The cost of Corbyn
● Party facing legal bill of at least £5.5 million — and could be up to £8 million — over antisemitism
► LABOUR IS facing a legal bill of £5.5 million — and possibly far higher — as a result of the toxic legacy of antisemitism under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn, the JC can reveal.
On Wednesday the party formally apologised to seven BBC Panorama whistle-blowers and the journalist John Ware for ”untrue and defamatory” comments made against them after the programme was aired last July.
While the total bill for settling this claim is understood to have cost the party around £500,000, its lawyers have warned the party that it faces a bill in excess of £4 million alone over cases brought against it in relation to the apparently deliberate leaking of a Corbynite report into the handling of antisemitism. In addition, potential data protection offences committed by the party over the leaking of those named in the report may result in a hefty fine from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
More than 50 individuals — many of whom were Jewish Labour members who had made complaints about instances of antisemitism in the party — are now also pursuing costly legal claims against the party after their names were circulated over social media, including a far-right website in America.
Meanwhile, the publication of the forthcoming Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s investigation into Labour’s handling of antisemitism under Mr Corbyn could leave the party open to a raft of discrimination claims from Jewish members if the watchdog’s report confirms that they have suffered from discrimination under the hard-left leadership .
Mark Lewis, the lawyer who handled the Panorama libel case against the party, confirmed that Wednesday’s settlement was “the first battle of many battles.” He added that the leaked Labour report had seriously harmed a “whole list of people” and would now “have to be challenged in the courts.”
Another Labour source told the JC the party had been given a “worst case scenario” of legal costs relating to the failure to stamp out anti-Jewish racism that was in excess of £8 million in total.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has instructed Shadow Attorney General Lord Falconer to manage the party’s
The party could face a raft of claims after the EHRC reports’
response to the legacy of Mr Corbyn’s failure on antisemitism.
Sir Keir is convinced Labour will remain unelectable unless he shows that he has fully rid the party of the “stain” of antisemitism and that it is “under new management” in the postCorbyn era.
In the first of the party’s legal settlements over antisemitism on Wednesday, the party said it was “profoundly sorry” for ”untrue and defamatory” comments made against seven antisemitism whistle-blowers and the BBC journalist John Ware following the broadcast of an episode of Panorama last July.
Lawyers for Labour said the party now accepted that allegations made in a press release that Mr Ware had “invented quotes, flouted journalistic ethics” and had “knowingly promoted falsehoods, including by misrepresentations of fact and, by fabricating facts” were defamatory of the experienced journalist.
“All these allegations are false and the Labour Party unreservedly withdraws these allegations and is profoundly sorry for the distress caused by their publication and republication,” said the statement
In the Statement in Open Court the party agreed to pay “substantial damages” — thought to be around £200,000 in total — to the seven whistle-blowers — Katherine Buckingham, Michael
Creighton , Sam Matthews, Daniel Hogan, Louise Withers Green, Benjamin Westerman and Martha Robinson, who were all former employees of the party. They also paid substantial damages to Mr Ware.
Outside the High Court, five of the Panorama whistleblowers told how the group decided they “could not stay silent when we saw antisemitism permeate all levels of the Labour Party.”
On behalf of all seven, Martha Robinson said it would “take time to repair the damage” to their reputations as a result of the attacks mounted on them by the party.
Ms Robinson added: “As staff, we tried our best to tackle this issue but, in the end, we had no choice but to blow the whistle in public and make sworn statements to the EHRC.”
But senior figures from the party’s former leadership have reacted angrily to the settlement. On Tuesday night, the JC revealed that Unite had instructed lawyers from Carter Ruck on behalf of Jeremy Corbyn, Jennie Formby and Seumas Milne to force Labour to give them advance sight of the party’s apology.
After the apology, Mr Corbyn issued a statement attacking the settlement, saying it was a “political” rather than “legal” decision. He then claimed that “evidence in the leaked Labour report”
— which is the subject of an independent investigation by the QC Martin Forde — “strengthened concerns about the role played by some of those who took part in the (Panorama) programme” with regards to “inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle antisemitism” in Labour.
