already decided that the Left was at fault |
The
Labour Right engaged in a war against democracy with the support of Iain
McNicol and the Labour Party apparatus including the local right-wing Council
leadership under Warren Morgan. Corbyn
and McDonnell didn’t speak out once. Their silence was deafening.
Anne
Black, the Head of the Disputes Committee, agreed to suspend Brighton and Hove
Labour Party on the say so of unelected officials. She paid the price when she was lost her
place on the NEC. I have written to her to ask whether she now has any regrets.
Wallasey CLP was also Stitched Up
Wallasey
CLP was also suspended in July 2016. A year later, 7 July 2017, Oldknow emailed
Sam Matthews and Stolliday listed a number of allegations of “people selling socialist worker” then
participating in a CLP meeting which was an absurd lie. Oldknow noted that the
local MP Angela Eagle felt that, if the CLP’s suspension was lifted in the
coming months, this would “not give her
time to organise etc.”(114)
The
SWP was a phantom. It doesn’t operate in
the Labour Party. The SWP was mentioned in order to frighten the children. This
lie was equivalent to the myth of the ‘stab
in the back’ so beloved of German revanchists after WWI.
The
allegations included bullying, homophobia and a broken window! The BBC
swallowed the lies. Unsurprisingly it’s not reporting on
the contents of the leaked Report. Once again Corbyn failed to speak up.
Sam Matthews |
This
was an open discussion between senior GLU and GSO staff and Labour Party
Executive Directors about ensuring that Angela Eagle and her allies were able
to win the AGM and other votes at the CLP. They discussed how they had been “giv[ing] Angela “time” to “organise” to win
those votes against the local Labour left.’ (114)
In
theory the job of officials is to take orders from elected officials and the party
membership but in practice the officials saw their job as policing the
membership and protecting the Right.
Sam
Matthews had ‘every sympathy for the fact that Angela is still in a
difficult situation’. His worry
was that ‘based on track record, no matter how much time we give Angela’ she
would be unable to turn the party around. She was so unpopular that no amount
of time could change the desire of her party to be rid of her. (114)
‘Crooked Iain
McNicol’ –
I was expelled for telling the truth!
The
Report exonerates me of the charge of abuse made at my expulsion
hearing in February 2018
My
references to ‘Crooked McNicol’ had
clearly annoyed the Compliance Unit. But it wasn’t abuse. It was blindingly obvious
to me that when a purge of Corbyn supporters began in the summer of 2015 and
again the following year, that the intention was to deprive Corbyn of a
majority. This was so clearly a crooked act I wondered why others were unable
to see it. Their behaviour was no different from Republicans in the United
States who engage in voter suppression, seeking to keep Black people off the
voters’ roll.
Part of the skeleton argument of Labour's barrister - it seems they didn't like my comments about McNicol's underlings! |
Over
4,000 voters including me, voted in 2015 for Corbyn and we had our votes fished
out of the electronic ballot box. If anyone engaged in a similar exercise in
local or national elections they would be arrested for electoral fraud and be doing
time at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
With
hindsight it is clear that my assessment of Crooked McNicol was spot on. On
those grounds alone I shall be submitting an appeal against my expulsion. My
only ‘crime’ was to say what was blindingly obvious when others preferred to
turn a blind eye.
All the allegations of 'abuse' happened to be true! |
Part
(4) of the Second Charge against me, paras. 64-66 in Labour Party barrister
Thomas Ogg’s skeleton
argument was devoted to 'Crooked McNicol' (21 February
2017 [121] The charges were based on a blog of 21st February
2017, Crooked Iain McNicol, Labour's General Secretary, Rides Again.
Ogg
complained that I had ‘used the word
"crook" or "crooked" to describe Mr lain McNicol no less
than 17 times’. (para 64). Ogg explained that ‘A crook is a dishonest or criminal person. Mr Greenstein uses the work
to abuse.’ I have never disputed the meaning of the word ‘crook’ but it
wasn’t to abuse. Can anyone now seriously dispute that McNicol was crooked? Ogg described the word as ‘insulting and abusive.’ Maybe, but it
was also true.
