The revelations in the leaked Labour report are a genuine scandal
JVL Introduction
John McDonnell pulls no punches in his comments on the leaked Labour Party report, expressing the widespread anger felt by so many Party members and supporters.
“If what is reported in the leaked document is true… it would represent the most shocking act of treachery against the party, its members and our supporters in Labour’s century-long history…”
“It would also represent a betrayal of all those who desperately needed a Labour government, especially in light of the current crisis…”
“The same procedures must apply to those implicated in this report as apply to other party members… Those found guilty of serious contraventions of our rules should be expelled.”
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We also link to McDonnell’s interview with Sky News on this topic a few days earlier (see below the article).
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Tue 21 Apr 2020. Read the original here.
The revelations in the leaked Labour report are a genuine scandal
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Yeh but, No but …
“The document also dispels the myth that the antisemitism problem among Labour members was merely a smear or part of a conspiracy.”
The same infection of disproportion that undermines the truth.
John – the problem of real antisemitism was *nowhere near* the scale of the problem of false accusation and the deviousness of ill-wishers in the heart of the central administration. To imply otherwise is to continue to smear the Party as a whole.
Not just expelled John, SUED!
Funds were mis-allocated.
Lives were ruined.
The Labour Party’s reputation and prospects permanently damaged.
All damages, both financial and repetitional should be pursued to the greatest extent of the law and criminal proceedings brought against the wreckers wherever they apply.
Excellent article.
If John had been the leader of the party, and not the incompetent and dithering Corbyn, we would have been in power.
“The document also dispels the myth that the antisemitism problem among Labour members was merely a smear or part of a conspiracy. They existed and were serious.”
Define “serious”. John pulls a punch here. Serious to me means something unusually bad – and we know it isn’t. I think that he feels duty bound to distance himself from the truth, which is frustrating even at this late stage.
Antisemitism in the labour party exists. Let’s not fool ourselves. However when you consider the immense amount of exaggeration and publicity it received one is bewildered why the antisemitism in the tory party which is far higher was totally ignored. Getting down to rights and wrongs surely it is not only a Labour Party problem that these traitors misdirected the British people but surely it has to be an attack on democracy and should have been challenged in law along with the utter falsehoods and misinformation put out as fact to interfere and deliberately misdirect the proper process of a national election. Why did nobody take these liars to task in court and make them provide evidence to back up their claims? Is there no longer an electoral commission?
It is absolutely right that Labour policy with respect to suspensions should be carried out AND the promised independent review must be carried out and soon. Thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of Labour members have been defrauded. Unity will not be gained by wronged members just ignoring these crimes – it would be like capping a rotten tooth.
Disappointed he said the report shouldn’t be leaked. I have a right to know about the duplicity and treachery of some members of the Labour Party. What this report also shows is the disgusting racism towards black members of our party.
Er – he said the report should not have been leaked WITHOUT REDACTIONS – in other words the names of the perpetrators and victims should have been anonymised ..
I know that the same restraint has not been exercised by the MSM in their reporting of those accused of antisemitism in the Labour Party – but that does not make it right ..
Expel the louts !!
John’s views are spot on and insightful.
I agree with Helen in that John would have been a brilliant PM had we won.
He was the architect of the economic policies, as well as an astute politician with the ability to unite all factions within Labour ranks.
Helen Lombard seems to have lost her way. Without Corbyn the Labour Party would still be a shadow of its former self from the time so many people left because of the Iraq war and Tory lite policies. We would not have come within a few thousand votes of winning the 2017 GE. The austerity myth would not have been exposed.
I completely reject what ‘Helen Lombard’ said in respect of Jeremy. People like her are all over the internet, always pretending to be Jeremy Corbyn supporters – and have been for the past year/eighteen months or more commenting on various blogs – whilst continually finding fault with Jeremy where there is none – ie he’s ‘a coward’, or ‘he needs to get a spine’ etc – and between them (what with Repetition being a subtle form of brain-washing), they repeat it over and over and over again, several times a week, week after week, month after month, in between their posts in which they praise him and say how wonderful he is.