The former leader was joined by ougoing Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey who also sang the praises of the leaked report.
Mr Ware and some of the whistleblowers have now instructed Mark Lewis to pursue a defamation case against Mr Corbyn and Mr McCluskey over their statements.
The JC also understands that legal advice given to Labour suggests that the contents of the leaked report are “a nightmare” in terms of potential legal costs for the party.
Another senior Labour source said: “Parts of the report appear to have been compiled by people with no understanding of the laws of defamation.” Numerous claims covering the Data Protection Act, invasion of privacy and libel have already been submitted to the party relating to the leaking of the report. Ex-Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has confirmed the report was commissioned by former General Secretary Jennie Formby with a view to submitting it as evidence to the EHRC. But Labour’s own lawyers blocked the move after saying submitting it would not be helpful to the party. Lawyer Mark Lewis claimed the leaked report was “a bit like the soldiers leaving a barracks that they have to desert and setting it on fire. For four years, people in Labour have said there is no antisemitism in the party, it’s just a smear. Now they say that of course there was antisemitism, ‘but it just wasn’t us.’”
The JC has learned that Lord McNicol, the former Labour general secretary, is considering legal action against leading left-wingers over claims he has been defamed in the report and by subsequent comments about him.
In September, Labour also faces another potential legal nightmare with the publication of the EHRC report into antisemitism.
The closely guarded report (which has been submitted in draft format to Sir Keir, new General Secretary David Evans and only a few others) is likely to confirm systematic discrimination against Jewish members.
It is understood that any of those named in the EHRC report would be entitled to bring discrimination cases against the party around allegations of personal injury.
The upper limit for such claims is £47,000. The JC can reveal that the Jewish Labour Movement is considering bringing a class action against Labour on behalf of its members if the EHRC report confirms they have been discriminated against.
But not all JLM members would be willing to fight the party for money. Many are supportive of the actions being taken to rid the party of antisemitism under Sir Keir.
Some would tell the JLM leadership to settle for a donation to a chosen charity as a settlement for claims over the EHRC findings.
Others, however — including former MPs and party members who quit the party as a result of antisemitism —- are likely to be less forgiving.
Contents of the leaked report are a nightmare for legal costs’
V A YEAR ago, the Labour Party declared all out war on the BBC. I was the reporter on a Panorama programme in which seven former Labour staffers blew the whistle about antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
Labour responded by accusing me of having flouted journalistic ethics. I had, Labour alleged, knowingly promoted falsehoods and invented quotes. I had misrepresented and fabricated facts. It was, the party claimed, all part of my “deliberate and malicious” attempt “to mislead the public.”
It didn’t stop there. The party accused the whistle-blowers of being motivated by “disaffection” with Corbyn and the Labour Left; they had “personal and political axes to grind” as opposed to actually believing what they told me about the toxic climate they said had enveloped the party under the Leader’s office
These were remarkably stupid things for the official opposition to say in public. It is the BBC’s job to subject any political party to care ful scrutiny — but it is particularly important for the BBC to examine the actions of the party that aspires to be the next government.
Most politicians recognise that such criticism is an essential part of a democratic society. How did Labour react? By imputing a malign, dishonest, conspiratorial motive to BBC programme makers.
Labour claimed that I knew that Mr Corbyn’s office was committed to dealing with antisemitism and was getting the job done. The party claimed that I maliciously tried to convince the public of the opposite of what I knew to be a simple truth.
Labour’s defamatory blast triggered a year-long fusillade of falsehoods from a stream of left wing bloggers, media “activists”, Labour’s “people powered” Momentum faction, and alt-Left outlets.
When you’re on the receiving end of unrelenting invective there comes a point when you have a choice: do you turn a cheek and continue to let these people mouth off lies that impact on reputation and your livelihood? Or, do you do something about it? I chose the latter course.
