Labour, Anti-Semitism, And A “Thrown” Election

Not long after the 2017 General Election, I was commiserating with one of Labour’s losing candidates when he told me that the seat concerned could have, he believed, been won - had it not been for the lack of response from Labour HQ. They had been asked for more assistance - bringing canvassers in from outside the area, for instance - but this had apparently fallen on deaf ears. It seemed they wanted to just run a defensive campaign.

The story did not square with the campaign fought by party leader Jeremy Corbyn and those around him; thus the thought entered that there had been, at the very least, a lack of communication between leader and party management. But now, with the release of an internal party report ostensibly into handling of complaints of anti-Semitism, has come what looks not just like confirmation of that story, but far, far worse.

The draft report, whose contents were apparently offered to the Guardian, an offer which it seems was declined, has now been released by the people at Sky News. The only conclusion that can be reached on reading the gory details is that Labour HQ was actively working against the party leadership. Labour HQ was at the time the domain of Iain McNicol, already accused of trying to stop Corbyn standing in the 2016 leadership contest.

McNicol has disputed this view vigorously, and will no doubt also vigorously dispute the view that the anti-Semitism problem was not communicated properly to the leadership, who were therefore kept in the dark about how serious it was, while all the time allies of those in charge at Labour HQ were gaslighting Corbyn supporters about it.

Iain McNicol

But after the conversation I had with that losing Labour candidate, the part that leapt off the page was this: “The report claims private communications show senior former staff ‘openly worked against the aims and objectives of the leadership of the Party, and in the 2017 general election some key staff even appeared to work against the Party's core objective of winning elections’”. Because that ties in with what I was told.

Moreover, one of the Sky News bullet points talks about “A discussion about 'unsuspending' a former Labour MP who was critical of Jeremy Corbyn so they could stand as a candidate in the 2017 election”, which sounds a lot like the Simon Danczuk affair. He had been suspended from the party, and it was rumoured in the run-up to the 2017 General Election that he might be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate. He wasn’t.

What is also interesting is this passage: “[the dossier] singles out for criticism some who gave whistleblower evidence to last year's highly-critical BBC Panorama investigation on antisemitism within Labour … These include the former General Secretary Lord McNicol and the former acting head of the governance and legal unit, Sam Matthews”. Those defending the Panorama programme may have cause to stop and think.

But what will stick in the craw for all those who canvassed tirelessly, and saw the candidates they supported fall short, is the thought that while they worked to achieve victory, some of those in Labour HQ were actively trying to prevent it.

That is totally, absolutely unforgivable. And must never be allowed to happen again.

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