MP at first refuses to comment but finally denies ‘all allegations of impropriety’. Starmer unreachable for comment on claims he was aware of and ignored allegations by Jewish, now-sacked staffer
Labour’s Shadow Defence Procurement Minister Khalid Mahmood has today denied allegations from a newly-sacked staff member that he was involved in bullying and antisemitic abuse against her – and that he took money from the Kuwaiti embassy and Kuwaiti businessmen and ‘stole’ money from a West Midlands voluntary organisation.
Last month, the SKWAWKBOX exclusively revealed emails that showed that Keir Starmer and his team had been aware, over a prolonged period, of suspended staffer Elaina Cohen’s complaints against Mahmood of antisemitism and bullying – which she had reported to West Midlands police – yet were accused by Ms Cohen of ‘blatant inaction’. Mahmood remains on the front bench, despite Starmer’s promise of ‘zero tolerance’ toward antisemitism.
Keir Starmer did not respond to a request for comment at the time. Khalid Mahmood replied that he could not comment because the issue was an ‘HR matter’.
But Ms Cohen today reports that she has been sacked by Mahmood, in the middle of an Acas arbitration and despite his knowing that she is in the middle of a COVID-related family health crisis – and that she therefore wants to come clean about the full allegations she is making against her now-former employer, which she said were previously under a non-discloure agreement.
Ms Cohen claims that, as well as being involved in persistent antisemitism and bullying toward her on his own and with others, Mahmood took money from the Kuwaiti embassy from Kuwaiti businessmen and ‘stole’ from a West Midlands-based voluntary organisation.
And she says that Keir Starmer was aware of all these allegations, yet took no action against Mahmood, who has remained on Labour’s front bench throughout.
The SKWAWKBOX called Mr Mahmood directly to ask for urgent comment on the serious allegations being made against him. At first – and persistently throughout most of the conversation – Mahmood echoed his December claim that it was an HR matter and was being resolved ‘in accordance to HR’ and tried to end the call. He stuck to this line despite repeated stressing of the nature of the allegations and their seriousness. The ‘HR issue’ claim was repeated even after the allegation of theft was repeated to him.
However, after being pressed several times to say explicitly whether he was denying any of the allegations that had been listed, he said:
I deny all allegations of impropriety.
The SKWAWKBOX has also tried to obtain comment from Keir Starmer, via his parliamentary and constituency offices and directly, again with emphasis on the seriousness of the allegations and the imminence of publication. No comment had been received by the time of publication.
If Elaina Cohen’s allegations are accurate Keir Starmer has ignored, over a period of months, serious allegations against a right-wing front-bencher – while left-wingers were sacked for ‘crimes’ as trivial as sharing an accurate newspaper article or voting with their conscience on a non-obligatory parliamentary vote – leaving Khalid Mahmood to remain in his Shadow team.
How long will that now be allowed to continue?
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I’m absolutely sure it’s not because Starmer only wants rid of left-wingers from a left wing partner. Totally sure. Yes, completely. Altogether. Wholly. Utterly-Butterly sure …………….
Obviously the allegations have not been investigated by Starmer or the party because the complaint hasn’t come from people who Starmer holds in the highest regard.
I keep asking myself how has he turned out to be so useless. Then I give my head a wobble and realise he’s too preoccupied employing ex-spies, suspending left wing members and doing as he’s told from outside bodies who don’t even appear to support the party.
Max likes his nonparty BODies. Only the right BODies of course.
‘Defence procurement’ = graft.
I just did a search to see if any of the MSM are covering this and came across the following DM article from August 2018. Not the MAIN story, but a ‘supplementary’ story/article. Scroll down the page and you’ll see it to the right with the pale blue background headlined ‘Labour frontbencher used £40,000 of taxpayers’ cash to pay off his Jewish ex-lover assistant’:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6109521/More-27-000-sign-petition-demanding-anti-Semite-Corbyn-QUIT-Labour-leader.html
And I also came across the following:
SEPTEMBER 2006
ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP AGAINST ANTISEMITISM
The inquiry was chaired by the former Minister for Europe, Rt Hon Dr Denis MacShane MP(Labour, Rotherham) and included:
Rt Hon Kevin Barron MP (Labour, Rother Valley)
Tim Boswell MP (Conservative, Daventry)
Rt Hon David Curry MP(Conservative, Skipton and Ripon)
Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP (Conservative, Chingford and Woodford Green)
Nigel Evans MP (Conservative, Ribble Valley)
Rt Hon Bruce George MP (Labour, Walsall South)
Lady Sylvia Hermon MP (Ulster Unionist, North Down)
Chris Huhne MP (Liberal Democrat, Eastleigh)
Daniel Kawczynski MP (Conservative, Shrewsbury and Atcham)
Barbara Keeley MP (Labour, Worsley)
Khalid Mahmood MP(Labour, Birmingham, Perry Barr)
Rt Hon John Spellar MP (Labour, Warley)
Theresa Villiers MP (Conservative, Chipping Barnet)
https://antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/writtenevidence-2.pdf
As far as I can work out, Cohen’s (sexual) relationship with Mahmoud has been tempestuous, fiery and on and off over a period of perhaps 14 or 15 years. She’s been sacked and re-employed on more than one occasion but this time with her allegations it looks like most of the toys have been thrown out of the pram. She is a committed zionist and one-time Conservative Party candidate in Rochdale but for some reason fell in love with the MP, left her husband and moved to Birmingham to be with him. Whether his subsequent decision to employ her was improper, I don’t know. I think this is the product of a lovers’ tiff and has very little to do with antisemitism. Little will come of it because there’s not much to choose between the two politically and thus no points can be scored against the left.
