Regime’s pursuit of former Corbyn staffers over ‘Labour leak’ report – instead of going after perpetrators of racism and abuse the report revealed – undermines next general election campaign, say insiders
When Labour’s report on antisemitism in the party revealed the weaponisation of antisemitism to attack the left – and a string of incidents of racism, abuse, diversion of funds and other misdeeds by right-wing party figures – leaked into the public domain, many party members were rightly outraged that Keir Starmer’s response involved going after those he blamed for the report leaking, instead of the perpetrators it exposed.
Starmer spent a six-figure sum on forensic computer specialists trying to identify those who leaked the document and then much more still on legal action to try to pin the leak on former Corbyn staff – while quietly re-admitting those implicated in the report even while the inquiry he commissioned from Martin Forde QC was ongoing.
The Forde Report agreed with the conclusions of the leaked document that antisemitism had been weaponised and that the Labour right had shown gross racism and behaved outside its powers – conclusions that have been studiously ignored both by right-wing MPs and their friends in the media, just as they subsequently did with the revelations of Al Jazeera’s detailed four-part series The Labour Files, which provided even more shocking detail about the behaviour of right-wingers in the party and the extent of the antisemitism smear campaign.
But now some of those chickens are set to come home to roost carrying a huge legal bill, after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said it found no case against the three staffers for supposedly unlawfully obtaining and releasing data and will not be taking the matter further.
The decision is expected to cause the collapse of Starmer’s separate attempt to use the courts to pin the blame on the left-wingers – leaving Labour facing a potential ‘multi-million pound’ legal bill that insiders have told the BBC’s Iain Watson threatens the party’s ability to fight the next general election.
This is not the first time that Starmer has needlessly cost the party huge amounts of money. A reported sum of around £600,000 was paid out to supposed ‘whistleblowers’ – some of whom feature prominently in both the leaked report and in the Labour Files series – despite the advice of his own lawyers that Labour would win the case.
Nor is it the only time he has played a role in covering up abuse by the Labour right. He was warned on several occasions that the staffer and lover of a right-wing Labour MP was ‘criminally’ and ‘sadistically’ abusing and exploiting vulnerable domestic violence victims – yet did nothing. And of course, Starmer has infamously trampled on the freedom of speech and democratic rights of Labour members and overseen a war on left-wing Jews in the party.
Yet he expects the public to vote for him to run a country.
Keir Starmer is a barrister and never tires of mentioning that he once ran the Crown Prosecution Service – during the period in which it ignored accusations against Jimmy Savile while colluding in extraditions to the US. But his appalling judgment has cost the party – which under his leadership had already squandered the £13 million surplus left by Jeremy Corbyn – heavily yet again.
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Well well – karma eh?
But hang on — its all the fault of Corbyn innit?
I can’t help laughing at the way we are repeatedly told that Starmer’s career shows he is a highly intellligent and impressive lawyer. How bad a lawyer must he be to have got this so badly wrong?
I hope they get sued and with some luck go bankrupt just goes to show what sort of low life scum we have as Labour MPs that will go to any lengths to destroys other peoples life’s
Well I am sure that the publicity on the BBC and MSM will show all of the labour party and its dirty washing “…no matter how much they try to dump the blame on Corbyn.Theres still the small matter of the Data scam and members info and of course diverting members money to a secret acount for ?..right wing.electioneering?or the six hundred thousand sweetners to staff to lie and defame jeremy Corbyn in the AS scam…..Lets get it all out and all the lies deceit and illegality with a touch of Larceny and character assassination of innocent labour party Stalwarts.!Come on Mr knight and hope you read the BBC world report whilst crawling to your masters at the WEF……disgusting animals all of them….apology to animals!
I’m already looking forward to the in-depth analysis all MSM will be involved in.
Nar, I don’t think so. If they did they’d have to admit their compliance in the deliberate attacks on Corbyn and the left.
Multi-million Pound bill? Oh dear, how sad 😀
What does this investigation entail? What powers does it have. It would be nice if they could follow the money, that’s the best evidence, isn’t it?