Ogg also complained that I had insulted
Tom Watson ‘by saying that his behaviour
reminds him of the comment that he has "every quality of a dog except
loyalty". Can anyone dispute this? It is clear that he knew of the
activities of the staff and was in close contact with them, to the extent of
having them leak confidential Labour Party documents. Watson, contrary to the
promise he made to Corbyn when elected, was seriously dishonest. It is clear
that I was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Corruption and Nepotism
On 22nd September 2015 Stolliday, who
resigned shortly after McNicol, openly incited Jo Green, the Head of
Broadcasting, to come to work and do nothing in order to qualify for
redundancy.
‘You'll be entitled to a decent
chunk. Worth staying for it even if it means coming into the office & doing
nothing for a few months’.
Staff
discussed jobs being “stitched up”
for fellow right-wingers. In January 2016 Sam Matthews, was encouraged to apply
for a job by a staff member, but Matthews expressed concern that
“I’m
mediocre (at best) at copywriting and
got rejected from that job the last time I went for it”.
However
‘Matthews was reminded that the team
“know you” and
all of the other people who apply will
probably be internal Labour hacks with not that much legit copywriting
experience outside of producing campaign materials or stuff for Labour
students.’
Matthews
asked ‘Won’t it be a stitch up for a Labour Student though?’ The
response was: “Maybe under the Sarah
regime, but now we’re under Tom management”. Matthews said he would apply
for a role, but added:
As an aside, could you give me a heads
up if it does end up being a stitch up for someone? I’ll probably go through
with it anyway to pop back up on their radar that I want back in, but it would
be useful to know.’
Sam
Matthews, because of his worries that he was “mediocre” and didn’t “have
the skills on paper” arranged in February 2016 to meet Mike Creighton, the
Director of Audit, Risk and Property, for a coffee. He needn’t have worried.
The corrupt nexus at Southside would look after him. After chatting with
Creighton he applied for the new role of “Compliance Officer - Investigations”.
The
only problem was that there was another more highly qualified applicant, Max
Lansman, who had scored higher than Matthews on the pre-interview scoring
matrix.
Lansman
was a qualified barrister with an MA in “Legal and Political Theory”, with a
wide range of compliance and legal experience. Lansman, a barrister with “specialisms including employment, family,
housing, landlord and tenant, and civil law” might have been thought a
shoe-in. However he was on the left of the party, notwithstanding his father
Jon Lansman. On 21 March 2016, Creighton
messaged Oldknow: Going to offer the
job to Sam Matthews’, (115-116) So much for equal opportunities and
anti-discrimination policies.
Another Labour refugee who has been inducted by
Prentis’s corrupt regime at UNISON was Emily Oldknow. In a
conversation with Emma Meehan she said: ‘Sarah
tells me that your sister is looking for a job?’ Emma responded ‘Yeah she is’. Oldknow informed her that
‘We have an admin role coming up in the
compliance unit.. but it gets her in the door and gives her some experience? On
being informed that she would be interested Oldknow comments ‘That means she will be completely
maleable....’
Caption from Panorama programme when Withers Green and others lied to the BBC and other enemies of Labour |
On
13 February 2017 Louise Withers-Green started as Disputes administrator.
Formerly active in Labour Students, Withers-Green had, like Matthews, been a
“Field Organiser” for “Britain Stronger In Europe” and he had then recruited
her as a “Validation Assistant” during the 2016 leadership election. She had
previously been an intern at Amnesty International and a self-employed English
tutor.
Other candidates had worked for law firms, the
police and other organisations, in roles that included administration of
complaints and case management systems. However, Stolliday noted in advance of
interviews that “there is one applicant
who Sam would be more than happy to recruit for Disputes administrator”.
On
1 May 2017, Labour HQ press staff, including Head of Press Neil Fleming,
established a chat to
“communicate through… so we arent on our
phones all the time” - “And yes, tap tap tapping away will make us look v
busy”. (193)
When it came to appoint a Head of the Governance
and Legal Unit John Stolliday applied. He too had no skills or legal knowledge.
His only expertise was in ‘political fixing’. But he too needn’t have worried. As
Stolliday reported on 29 July, GLU staff were “actively helping me with my interview”. The requirements for legal
knowledge, including of the Equalities Act, made him “gulp”. (113)
Before
his interview in September 2015, Stolliday commented that the appointment was a
“Bit
of an Emilie stitch up”. Discussing how to bond with Stolliday in
December 2016, staff noted that he “doesnt
like trots”. (113)
Ben
Jameson, the Safeguarding Manager, was assigned to be Jeremy’s Police liaison.