As a result, on Wednesday in open court, the Labour Party said it had “unreservedly withdrawn” the allegations against me and the whistle-blowers, paid “substantial damages” and expressed their “profound regret.”
There’s an unwritten code that says we journalists should never sue because however offensive or defamatory criticism of our journalism may be, we hold free speech sacrosanct.
It was a rule with which for decades I agreed. I no longer do. With identity politics and social media dominating public discourse, journalism has changed. On much of the internet, basic standards of accuracy and fairness have disappeared. I feel passionately that we need to try and hold internet media and political “activists” to account when they fail to apply the same standards they demand from the mainstream media.
That is why my proceedings against Labour are only the first of several I have begun against alternative media outlets and individuals. Their zealotry has led some of these activists to think that unlike a network broadcaster or a newspaper, using a blog or twitter to brand someone a “rogue journalist” or a “liar” or fundamentally dishonest is somehow OK. Reasoned argument is OK. But attributing a malign motive out of frustration and anger is not OK and I hope the success of my proceedings against them will encourage them to think before they blog.
Some of the wildest criticism against Panorama came from the then Chair of Momentum Jon Lansman who accused me and my BBC colleagues of having “flouted basic journalistic standards from beginning to end.” Let’s see how Mr Lansman’s own “journalistic standards” measure up. On the morning of transmission, Momentum disseminated a video which said that a 2015 Panorama I had made about Corbyn “made claims that were later disproven” and also that the BBC “were forced to pay damages and issue a public apology” over another Panorama investigation in 2006, this time into the London based charity Interpal. In the latter case, Momentum quoted the assistant Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Miqdaad Versi, referring to my “appalling journalism.” This was immediately adopted by several pro-Corbyn media outlets as well as a publicised letter from Momentum to the BBC Director General Lord Hall.
I sent a polite text to Mr Lansman to say that none of Momentum’s claims were true and that had I been offered a right of reply I would have explained why. Mr Corbyn never pressed ahead with his 2015 complaint because in our response, the BBC had shown how disingenuous his complaint was.
As for the “damages” for which Momentum blamed me, they had nothing to do with my “appalling journalism” on Interpal; they were entirely related to the way a picture had been edited which unintentionally captured the face of a third party at an Interpal dinner, but who did not work for Interpal.
Nor had the BBC had to “apologise” for my journalism, either then or at any time in the 26 years I was with the Corporation.
No-one from Momentum had approached me before committing this nonsense to video, which remains available on the internet today.
As for the perils of defamation, Mr Lansman seems to have been clueless. In a tweet before transmission, he opined that the whistle-blowers may have “deliberately resisted” measures to combat racism and moreover cynically delayed investigating antisemitic cases in order to “undermine Jeremy’s leadership. They have no credibility on this subject.”
He even suggested that senior Labour staffers had engaged in a long term plot to undermine Corbyn by deliberately consulting his office by email on antisemitism cases in order to establish a documentary chain that could later be used to smear Corbyn by alleging that his office had interfered in complaints.
This magnificent conspiracy theory has been adopted by the recently leaked Momentum-authored report which seeks to blame Sam Matthews and the other Panorama whistleblowers for the antisemitism crisis whilst crediting the officials who replaced them — they were appointed by Mr Corbyn’s Secretary General Jennie Formby — for successfully getting a grip on the crisis.
This theory appears to have been based on the following unsupported hypothesis:
“We do not know why Matthews did this, we have not asked him, nor have we asked any other witness. So we cannot say for (anything like) cer
Labour’s defamatory blast triggered a year-long fusilade’
Nor had the BBC had to apologise for my journalism’
tain but maybe he was conspiring to do something calculating that when subsequently investigated it would look bad on those people he had emailed — assuming, that is, that the people he emailed responded in a certain way”
This is from the “if-the-followingfive-things-happen-then-we-mightbe-right” school of conspiracy journalism. Those who bought into the theory seem to have had no awareness of just how ridiculous, reckless and defamatory this degree of speculation is. There is not the remotest chance of any such idea getting past a broadcaster or mainstream newspaper lawyer. And yet it’s there in the leaked Momentum report in several places with the status of an official Labour Party document.