The LP has incurred substantial costs taking five people to court after accusing them of leaking the A/S investigation report. The Information Commissioner has ruled that there is insufficient information to enable the leaker(s) to be found. The LP has two options:
1. Cut their losses – This would involve paying the legal fees that they have already incurred. It would also mean that the five who have been accused would probably make an application for their own fees to be awarded against the LP. Or they could sue the LP for making defamatory statements about them.
2. Continue with the case they have brought against the five, and keep their fingers crossed. There would, however, then be a pretty good chance that their fingers would be burnt.
As an aside, the BBC reports in an article about Northern Ireland “While he (Starmer) hasn’t offered any solutions to the protocol problems, he has offered his support to the government to get a deal through Parliament.” I once had someone working for me who was very good at identifying problems but utterly useless at identifying solutions. The thing is that, when you’re in a leadership role, it’s your job to identify solutions.
Goldbach, sounds like NATO and Putin.
Incidentally, and back to the main story, the BBC report on the Information Commissioner’s ruling is headed “Corbyn era legal bills could blunt Labour campaign”?
Such disgraceful black propaganda. How could legal bills resulting from decisions taken by Starmer after he became LP “leader” be considered as “Corbyn era”? Of course the Beeb is utterly impartial.
Read this before on the beeb webshite….And had to smirk 😏
For someone who was supposedly the country’s chief prosecutor, he’s just not very bright, is he?
I thought that BBC article had been written by a drunk.
George, ah, old school hit piece journalism nowadays they’re just sniffers.
Oh, and any more news on the data breach???
It’s not looking too rosy for the “legal expert”, is it? **sniggers**
Easy solution…. Get the membership back to 2017 levels.
Good luck with that, given Labour are now more like a Tory tribute band.
Were telling the truth about current membership numbers(?), then surely financial predicament wouldn’t be as bad?
Have you forgotten that 20% of the membership became disenchanted and deserted Corbyn during 2018 & 19.
Leaving the numbers where, compared to pre-Corbyn levels?
Ultraviolet – There were 430,359 fully paid up members in Nov19.
Have YOU forgotten that Corbyn almost TREBLED the membership numbers during his tenure??
No you haven’t. You just don’t mention it because keef has lost both membership AND revenue AND fiscal reserves.
Now sod off.
Toffee – Not at all, I’m simply pointing out that a substantial proportion of these new members became disenchanted with Jeremy and resigned from the party.
And yet you insist keef has increased membership … Even to going so far as to matching Corbyn numbers.
He just hasn’t, and that’s a fact.
And you’re still blaming Corbyn for Keef’s misappropriation of funds, plus the loss of revenue from the people who either spewed the party through their disgust at keef’s private campaign, or were expunged from the party by keefs’ vindictiveness.
Toffee “And yet you insist keef has increased membership … Even to going so far as to matching Corbyn numbers.
Really, when did I do that? Can you substantiate this with a direct quote and a link?
“And you’re still blaming Corbyn for Keef’s misappropriation of funds,
I’m struggling to see who else is to blame, it was undeniably Jeremy who irresponsibly issued the statement that was the subject of this claim without without first getting it checked by the party’s legal team.
SteveH13/01/2023 AT 11:18 PM
Ultraviolet – There were 430,359 fully paid up members in Nov19.
Yeah.
What are the current numbers? Have they increased exponentially a-la Corbyn?
What were the numbers when Corbyn became leader, and the numbers when he was forced out, hmmm?
Has keef increased membership at the same rate as Corbyn did?
No.
Has keef brought in as much in revenue from membership fees as Corbyn?
No
Has keef won a single vote against the toerags since shithousing his way to the bleedership?
Corbyn won forty-one. And no matter how shite May’s government was they will always be regarded as an infinitely more competent government than all three of the ones keef has supported. .
Fat fucking chance of him winning anything against them when all’s he ever does is openly voice his support for them and mimic their nasty policies.
And he’s your credible alternative ffs.
More members than at any time since 1980 during Corbyn’s leadership, , and according to the figures provided in the article, never less than 500,000 members from July 2016 until July 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Labour_Party_membership_graph.svg
Since leaving Labour, after JCs resignation I have yet to meet, hear of, know someone who knows someone, who has joined the party. On the other hand….
