Corbyn’s office ‘planning for suspension over foreign trips’
Corbyn faces questions over visits to Middle East as a backbench MP that were never declared
ALLIES of Jeremy Corbyn have drawn up “emergency plans” to protect the Labour leader amid fears that he could be suspended from Parliament over a series of alleged undeclared overseas trips, The Daily Telegraph understands.
Senior party sources claimed that the proposals had been devised in the event that Mr Corbyn was found to have breached parliamentary rules following an investigation by the Commons standards watchdog.
The plans, which will be put before the party’s governing body today, include a clause that would hand Labour’s National Executive Committee unprecedented powers to constrain the authority of Tom Watson, Mr Corbyn’s deputy, who would become caretaker leader in his absence.
It follows reports that Mr Corbyn is under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over a series of nine undeclared trips he made as a backbench MP, including his wreath-laying visit to Tunisia in 2014.
One insider claimed that the suspension of the DUP’S Ian Paisley Jr had left Mr Corbyn’s office concerned he could face similar action. In July, MPS voted to suspend Mr Paisley for 30 days after this newspaper disclosed he had taken
‘Jeremy and the team are scared of the idea of the suspension. It’s a deep-rooted fear’
two undeclared holidays in Sri Lanka, paid for by the country’s government.
Under parliamentary rules, MPS are required to declare overseas visits paid for by third parties in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests if they surpass a financial threshold. The Telegraph has uncovered evidence suggesting that Mr Corbyn should have declared at least three of his trips.
They include a trip funded by Middle East Monitor and the Friends of alaqsa to the West Bank and Israel in November 2010, believed to have cost more than £900, above the threshold for declaration.
Another trip to Lebanon in February 2011 was paid for by the Palestine Return Centre and the Council for European Palestinian Relations, two groups that have been linked to Hamas.
Mr Corbyn’s allies have devised a draft clause for Labour’s constitution, which would shield him during a period of absentia and prevent Mr Watson wielding any meaningful power and changing the policy agenda.
Last night a source said: “Jeremy and the team are s--- scared of the idea of the suspension. It’s a deep-rooted fear.”
A source close to Mr Watson branded the plans a “plot to get Tom”, adding: “It’s so paranoid.”
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn did not deny that “administrative errors” may have been made in the past, but described the suggestion that the plans had been drawn up to cope with a suspension as “fanciful nonsense”.
Having weathered a storm of damaging revelations about his past brushes with Islamist extremists and anti-semites, it is now the holes in Jeremy Corbyn’s paperwork that are reportedly keeping his aides awake at night. As the Labour leader emerges relatively unscathed from a bruising summer recess, the furore caused by several of his overseas visits to the Middle East as a backbench MP have given rise to more searching questions about precisely who has funded them and why they were not declared.
Amid reports that Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, is combing through details of previously undeclared trips, Mr Corbyn’s inner circle is said to be deeply concerned.
This investigation, senior Labour insiders claim, and the prospect of a lengthy suspension that might result, lie behind the “emergency plan” being drawn up in the event that he has to take a temporary leave of absence.
One insider jokingly compared the situation to the trial of Al Capone, who, for all his infamy as a crime boss, was eventually brought down by glaring omissions in his book-keeping. The Daily Telegraph can disclose that of nine undeclared visits reported to Ms Stone, serious questions have been raised regarding at least three.
Last night Mr Corbyn’s office did not deny that he may have failed to declare the visits, merely stating that his office would “thoroughly investigate to establish if any administrative errors could have been made around declaration”.
The first, a four-day trip to the West Bank and Israel, was taken in early November 2010, during which he was pictured meeting Hamas officials alongside Seumas Milne, the Guardian journalist, now one of his closest aides.
While Mr Corbyn did not record it, Andrew Slaughter, a fellow Labour MP and member of the delegation, put the costs in the Members’ Register at £927.
The bill was picked up by Middle East Monitor (Memo), a press-monitor organisation, and Friends of al-aqsa, an anti-israel group based in Leicester. This newspaper understands that the two sponsors split the costs of flights and accommodation in Jerusalem. Just 12 months beforehand, Daud Abdullah, Memo’s director, was embroiled in a high-profile row with Gordon Brown’s Labour government after it emerged that Mr Abdullah had signed the infamous declaration of Istanbul.
The statement, which celebrated Hamas and its “victory” over the “malicious Jewish Zionist war over Gaza” contained orders for Muslims to attack foreign navies or warships if they entered “Muslim waters” or tried to stop “smuggling of arms to Gaza”.
Hazel Blears, then communities secretary, demanded Mr Abdullah quit as a deputy of the Muslim Council of Britain, describing his position as “incompatible with his recent actions”.
The Telegraph has detailed before how Memo’s website promotes pro-hamas content, while a number of contributors are linked to the group.
The following year, between Feb 6 and Feb 8, Mr Corbyn travelled to Beirut as part of a delegation that met officials from Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a proscribed terror group. He was accompanied by Nicolette Petersen, his parliamentary personal secretary, and is quoted at length in a report compiled by the trip’s organisers.
The cost of flights, travel and accommodation were paid for by Palestine Return Centre (PRC) and the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR), according to Majed Al Zeer, the former’s director.
Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that CEPR had paid for Mr Corbyn to attend a two-day conference in Doha in 2012, where he was joined by a Hamas military leader previously jailed for his role in a series of terror attacks that killed 100 people.
Two years after the visit, the CEPR was outlawed by Israel and declared “Hamas’s leading organisation in Europe”. It is now thought to have wound up operations.
Under the members’ code of conduct, MPS must declare costs of staff who join them on overseas visits
paid for by third parties, meaning Mr Corbyn’s trip may well have exceeded the threshold for declaration, which at the time stood at £660. In February 2011, Mr Corbyn travelled to Tunis, the Tunisian capital, for a two-day trip believed to have been sponsored by the Global Peace and Unity Foundation. While he did not declare the visit, Murad Qureshi, a former London Assembly member who also accepted the invitation, registered details of the visit in City Hall’s gift and hospitality register.
Twelve months before the trip, the foundation became embroiled in a row with David Cameron’s government over its decision to host alleged extremists at its annual festival.
However, it would be Mr Corbyn’s second visit to Tunisia three years later, at the invitation and expense of Beji Caid Essebsi, its new president, that would prove his most controversial.
After attending a conference on the Israeli-palestinian conflict, the Labour leader travelled to a Palestinian cemetery on the outskirts of Tunis, where he was present for a wreathlaying ceremony that included tributes to men linked to the 1972 Munich Olympics killings of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
The emergence of photographs from the event earlier this year saw the Labour leader widely condemned by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, widows of the victims and a number of his own MPS.
Mr Corbyn has always insisted that he did not honour anyone involved in the massacre and was there to pay his respects to Palestinians killed in 1985 in an Israeli bombing raid.
However, lingering questions remain over why he did not declare the trip, with critics challenging the notion that his two-night stay in the five-star Le Palace hotel could have fallen below the threshold. While a Labour spokesman insisted at the time that
they were confident the costs were below £660, doubts continued to grow after it emerged that Lord Sheikh, a Tory peer who had also been invited, had recorded the visit in the Register of Lords’ Interests.
Last night a Labour spokesman said that Mr Corbyn was “committed to upholding the highest standards of parliamentary conduct. Where issues have been raised about past international trips, Jeremy’s parliamentary office will thoroughly investigate to establish if any administrative errors could have been made around declaration.
“For many years Jeremy has campaigned on a range of international issues, which has led him to visit countries all over the world. These visits have always been public and focused on efforts to secure peace and justice in areas of conflict in particular.”