Like the Labour Party, Mr Lansman has also had to apologise to the whistle-blowers — but he’s got off very lightly. Although Mr Lansman leads a comfortable life, I understand the party paid his legal costs.
The witless bias spewed out after transmission by Mr Lansman, Momentum and the Labour Party has become ingrained in the alt-left Twittersphere; it has libelled the whistle-blowers as a bunch of calculating plotters, and me as an Islamophobe;
a supporter of the far right; a throughly dishonest journalist who’s been disciplined by the BBC who’ve also had to pay out damages for my Islamophobic journalism.
The pro-Corbyn alt-Left outlets, notably Skwawkbox and The Canary, have also piled in with multiple attempts to discredit the programme. Both sites have dismissed antisemitism complaints as a smear concocted to damage Mr Corbyn, silence his support for Palestinians and prevent the success of his socialist project. This is blatant nonsense: most Jewish members of Labour are strong supporters of Palestinian rights and are highly critical of the right-wing drift of Israeli politics. They just don’t think that the world’s only Jewish state should be “disappeared” or compared to Nazi Germany — an execrable, infantile comparison which The Canary editor Kerry Anne Mendoza has made. Both outlets have also defended activists suspended or expelled from the Labour Party for antisemitism. Ms Mendoza has employed writers who have promoted antisemitic views.
Then there were the more mainstream journalists who should have known better — such as Owen Jones, the Guardian columnist. He wrote that Panorama was “one of the most tawdry pieces of journalism I have ever seen produced by a broadcaster claiming impartiality.” Yet Jones swallowed whole Labour’s misleading claim that Panorama’s whistleblowers had “kicked out” a pro-Corbyn supporter for “expressing their love for the (American rock band) Foo Fighters”, adding: “This is not a joke.”
I can reveal that the joke is on Jones. A Corbyn supporter whose Facebook included support for Foo Fighters was indeed refused membership — but not because of her support for the band. It was because her twitter account was judged to be grossly Islamophobic.
Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee approved Matthews’ recommendation that she be refused membership. Unfortunately, the letter sent to her mistakenly cited her innocent FB account — not her offensive twitter account. This was not the fault of the “disaffected” Matthews, I am told, but of a clerical error at a Labour office in Newcastle from where suspension letters were dispatched.
To both Panorama privately and then later to the public, Corbyn’s office cited the Foo Fighters as “evidence” of how the “factionally” motivated Matthews and his colleagues had indiscriminately targeted Corbyn supporters when they were vetting the avalanche of new members who wanted to vote in the 2016 leadership election.
That, claimed the Corbynistas, created a backlog of antisemitism cases for which Corbyn had been unfairly blamed.
The trouble is, the Foo Fighters story is not true. So the question is: why did Corbyn’s office include it in their attack on Panorama? After the story first appeared in the Guardian in August 2016, both the then Head of NEC Disputes and Labour’s press office were informed of the facts — so why was the erroneous story repeated three years later? They know the answer. I don’t.
Today’s settlements are unlikely to silence a group of other critics, like the media academic Dr Justin Schlosberg, who continue to try to discredit the programme as an “assault to democracy” for its supposed lack of impartiality and accuracy.
As journalism seeps into the jungle of the “activist” fringe and further away from the mainstream where it is at least governed by clearly defined codes, there is indeed a cost to democracy. It is broadcasters like the BBC that are trying to hold the line on standards, not the self-appointed “media activists” who make up their own rules and whose self-righteousness leaves them with dangerously little self-doubt.
If we want fair and truthful journalism to prevail over deceitful propaganda on the internet, we must hold their authors to account. If we continue to let them get away with it, truth will not be the only casualty. Democracy itself will be wounded — perhaps fatally.