Wobbly, agreed. In my CLP, friends and family, maybe a total of about 200 members, there is not one of those decent people who remains a member, not a single person. Now I resigned one minute after Starmer was crowned leader, I did it properly, to the branch secretary, Labour HQ, cancelled DD etc. I still receive begging emails from them asking for donations and still get the raffle tickets. So I assume I am still counted as a member, maybe as a lapsed one at that. Over 300k members have left since Starmer took over and that is borne out by the slump in membership fee income. Last year they made a £5m loss, and bear in mind Corbyn left them with a £13m surplus in the bank. Happy days….
Going after staffers over this was factional, vindictive, costly nonsense. Members had a right to know anyway.
To bastardize that quote by Tyrion Lannister in GoT:
We’ve had vicious leaders, and we’ve had idiot leaders, but I don’t think we’ve ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a leader!
Nice one Stevie boy. Let’s hang the thieves out to dry.
Hell slap it up them. “Oh who’s that at the door, oh shit it’s the bailiffs”.
Maybe the party can tap whoever it is behind MPM Connect Ltd for a few bob?
After bunging right-wjngers’ Yvette Cooper, Dan Jarvis and Wes Streeting £345,000, they’ve certainly got plenty of folding stuff to throw around.
If they can’t find them at their registered address, perhaps TV’s Watchdog may be able to help them chase them up?
Presumably we are talking about Party income which is, in the main, largely provided by ordinary Party members via both direct and indirect means of membership fees, donations, raising funds through events organised by unpaid volunteers, union political funds and so on.
Money raised and donated for very specific purposes. Not to be pissed up against the wall on personal vendetta’s against anyone who does not hold the proscribed opinions of the Blair Cult and its criminally incompetent and odious priesthood from Starmer to Streeting, Phillips to Rayner.
In addition to the issues already identified in this article this also represents a misuse of the money – along with the considerable amount of voluntary time on the part of members/supporters required to raise/earn it – which is verging on criminal theft. Not to mention the blatant abuse of those members.
In any functioning civilised society every single one of those responsible for these decisions, along with those who facilitated them via their active or tacit support should be incarcerated at HM pleasure.
In previous era’s such criminals, because that is what they are, would have 30 pounds of ugly dangerous fat displayed on a well known gate at the Tower of London.
Dave Hansell, but what about all of that grease dripping into the Thames.
Thanks for this. Vital reading.
Add this bill to the Data Protection cases currently being sought by various ex Labour Members and it could possibly bankrupt the Labour Party. As if they’re not already bankrupt after losing over £18m in the last two years. A £13m surplus after Corbyn went, to a £5m loss last year. What a mess….
Union Leaders should de-fund this criminal organisation to protect their members’ subs!
There is of course the morality of members who knowingly fund a criminal and deviant enterprise called the labour party..
The thought of the knight and his appalling shadowy misfits cabinet is quite frightening when you consider that they could very likely take the helm of government.and do even more permanent damage to the country than the clowns now running it down
We Knew that we were drinking in the last chance saloon when corbyn and socialism became a dirty word..and were rejected by the electrote on trumped up charges but did anyone really think that the UK could sink so low where essentially the social system is destroyed by waves of neo liberal nightmare vandalism and piracy.?
Joseph – ….and apart from empty rhetoric what are you offering by the way of a credible alternative.
Oh dear! People in glass houses!
Well we know what ‘alternative’ you are hanging your hat on and offering steveH, and by no stretch of the imagination could it ever be spun as credible.
To put this in perspective; the continuation of the Overton Window cycle you are arguing for from the (alleged) safe haven of the Caribbean will continue to result in the kind of social collapse of the Country currently taking place in real time, along with the stark results for the majority of the populace, described in factual detail with up to date figures and data which is presented here:
https://eand.co/why-britains-severely-underestimating-british-collapse-4d5f50550c62
The only problem with that analysis being that because it limits its data set to just a couple of areas it actually underestimates the scale of the problems you, steveH – cowering in your bunker like the sniveling wormtongue coward you are – wish to continue inflicting on those living in the country you have run away from as a result of your insistence that more of the same under a different coloured rosette is and should be the only option.