He was given an explicit threat by Sophie Goodyear, his Head.
We’ll know if you tell them what we do,
you’ll be out. They’ll be gone soon. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t
tell you this.” I believe Sophie was referring to her work on complaints and
the work of the disputes team and she was making an explicit threat that I
would lose my job
Going Slow
“tap tap tapping away will make us look v busy” (30,57, 88)
Staff
also considered “go slow” tactics,
making the election more difficult to win. On 21 April 2017, Labour staff joked about “working
hard or hardly working”.
Sam Matthews – Asked to be paid more backdated
After
the general election, Matthews asked to be back-paid at a higher pay rate,
reflecting - although his “new role did
not have a formal title” - Sophie Goodyear suggested it “might be worth mentioning the level of budget
management”, but Matthews responded that he did not want to put the scale
of budget in writing. He did note, though, that the party could “afford this”, and “I left 100k in that budget”
Helping Tom Watson leak confidential Party documents
Senior
staff also spoke of facilitating Deputy Leader Tom Watson leaking confidential
Party documents: (65)
Trot hunting and Comparing Corbyn to Hitler
As
it became clear that Corbyn might win in 2015, it became necessary to
‘validate’ applications for membership and registered supporters. “priority
right now is trot hunting” (70)
Labour
staff resorted to the all-purpose insult ‘Trot’
because these apparatchiks had nothing to say. It demonstrates their poverty of
imagination and thought. On being appointed on 27 June 2016 Matthews first
major task was to organise a second round of “Trot hunting” for the 2016 leadership election. (116)
Senior
staff employed the very abusive language that was used to suspend Labour
members during the 2016 leadership election. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. After
retiring in March 2017, Mike Creighton, the Director of Audit, Risk and
Property
tweeted that antisemitism in Labour was a
“Direct
consequence of [Ed Miliband’s] decision to allow the Labour Leader to be
selected by Tories and Trots’ (48)
Factionalism - Fixing and Annulling Elections
On
22 June 2016, Sarah Mulholland and Stephen Donnelly discussed organising NEC
Youth Representative elections on a one-year cycle to ensure that a left-wing
candidate would not win - which Mike Creighton was “happy with” - and making sure they had time to find a “decent person” to stand (109)
Dan Hogan lied to a willingly gullible BBC Panorama about his concern over 'antisemitism' |
Dan
Hogan, who presented the expulsion case against Cyril Chilson, both of whose
parents were survivors of Nazi concentration camps, told Maggi Cosins and the
NCC that the fact that Cyril had asked me to be his legal representative should
be held against him. In any judicial proceedings such a comment, about a
Defendant’s choice of legal representative would have been ruled out of order
but in Labour’s Kangaroo Court anything went.
Hogan
had first started in Labour Students before becoming a Disputes officer in late
2016. His factional behaviour, including recruiting people to “Labour First” in
staff time and saying that a staff member who cheered Corbyn’s speech should be
“shot”. (116)
In
December 2016 Fraser Welsh, Deputy General Secretary for Wales, explained that
part of his work as involving “not
conceding CLPs to Corbynite bullies”. (68)
On
22 July 2015, Stolliday told Claire-Frances Lennon, a Press Officer and later
Head of Internal Governance that he was leaving press for GLU, describing his
new role as “political fixing”,
selections and “legal stuff”, and
noting that they needed “to completely
overhaul selections to stop the useless trots getting selected”.(112)
This wasn’t a joke.
These people represented the undemocratic core at
the heart of Blairism. Their job was to make Labour safe for capitalism. The
tragedy is that the Left did not rise to meet the challenge and instead got
diverted into fighting the ghost of ‘anti-Semitism’.
UNISON's Corrupt General Secretary Dave Prentis recruited the corrupt Stolliday and Oldknow to key unelected positions |
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who was
the most corrupt of them all – UNISON’s Emily Oldknow
In
the competition to find the most corrupt witchhunter one is spoilt for choice.
If a fish rots from the head down then that was certainly true of the Labour
Party.
Imagine
the highest official of a political party feeling down and depressed at their
party’s magnificent performance in the 2017 election? A man who consciously engaged in deceiving
his own leader, set up a secret seats team and refused to put money or
resources into Tory marginals. McNicol is a very strong candidate but it would
be too easy to lay all the blame at his feet.