More to the point today, of the utmost serious concern (and covered elsewhere on this site) is Starmer/Evans decision to allow the BoD/JLM to dictate who might advise Labour on AS.
Comrades may have noted that the usual suspects, having despatched Corbyn, are now engaged in another campaign in which they have the bipartisan backing of Raab and Nandy. Yes friends, the yellow peril has replaced the hun as the latest bogeyman: here’s what I said this morning in response to the latest dire news from Labour:
“On 27th January 1945 the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. General Vasily Petrenko, commander of the 107th Infantry Division, remarked, “I who saw people dying every day was shocked by the Nazis’ indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons. I read about the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in various leaflets, but there was nothing about the Nazis’ treatment of women, children, and old men. It was in Auschwitz that I found out about the fate of the Jews.”
This is why today is now known as Holocaust Memorial Day. Dipping into British radio this morning I was please to hear liberal rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger quote the general’s words. Elsewhere the so-called “leaders” of British Jewry were busy opening a new front entirely. The same reactionary bunch that witch-hunted Jeremy Corbyn and now have the Labour Party by the throat have decided to throw their weight behind Raab and Nandy and join the attack on Communist China.
This is rich coming from people like the BoD’s toxic leader Marie Van der Zyl, who has a wobbler if anyone tries to equate Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with Nazi persecution of Jews. Van der Zyl and friends have decided that it is perfectly legitimate however to link what went on at Auschwitz with a Chinese programme to tackle salafism and Saudi-funded wahhabism within its own border. A Chinese version of “PREVENT” as it were but, as with the Chinese approach to Covid19, with a damn sight better chance of success than its British counterpart.
Meanwhile the apartheid settler state that these zionist worthies are pledged to protect has just used its technological prowess to wipe out the Christian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh on behalf of its Muslim allies in Baku. Its new friends in Riyadh will be nodding approvingly, just as Britain’s cosmetic counter-terrorism strategy is doomed to fail over and over again whilst its main client for arms is the head-chopping wahhabi Kingdom.
The campaign of Van der Zyl, Mirvis and co. is sick and an outrage to the memory of those who perished at the hands of fascism – and, dare I say, antisemitic by implication.”
labrebisgalloise, I don’t know anything of Cohen or Mahmoud, so won’t comment about that.
Thank you for the rest of it, very informative and on this occasion I fully agree.
Craig Murray’s contempt of court trial started today as you may know, and he posted the following yesterday:
Just about ready for my trial for contempt of court tomorrow; signing off a final affidavit in a minute. It is really difficult to get my head round the fact that I could very soon be jailed for up to two years for writing about the conspiracy to fit up Alex Salmond and reporting honestly and carefully on his trial, and face an “unlimited” fine…..
It is a major indictment of our legal system that it is so ruinously expensive – Alex Salmond is an innocent man left with costs of many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/01/a-time-of-trial/
Access code from Craig’s post to listen to the trial is rejected as not valid – either hasn’t started yet or been postponed perhaps.
Hope he beats the shit out of them.
Has anyone from the Board of Deputies, Campaign Against Antisemitism, Jewish Labour Movement or any individual such as Margaret Hodge who has, in the past loudly called out what she perceives to be antisemitism, spoke up for Ms Cohen, or offered her any help? Have any of them even been in touch with her? What about Keir Starmer and his alleged zero tolerance of antisemitism? Any word from him? The Antisemitism Czar Lord Mann, has he been in touch? I expect the answer is no to all of the above.
If this is the case then it seems to me that if you are a Socialist Jew or one of the many Jews not approved by the BOD then you are considered fair game and people can insult and bully you and engage in all sorts of antisemitic behaviour towards you without fear of the consequences .
It is a shame and a disgrace that on this Holocaust Memorial Day our party leadership is prepared to tolerate disgusting antisemitism towards this Jewish woman because of her left wing politics. Indeed far from enforcing a zero tolerance of Antisemitism policy our party leadership allows bigots and racists to insult and bully Jews with whom they disagree .
I fully expect that someone will turn up an innocent tweet or post this lady made in the dim and distant past which will be misconstrued and she will be suspended by the party pending an disciplinary investigation into HER alleged antisemitism.
Food for thought…
There is an interesting profile of Elaina Cohen in the Jewish Telegraph.
PROFILE
Pro-Israel Elaina has no problem meeting Taliban
THE Birmingham prospective Labour council candidate who claims that she was discouraged from standing in a predominantly Muslim ward because she was white and Jewish could not have bent over more backwards to try to understand the Islamic community.
“Living in Bowdon, the Conservative Party felt like her natural home. Working in PR for Nynex and Trafford Borough Council, Elaina had built on her connections who encouraged her to stand for the Conservatives.
But when she lost the Rochdale council election for which she stood as a Tory candidate, Elaina decided to familiarise herself more thoroughly with Rochdale’s large Kashmiri population.
She said: “I was never going to win Rochdale because there was no Tory base. But there was a huge Kashmiri population – one of the largest in Britain.
“They had a significant impact on the vote.
.
https://www.jewishtelegraph.com/prof_15.html
Thanks for that SteveH, especially the link.
For the Many, Not the … Phewwww, This Stinks.
LOL