What the writer of that article does not cover, for example, is the excess loss of life in care homes – many of which are closing as a direct result of deliberate policies which Starmer and his cult junta and useless idiots like your self actually support.
Or people shivering and slowly perishing in a literal sense as they cannot afford to heat their homes or afford the supermarket prices as they join the children and other vulnerable victims of, for example, Iraq from the 1990’s among other populations who have been through the same meat grinder, as “A price worth Paying” (copyright Madeline Albright) for a war of choice to continue being the biggest, baddest and bestist child on the block.
You have no idea of the situation from where you (allegedly) sit in your comfortable bolt hole lecturing people half way across the world what shite they should suck up to.
You have nothing to offer. Nothing concrete or worthwhile to say. An empty vessel bloated with their own self importance mouth farting tons of waste bullshit into the ether. The political equivalent of Autogynephilia. What a sad excuse for what passes for a human being.
@Dave Hansell
👏👏👏
Kudos for your post
Joseph – ….and apart from empty rhetoric what are you offering by the way of a credible alternative.
Joseph isn’t obliged to offer anything.
Meanwhile your ‘credible alternative’ is to continue to support the open and brazen toerag supporter who not only BRAGS about his SUPPORT for toerag policy, but is yet to OPPOSE the toerags on a single policy or vote.
…While mimicing toerag policies himself, despite being elected on those ten broken pledges AND – once upon a time – being THE staunchest EU remainer (Another one that went south as soon as he shithoused his way to the leadership)
So take your “credible alternative” and cram it, because it’s NOT credible and it’s NO ALTERNATIVE.
Toffee – Oh for goodness sake grow up.
Fuck off and die idiot.
Idiot that STILL thinks keef has stuck to every one of his ten pledges despite the greasy twat admitting he’s binned every single one of them.
Idiot.
Toffee – Oh dear, yet more empty rhetoric and bluster. Is that really all you have left? 😞
Yet more of the same repetitive bullshit after being shown up to be as clueless as the greasy gobshite for the 1,000,004th time..
You’ve had years of trying to win people over. You’ve continually failed.
You’ll continue to fail because you never deviate from mitigating for liars, frauds and nonces, while demonstrating those same propensities with just about every one of your own posts.
Continually and universally derided, you insist on making a complete imbecile of yourself without changing tack.
All the hallmarks of incapability. Normal people would’ve long ago cottoned on to the fact they’d been rumbled – but you persist in demonstrating conclusive evidence of your pitiful lack of self-awareness because you’re abnormal.
So, by all means, carry on making a complete cnut of yourself.
But at least try to show a bit of variety and innovation, you godawful ballache.
It’s comforting to know that I’ve binned all their begging letters / emails over the past couple of years.
Why waste my money funding this corrupt pantomime ?
It’s about time the trade unions got their act together to fund a new party of the left.
The problem is that the same thread of “bought-and-paid-for” corruption runs thru much of the trade union establishment.
We have much work to do.
johnsco1 – “We have much work to do
You can say that again. 😏
“We have much work to do.”
How can a man who was once one of the most senior lawyers in the country have got Labour in a position like this? A couple of years ago a Court case found that there was no reliable evidence available that could positively identify who leaked the damming social media messages & internal Labour report..
Labour’s court action against the individuals that it believed were responsible for the leak failed to produce any new or more convincing evidence. Although that situation never changed Lab continued to pursue its action against the people it had accused.
The ICO has now rather predictably confirmed that it too agrees that there is no evidence that points to these people as being responsible nor indeed is there any evidence avilable that casts any light upon who is. An experienced lawyer.would have perhaps seen the ICO’s findings coming. Starmer’s apparent failure to do so is going to cost Labour a small fortune – quite rightly in my view. .