It
was the Defence of Nazi War Criminals at Nuremburg that they were only obeying
orders. But this was untrue. Ordinary Nazis set about their tasks with relish
and enthusiasm. And so the International Military Court ruled when Streicher,
Keitel, Rosenberg and others were hanged in 1946. The Final Solution was not
all Hitler’s doing.
Emily Oldknow - her ability to fabricate a case against members must have appealed to UNISON's Dave Prentis |
McNicol
too cannot take all the blame. He was served by enthusiastic underlings.
Undoubtedly the mediocre Matthews, who told such a compelling story to BBC Panorama,
that he had considered suicide, was culpable. John Stolliday, who has since become
Head of UNISON’s Members Relations Unit, is also a strong candidate but in my
opinion it is Emily Oldknow, UNISON’s unelected Assistant General Secretary,
who wins first prize.
UNISON
is a union from which I was suspended for criticising Steve Terry, London
Regional Organiser, for failing to support the unfair dismissal of Stan Keable.
It has a ‘corrupt political culture’.
Stolliday must feel at home working for UNISON since that is exactly the
description of the atmosphere in Southside, the Labour Party’s HQ.
On 14 December 2016 Ben Westerman told
Sam Matthews that Emilie Oldknow was ‘going for people that she doesn't
like/her friends don't like and expecting us to be able to fabricate a case
because politics which is ludicrous’
Oldknow was in a class of
her own and despite strong competition she is the worthy winner of the most
corrupt of the Labour Party’s staff.
Sexist Abuse and
Comments About Other Staff
On
29 July 2015, staff said there would be “rampaging
trots” at Labour annual conference, and “stewards [will] need pepper spray” or “body armour”. (48)
On
22nd November 2016 Tracey Allen described Karie Murphy as ‘pube head’ before Oldknow, who is now
UNISON’s Assistant General Secretary described her as a ‘Smelly cow’ before saying that ‘Karie
is actually fat too’ ‘There's a good old roll in that photo .’ (55)
On
9 March 2017 Sarah Mulholland, Julie Lawrence and Tracey Allan made lewd
comments on a WhatsApp chat about the clothing of women Political Advisors,
naming individual staff and mocking their appearance: (53-54, 93/4)
UNISON
is a union has plenty policy on discrimination and opposition to sexism yet it
has a bigot as its second most senior official. 20 members of UNISON National
Executive and hundreds of members have written
to General Secretary Dave Prentis demanding an Inquiry. Prentis is standing by
Oldknow as opposition to discrimination has always been tokenistic in UNISON.
On
18th April 2017 Patrick Heneghan, Executive Director (Elections,
Campaigns and Organisation) pulled no punches over what he thought of Karie
Murphy, Director of LOTO (Corbyn’s office).
Fuck u karie u silly cow (86)
During
the same conversation Oldknow, Julie Lawrence and Tracey Allen shared abusive
messages regarding LOTO chief of staff Karie Murphy. Allen called Murphy “Medusa”, Lawrence called her “crazy” and said her face “would make a good dartboard”:
On
21st May 2017 Oldknow and Allen made sexist and derogatory comments
about Laura Murray, a member of staff in LOTO, following a negative story about
her in the media: (53/54) According to Teddy Ryan, ‘clive lewis is the biggest cunt out of the lot’. (53)
Simon
Danczuk was the MP for Rochdale who had sexted a teenage woman under 18 who had
applied for a job. As he was in a position of trust this was a criminal
offence. He had also offered to spank her. Danczuk had a long history of
violence against women. But Danczuk was
on the right of the party so he was acceptable.
Danczuk
had been suspended by the party but on 18th April Tracey Allen informed people that:
‘I am expecting a call from Simon
Danczuk in person to confirm he is restanding. Once I have it from 'horses
mouth' will be handled by Governance.’ (111)
As long as someone wasn’t on the left it didn’t
matter to these sociopaths if they were a rapist, a wife beater or a serial
abuser.
Ian
McKenzie
On
20 May 2018 a Twitter storm arose after the comments of Ian McKenzie, the Secretary
of Lewisham East CLP and an activist with “Labour First”, were revealed.
“Emily Thornberry is too old for ISIS.
