Labour lord sues his own party
War rages over anti-Semitism report
Labour’s civil war over anti-semitism has deepened after its former general secretary announced he was suing the party.
Iain McNicol is one of 32 ex-Labour staffers who plan to sue the party for libel.
They are angry about a leaked report, compiled by members of Jeremy Corbyn’s team, which claims former employees undermined the leader during the 2017 election campaign and botched investigations into anti-semitism.
It comes a day after the Labour Party made an unreserved apology and paid substantial damages to seven ex-staff.
The party, under new moderate leader sir Keir starmer, admitted it had made ‘false and defamatory’ comments about the employees after they raised concerns about anti-semitism in a Panorama programme.
Lawyer Mark Lewis, who acted for whistleblowers and for Panorama
journalist John Ware, said last night that 32 people had approached him about taking legal action.
He told bbC Two’s Newsnight that the former general secretary of the party was one of the individuals who were suing for being ‘blamed for things that simply didn’t happen’.
Mr Lewis said: ‘There are 32 people who have instructed me to take action.
‘Their actions are in respect to data breaches, misuse of private information, libels – it’s like an exam question for a libel lawyer to look through them and see how many claims you can find.’
He added: ‘Lord McNicol is one of the people who is taking action who has been named in the report.
‘There are many other people who are named in the report, they come under different categories: people who work for the party, people who were in the party in political positions.’
The leaked report, distributed online in april this year, described alleged mishandling of disciplinary cases and attempts by members of staff to undermine Mr Corbyn.
Much of it focuses on the poor relations between the leader’s office and Labour headquarters – including the governance and legal unit when Mr McNicol served as general secretary and Corbyn was leader.
Following the release of this 851page document, sir Keir committed to an ‘urgent independent investigation’ into the background, the content and the way in which the report was released, and the culture in the party.
The investigation has been delayed and is now expected to report at the end of the year.
on the former general secretary, Mr Lewis said: ‘McNicol is named in the report and is blamed for things that simply didn’t happen. It’s a mischaracterisation of a report which is being taken on.
‘and what has been prepared as a report is a very factional basis, which is incredibly edited, incredibly slanted, incredibly misleading and of course the far left are quoting from that as though it’s some sort of gospel.’
Yesterday, the founder of pro-Corbyn group Momentum apologised for joining Labour’s attack on the Panorama whistleblowers.
Jon Lansman said he wanted to say sorry to ‘the former staffers’ in a tweet linking to a Labour statement retracting its accusations that the whistleblowers had made ‘false and malicious’ statements and were motivated by their opposition to Mr Corbyn. He said: ‘This is a link to the Labour party’s court statement apologising to former party staffers who appeared in the Panorama programme on anti-semitism.
‘I tweeted something similar based on the party’s advice and assurances and also apologise to the former staffers.’
Labour leader sir Keir had been hoping to ‘draw a line’ under antisemitism in the party following the settlement of damages against the seven former staff. He said: ‘settling this case was important in that respect. It was the right decision, the right thing to do.’
The decision to pay damages had sparked a spat between sir Keir and his predecessor Mr Corbyn.
The former Labour leader said on Wednesday that it had been ‘disappointing’ the party had settled the claim, claiming it was a ‘political decision, not a legal one’.