Starmer seems to be a very odd lawyer. On one hand he pays off individuals who on Counsel’s advice do not have a winnable case agaist Labour and on the other he pursues a very expensive cases againt those who one Court had already said there was no evidence against. It seems to me that Starmer needs the services of a good lawyer. I wonder if he knows any?
The starmeroids are blinded by hatred and vindictiveness which is clouding their judgement. They have lost their collective marbles in a red mist of anger. They are totally unfit to be anywhere near power.
A surprisingly large part of the attentive electorate shares that opinion Ellie. The harder the MSM commend and endorse Starmer, the more normally-inattentive voters start paying attention. Labour’s decline is electoral.
The very obvious failure of Starmer, along with his cult of useless idiot supporters, is that he has and is costing the membership and Party supporters – who are the source of all the money – a large fortune as people struggle to survive in a collapsing society headed for fourth World oblivion.
Not to mention the opportunity costs of a total and deliberate failure to offer any practical, necessary and meaningful change from the unworkable and past its sell by date Overton Window cycle:
https://robinmcalpine.org/the-shape-of-23-part-two-the-toynbee-cycle/
Odd indeed. An outsider looking in might wonder whether or not a self destructive pattern was being intentionally created. Members, money, legal cases. And there’s more. Odd or not?
Maybe….strummer knight should bung some money to the alleged leakers…on the same deal as the so called staff who are still enjoying the “windfall from the panorama scam.ITs only members money 💰after all and they can have another info leak to raise cash for the “Lawyers welfare fund” .You can’t alter the nature of a “bottom feeder” but better to never put them in drowning street.?
Mike Sivier’s case against labour was dismissed because the judge said there was no proof as to who exactly leaked his personal data. In essence, no individual could have the finger solely pointed at them so no prosecution could be successfully brought.
But keef, in his infinite wisdom, decided that although the same thing applies here, it was no reason not to spunk £££’s on a vindictive and ultimately fruitless campaign to pursue member(s) who blow the whistle.
Inexcusable. Knowing full well the same applied here, the nation’s former chief prosecutor ought to have known better but went ahead anyway.
If he wilfully wastes party funds on personal vendettas, imagine what he’d do with the nation’s funds…
“We have much work to do.”
.. and still NO apology to people (like Diane Abbott) who were grossly defamed
by Labour staffers ..
Albert Swift – you are quite correct in calling Starmer “stupid”. When the Equality
Commission commenced the enquiry there was a demand that all Labour Party
communications/data etc should be open to them.
Well they were open – and this is what they discovered and of course it should be
made known to all members.
This is an anecdote, but it is one which is related to some of the “discussion” above.
A good friend who had always voted Labour previously told me. in 2018. that he was going to vote Tory at the next election. The reason he gave was not “Jeremy Corbyn”. It was that the Labour Party was, to quote, “pissing about over Brexit”.
Same with many, many members of my family, all of us lifelong labour voters. Brexit and the fact that democracy was being ignored. Leave won the referendum.
Yeah, that’s what I heard.
I imagine the point of throwing all this money effectively away is so they can lose the next election to the Tories and blame it on Corbyn. This illustrates why politics has no use to ordinary people anymore, money has now bought the political system, just as Socrates predicted, in fact (look it up). What form of governance do we need now then? We don’t know, e can’t think of one, but after the intense and unrelenting conditioning we’ve received all our lives it’s not surprising we can’t think outside the silo we accept as normal. The answer may lie in the psychedelics and their liberating effect on our thinking. Take drugs, kids, expand your mind. It makes sense now.
Not sure I quite get where Labour has incurred this cost. Is it because they have already instigated legal action and cannot now withdraw without paying costs? Or is it something I am missing?
“Labour is taking the five Corbyn supporters to the High Court for conspiring to put the document into the public domain.” – They will have had to instruct solicitors in order to bring the case and those solicitors will have been beavering away (or at least they will have been racking up their bill, charging a prodigious hourly rate) since then.
He’s a fool but he’s also cunning and devious. I’d be very surprisied if he doesn’t have some very rich and corrupt friends who will be only to happy to part with 500k here or there on the condition they get guarantees on low tax rates in the future. This man would sell anyone out for for power.