They won’t make a sex slave of her. They’ll behead her and dump her in a mass
grave.”
“Maybe she’d agree sex slavery to one
man only, provided he didn’t sell her on or insist on gang rape.”
“Islam/Islamism learned the trick from
Israel: to criticise Israel is anti-semitic. No, religion is propositional.
(158)
Matthews
however opposed suspending him:
“I don’t think that two tweets, both
from over two years ago would ordinarily warrant an administrative suspension (159)
Hogan
did not declare a conflict of interest arising from his familiarity with and
favourable views of McKenzie, which he had expressed in 2016 or his activism in
“Labour First”, and he did not recuse himself from the case. Nareiser Osei told Hogan that “you need to be objective”. Hogan was
not amused:
I
do not need to be told to be objective or look at both sides of a case – I have
been an Investigations Officer for longer than Nareser has. I reacted with
muted anger and told Nareser that ‘I’m a professional, thanks. (161)
I am told that there are regimes in the world where
torturers also consider themselves ‘professionals’.
The problem was the widespread support for Labour
First amongst the investigative staff. In April 2016 Francis
Grove-White, Labour International Policy Officer, met Luke Akehurst from
“Labour First”, and commented to Greening that it was “very encouraging to hear how organised they are regarding conference.”
(62)
Ignoring
Islamaphobia and Homophobia
Islamaphobia
was of no concern to the witch-hunters. In August
2017 a member emailed racist abuse about Naz Shah MP:
“Sack
the Muslim MP Shah… get her out! She has no place in the country let alone the
LP”.
This was forwarded to Sam Matthews who did nothing. Naz
Shah was seen as on the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).
In October 2017, a CLP Executive Committee reported
a member for threatening and bullying behaviour. This was submitted to
Disputes. In December 2017 further complaints were made to John Stolliday, the
Head of the Compliance Unit, about Islamophobic posts such as:
“What do you call a man in his 50s who has sex
with a 9-year-old girl? 1.6 billion people call him the Prophet of Islam”
Again, no action was taken. (301)
In
November 2017 a member was reported for homophobic comments such as saying that
Labour “look like the Gay party”. The
complaint was forwarded to Dan Hogan who did nothing. In March 2018 Megan
McCann, sent the member a Notice of Investigation (NOI). The case disappeared
when she left in mid-2018. (302)
The
number of virulent Islamaphobes was far higher than the number of anti-Semites
yet, almost without exception, they were ignored. In the case of Manjit Panesar & Syed Siddiqi (see
below) it was the victim of Islamaphobic abuse who was suspended.
Sarah Mulholland and Dianne Abbot
Sarah
Mulholland was the main liaison between MPs and the Labour Party. She believed
that ‘Death by fire is too kind for LOTO.’
(91)
In
February 2017 she said Diane Abbott “literally makes me sick”. Senior staff discussed Abbott crying
in the toilets and telling Michael Crick, a Channel 4 reporter, where she was: (43)
Victimising the victims of racism
Manjit Panesar & Syed Siddiqi
“We
have spoken about this one before but could you update me in writing please so
I have it on record? Has any action been taken against Manjit Panesar?”
Head of Complaints Sophie Goodyear to Dan Hogan,
the day before he stopped working for the party”
Syed
Siddiqi received a racist and abusive call from Manjit Panesar, saying “You need to restore me to that group chat,
or you and me are going to have a fucking big fucking battleground here”.
Panesar threatened Siddiqi and engaged in Islamophobic abuse –
“you and me, it’s war now” and “You cannot give
me this fucking Islamic bullshit… Islamic fundamentalist lunatic”. (164)
All
investigative attention however was focussed on Siddiqi, with Dan Hogan
proactively collecting and investigating even minor complaints against him. It
was Siddiqi who was suspended, not Panesar, meaning he could not restand for
the Council.
Eventually
the NEC suspended Panesar and referred his case to the NCC, at which point he
resigned. However the victim of racist abuse Siddiqi remains suspended.
