Why Labour Puts Out The Begging Bowl

Fighting a General Election is an expensive business, especially for parties looking to field candidates in every mainland seat. That means 630 or so candidates to get nominated, an equal number of deposits to pay, and thousands upon thousands of leaflets, along with all the other campaign material that helps to bring those all-important swing voters into the fold.

This does not trouble the Tories; the party of the establishment may be about to get the shellacking to end all shellackings, but it never seems to be a problem tapping their grotesquely overmonied donors. But Labour is having a problem, if the veritable tsunami of begging emails sent regularly to party members is a guide. Trust me on this: Labour members get lots of them.

Reminders of the alleged funding gap between the two main parties are frequent, usually accompanied by the suggestion that the email recipient bung The Red Team a quid. Or maybe three quid. Or five quid. Remember, they didn’t want to have to ask the favour, but look at that funding gap.

At which point a question occurs: was this not the party that, in the days when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, was flush with cash? Well, yes it was. And then came the lawsuits, along with Labour’s response to them. When an edition of the BBC Panorama strand titled “Is Labour anti-Semitic?” was aired, several of those involved were called out by the party as, effectively, bad faith actors.

So seven of them sued Labour, as did the programme’s presenter John Ware. Then, after Keir Starmer became leader, came the rumours that Labour was to settle with those suing. The Guardian noted in its report “The Guardian understands legal advice provided to Labour under Corbyn’s leadership suggested the party could win the case”. Was new legal advice sought?

We don’t get to know. But, as the Guardian continued, “The Labour party has apologised 'unreservedly' and paid out a six-figure sum to seven former employees and a veteran BBC journalist, admitting it defamed them in the aftermath of a Panorama investigation into its handling of antisemitism”.

And then came another lawsuit. Make that more than one. A leaked internal report suggested that Labour HQ was working against the Corbyn leadership. For instance, “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’”. There was also criticism of some of those Panorama whistleblowers. And there was more.

Labour took legal action against five people it claimed had leaked the report. Meanwhile, nine people who claimed their data had been misused also sued. But despite the advocacy of, among others, Mark Lewis of Patron Law, the case dragged on until it was dropped in September last year. It wasn’t the first high profile legal action that Lawman Lewis has seen fail recently.

Meanwhile, the action by Labour against Seumas Milne, Karie Murphy, Georgie Robertson, Harry Hayball and Laura Murray dragged on. Until it, too, was discontinued, the BBC reporting today “The Labour Party has abandoned longstanding legal action against five former members of staff who have been accused of ‘conspiring’ against Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership”. Do go on.

“The action is estimated to have cost the party millions of pounds, which critics said could otherwise have been spent on the general election campaign”. Did someone say millions plural? Indeed they did: “The most recent documents presented in open court last autumn showed that Labour had spent £1.5m on legal action, and estimated it would spend nearly £900,000 more … The party's final costs are likely to be higher, as these figures don’t reflect the full cost of the litigation”. Three mil? Four??

Now imagine what many Labour members will think, reading that report, or other similar ones in the press, and then getting more of those begging emails, along with requests to leaflet, canvas, and the rest. The party may well be 20 points ahead in the polls. But that news will hurt.

And it’s all self-inflicted. By the current leadership. Can you spare a quid?

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