The point being of course that if they give readers of the blog every impression that they support him, then many readers will believe that their criticisms of him must be legitimate. And believe me, they monitor and post comments on skwawkbox for example ALL day long, EVERY single day. And in relation to the leaked report, they very soon afterwards started attacking Jeremy Corbyn and Jennie Formby as in ‘He should have known what was going on’ and ditto Jennie, and in one case, an im-poster (as I call them) said – in relation to Jeremy – that “it must be the longest suicide in the history of the Labour Party”, and this is someone that often posted comments referring to “our Jeremy”!
When John McDonnell was getting “bloody angry” over 2017 election shattered dreams, did he reserve a little of his ire for the contribution to the 2019 defeat made by the newspaper about to publish his article?
As the quality paper without inbuilt right wing bias ‘The Guardian’ should have been impartial in its coverage of the Labour Party and antisemitism. Yet ‘Dump The Guardian’ compiled a list of over 100 Guardian articles over 52 weeks in 2017/18 “to give you an idea of just how dedicated the paper has been in spreading these spurious charges of antisemitism.” The policy continued through to the election campaign, when the letter “to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister would be to surrender in the fight against anti-Jewish predjudice” from Joanna Lumley and others was printed, while one in defence of Corbyn was rejected.
McDonnell’s article represents a coup for The Guardian; its editorial stance during Corbyn’s leadership has been vindicated by his closest associate.
Alan Howard is so off the mark in his response to Helen Lombard’s comment !
It is blooming obvious that she is not a Corbyn admirer and Alan’s reply to her comment exposes him as intellectually biased and sorry to say rather verbose and arrogant
Well I do not know about a “coup” by the Guardian ..?
Someone had to say something ..
As for McDonnell’s “They existed and were serious.” referring to complaints regarding antisemitism – it depends how this is quantified? Certainly there were some complaints of a serious nature which were upheld and the members were expelled. However there were a relatively small number of them and I think this is agreed by most? In addition some members walked away because they WERE guilty and some walked because although not guilty they sadly felt they would not get justice. Regarding the latter It seems it is time to look again at the complaints procedure – taking into account the investigation by Starmer and Rayner and of course the report by EHRC.
NB I see that McDonnell modified his comments somewhat between the Sky interview and the Guardian article.
Sir Keir Starmer was very impressive during his first PMQ session.
I am so glad that he is our leader and have never supported Corbyn whose PMQs were similar to those you would hear at a callow youth convention !
With Sir Keir as leader we will win the next election, reverse austerity and create a panacea
John McDonnell is part of the problem he called it wrong
Try this
BBC has a serious paedophile problem
Discuss
Asa Winstanley
Nails it in his Electronic Intifada article, the authors of the report were looking for evidence that there were serious cases
What we dont know is were any of the complaints lost, if not then they have now been dealt with and we know the extent of the problem 0.1%
My biggest worry at the moment is that all of the evidence is preserved for future investigations and research
Doug ..
What we do know is that there was a large backlog to deal with – and that was well known at the time and discussed. Some of the serious cases were dealt with – but whether some were overlooked is uncertain. I suppose it depends if the person who complained originally – followed it up?
In addition to those who were expelled – were some who walked away*** – and these were listed separately. I remember that Jenny Formby provided a list of all of these numbers a year or so ago.
An account of the backlog , how it was tackled, the numbers involved etc was provided by Barry Gardner on (I think?) “Sophy Ridge on Sunday” program on Sky News.
Thank you for pointing us to the Intifada article – which I will look up.
*** Of course those who walked away could have done so for many reasons and included those who were guilty and those who were innocent and decided they would not get justice.
JVL web editor’s comment:
The exchange between Alan Howard and Gary Lorimer is hereby discontinued. Could commentators try to establish broad principles of agreement and/or disagreemdnt and not impugn each others’ motives.
If anyone believes someone is not posting in good faith please contact JVL web directly. Do not attempt to argue it out in these comments pages.
The Labour traitors are now threatening to sue because their actions have been made public. They are represented by the infamous Mark Lewis.