James McBride – a vicious
anti-Muslim racist
On
24 May 2017, after the Westminster Bridge attack, James McBride, who was in
Labour’s Policy Unit, shared a clip of Douglas Murray, who was appearing on BBC
Daily Politics, saying that all political parties were refusing to confront the
reality that terrorism “comes from the
religion” of Islam. McBride commented “find
it difficult to disagree with this”: (46)
we can't ignore the fact that while one
might be more typically 'terrorist' behaviour they still derive from the same
ideology. And western liberal idelogy is reluctant to take it on And expose its
roots. Which innevitabely involve hard questions- even for so-called moderate
islam (46)
Douglas
Murray, an Associate Director of the Henry
Jackson Society in a 2006 speech demanded that “conditions for
Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board.”: He authored a
book ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ whose message was that Europe
is dying — being murdered
- by hordes of Muslim immigrants, aided in their task by craven liberal
politicians. It is part of fascist and neo-Nazi discourse, the so-called replacement
theory.
The
fact that Labour staff found someone like Murray appealing speaks volumes. Even
the Tory front bench under David Cameron cut
links with Murray.
Alec Henstock
In February 2016 the party received a bundle of “about 150
pages” of Facebook posts by a Labour councillor, Alec Henstock. They were
summarised by Regional staff as “posts by
Britain First and UKIP, and posts which could be considered racist, sexist and
not consistent with Labour Party values”. They included a range of openly
racist, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant content, including a meme from far
right group Pegida saying Britain should “BAN
the burqa on security grounds” and an image of a train overflowing with
BAME people, described as the Eurostar arriving at St Pancras, with the text “Don’t blame me, I voted UKIP!” (207)
Stolliday responded:
It's horrific, nasty
stuff & not in any way acceptable. However don't we treat
"sharing" content on Facebook in the same way as a retweet on
Twitter? (cf Emily Benn) If so I'd think it's hard to suspend, unless within
the greater bundle there are actual comments or posts from this person, rather
than sharing other people's content.
If we can make the
argument that this is different to a retweet for X reason, and that therefore
we should suspend, then great.
Stolliday did not seem to distinguish between retweeting and
sharing an item expressing support for another political party, and sharing
twenty pieces of Islamophobic, racist and sexist content. According to
Stolliday sharing racist posts did not merit suspension.
Informed that Region had interviewed Henstock, and he had
refused to apologise, Creighton asked: ‘What does the region want us to do?’
I would be happy to
suspend given he has endorsed the stuff, but I think we can take advice from
region on this one. (208)
This discussion of a “potential
suspension” ended there and no further action was taken and it appears that
the case, which existed as an email exchange alone, was not logged anywhere and
was forgotten about.
Henstock remained a full member until autumn 2018, when he
was auto-excluded for supporting an “independent (ex UKIP)” candidate against
Labour. (208)
Rod Liddle
Rod
Liddle, a ‘journalist’ at the Sunday Times, was a notorious Islamaphobe. He suggested
in The Spectator that elections
should be held on days that Muslims couldn’t vote.
An
ardent Zionist, Liddle suggested
in his column that
suicide bombers should blow themselves up in Tower Hamlets,
which he described as being a “decent
distance from where the rest of us live”.
In
May 2016, Rod Liddle wrote in The Spectator that antisemitism was “absolutely endemic” among “Muslims”.
For many Muslims the anti-Semitism is
visceral, an ingrained part of their unpleasant ideology… [based] as much upon
envy - at Jewish success, worldwide and in Israel - as anything else. If you
handed over Israel to the Palestinians they would turn it into Somalia before
you could say Yom Kippur.
Only
after 3 May did Stolliday recommend his suspension. But even then Oldknow sent
this recommendation to LOTO chief of staff Simon Fletcher as Liddle was a
journalist:
It is my intention to agree with John on
this one. He would be suspended under “bringing in the party in to disrepute”. (186/187)
However on 6 May 2016, Stolliday emailed Oldknow:
‘Apparently Rod
Liddle is chummy with Ian Austin & by extension TW [Tom Watson]. I still
want to do this but we’re not under pressure to do it – so may just sit on it
for now (173, 184)
Oldknow replied: “Ok. I will speak to Ian”, presumably
a reference to Ian Austin.
Liddle was suspended a week later, on 12 May 2016. In
September 2016 he resigned. (187)
The Racism of Senior Labour Party Staff
This
Report demonstrates that the concern about anti-Semitism had nothing to do with racism and
everything to do with Israel and Zionism. Hence why they redefined
anti-Semitism. That should have been obvious to anyone with a few brain cells,
even Jon Lansman!
If
it was really about racism then why would the Tories, who presided over the ‘hostile
environment’ policy and the Windrush Scandal, to say nothing
of Britain’s racist tabloids, be so concerned by Labour ‘anti-Semitism’. Why
were tabloids such as the Sun and Mail, who had employed
Katie Hopkins, who described
refugees as cockroaches, so disturbed about ‘anti-Semitism’?
Why
indeed were the Tories so exercised about ‘anti-Semitism’ when they sat in the European
Parliament, in the ECR group alongside people like Roberts Zile who took
part in demonstrations every March with veterans of Latvia’s Waffen SS?
Why
indeed was Tom Watson, who had ‘lost
sleep’ over the decision of the High Court to remove
racist Labour MP Phil Woolas from Parliament, after an election campaign in
2010 that was based on ‘making the White folk angry’ determined to
remove every last ‘anti-Semite’ from the Labour Party? All but 6 Labour MPs had
abstained
on the 2014
Immigration Bill which introduced the ‘hostile
environment’ policy. Indeed it was the Blairite Home Secretary Alan Johnson who
first
introduced the ‘hostile
environment’ policy.
Why
were Zionist groups such as the Board of Deputies, which have never fought the anti-Semitism of the
Right, and which defend every abomination of apartheid Israel, concerned about
anti-Semitism? Zionism arose from the belief that anti-Semitism could not be
fought?
Using Disablist & Hateful Language
Stolliday
described Corbyn’s adviser Seumas Milne as a “total mentalist” and “nutter”
who he had previously told to “cock off”.
Simon Jackson referred to new Labour members who supported Jeremy Corbyn as “nutters” who had “Invaded” the Party, while Head of Policy Development Anouska
Gregorek joked about them getting “F U JC” - “Fuck you Jeremy Corbyn” - tattoed on their foreheads.(55)
On
10 April 2017, Tracey Allen, the Manager of the General Secretary’s Office
described people who were joining the Party at the time as ‘Mentalists’. (53)
Senior
staff including Mike Creighton said of a Young Labour member and Corbyn
supporter who was suffering from mental health problems that they would like to
see him “die in a fire” or “wouldn’t piss on him to put him out”: (55)
and Sarah Mulholland wished there was a petrol can emoji (56)
General Abuse
On
15 June 2015, Head of Press and Broadcasting Jo Green suggested to Simon
Jackson that “anyone who nominates corbyn
'to widen the debate' deserves to be taken out and shot”.
Jackson agreed: “quite.” On 15
September 2015 Dan Hogan said that a staff member who had “whooped” during Corbyn’s speech “should be shot”. (51)
On
13 August 2015 Ali Moussavi, Economic Advisor in the Leader’s Office and Sarah
Brown (Press Officer) discussed “hanging
and burning” Jeremy Corbyn: (52)
On
15 September 2015, Greg Cook sent Jo Greening a spoof video of Jeremy Corbyn as
Hitler. “Love this”, Greening
responded.(39) Other staff,
such as Dan Hogan were also watching and sharing the video (51) Yet
if you had compared Tom Watson to Hitler then you would have been expelled for
‘anti-Semitism’.
On
17 September 2015, shortly after Corbyn had been elected Leader, Anna Wright, a
Labour Press Officer and Stolliday discussed saying “cunt more in the last 48hrs than you have in your life up until that
point”. Wright noted that “yesterday
I called the Leader of the Labour Party a sexist cunt”. She remarked that this
may have been “uncomradely” but
Stolliday assured her “It's not your job
to be comradely to the leader”:
Steve Howell
Soon
after, Corbyn appointed Steve Howell to work on strategy and communications in
the 2017 election. Campaign staff were derisive of Howell, describing him as an
“amateur” and suggesting it was a
good thing he remained on the second floor of the office, where a plumbing
problem had caused a smell of sewage to spread: (89)
At
the final rally of the campaign in Islington staff joked about potential
violence against Labour members and supporters and the use of “water cannons” and “truncheons” to “knock some
trots”: (102)
Jeremy
Corbyn appointed Steve Howell to work on communications and strategy in the
2017 election campaign. Staff at Labour HQ were immediately derisive of Howell
suggesting it was a good thing he remained on the second floor of the office,
where a plumbing problem had caused a smell of sewage to spread: (88)
28/04/2017, 12:24 - Carol Linforth: I am
told 'steve' has moved upstairs already because of the smell .......
28/04/2017, 12:37 - Simon Jackson
Mobile: Can we make the smell worse? 90
28/04/2017, 12:38 - Simon Jackson
Mobile: Urgent action points: don't empty 2nd floor bins; buy Simon nose
pegs. (89/90)
Staff
hatred of what they term ‘trots’ i.e. socialism, is evidenced by their adoption
of Tory economics: They opposed increasing
Corporation Tax, Rail Nationalisation and higher taxes. As
“All [public ownership of rail] looks like is
trots doing what trots do”.
Dan Hogan 11:42:
brace
yourself. McDonnell just called for corporation tax to go up
Amy Fowler
11:42:
you're kidding me
On
27 April 2016, Collete Collins-Walsh, Education Policy Officer, and James
McBride, who led on economy and business policy, discussed a Conservative Party
critique of left-wing economics. Collette was of the opinion that ‘the UK is
actually becoming more equal.’ To
which McBride replied ‘very true.’ (44)
What is staggering is that these people were in
charge of developing Labour policy. 44% of the UK’s wealth
is owned
by just 10% of the population, five times the total wealth held by the poorest
half.
During
the 2017 General election, General Secretary Iain McNicol responded to the
announcement of a policy of free school meals with ridicule. (45) Senior
staff also wrote how they could not understand Corbyn’s decision to oppose the
widely-panned “dementia tax.” (45) which goes to show what a waste
of space and money these officials were since the demolition of the Tory’s
policy on social care marked their and Theresa May’s downfall.
Catherine
Bramwell, Communications Officer for South East Region, said “i hate the trots, i hate the trots, i hate
them x a million”, and claimed that the idea of rail nationalisation was
not popular in South East England - “all
it looks like is trots doing what trots do”.
Conclusion
Labour’s senior officials
waged war on Corbyn from the moment he was elected. Corbyn’s appeasement of his
enemies with his ‘kinder politics’ began
from the moment he declined McNicol’s offer to resign immediately after his
election in September 2015. Instead of appeasing his officials and his treacherous deputy Tom
Watson he should have waged war on a Right that never accepted the legitimacy of his leadership.
Instead of accepting the false ‘anti-Semitism’ narrative he
ended up adopting it and the harder he tried to appease his Zionist critics the
higher he built his own funeral pyre.
It
is no surprise that the Right and Keir Starmer are desperately trying to
avoid discussing the contents of the Report. Instead they are trying to scare
people with bogus threats that they will be prosecuted if they circulate or
discuss the contents of the Report.
It is therefore disappointing that John McDonnell still does not get it. He writes in Tuesday's Guardian that not only should the Report not have been made public without redactions but that
'I
fully support Keir Starmer’s decision to launch an investigation – one which, he has been clear, must be independent and swift.
McDonnell
also declares that 'attempts to root out antisemitism in the party were also
undermined' by the Compliance/Disputes staff. He still does not seem to
understand that the Fake Anti-Semitism Campaign was not, and never was about
combating anti-Semitism. It was always about getting rid of him and Corbyn.
Starmer has made it clear that his main priority is discovering the circumstances of it having been leaked. He has not displayed the slightest concern over its contents.
Anyone on the Left with a backbone will face this blackmail down and
treat it with the contempt that it deserves. The officials named in the report
do not deserve confidentiality. They
conspired against the party and if Labour was a socialist party they would have
been shown the door.
It
is a sign of how much Jennie Formby has capitulated to the Right that she is
leading the charge against discussing or distributing the Report instead of standing
up for members of the Labour Party. It is the duty of the left to face down the
Right’s attempt to close down debate on their treachery.
Part 2 of this article will follow shortly and concentrate on 'anti-Semitism'. It will be far more critical of the leaked Report and the motives of those who wrote it.
Tony
Greenstein
Below are Other Reports that I Highly Recommend
That
Leaked Labour Party Report Craig Murray
Leaks
show how Labour sabotaged Corbyn Asa Winstanley, Electronic Intifada
‘It’s
going to be a long night’ – How Members of Labour’s Senior Management Team
Campaigned to Lose, Aaron Bastani, Novara Media
You can download the Word file of this
blog here
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