According to the Al Jazeera program, “operatives secretly took control” of the Labour Party covertly to obstruct Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
The three-part “The Labour Files: The Purge” series premieres ahead of Labour’s annual party conference, which starts on Saturday in Liverpool.It is based on “the largest leak in British political history,” according to the Qatari-owned outlet, which includes 500 gigabytes of Labour Party documents, emails, video, and audio files spanning the years 1998 to 2021.
The information “shows how top officials in one of the two parties of government in the UK staged a coup by stealth against the elected head of the party,” according to the statement.
The study, according to the statement, “shows how officials set about silencing, excluding, and expelling its own members in a merciless attempt to damage the chances of Jeremy Corbyn, the party’s elected leader, becoming Britain’s prime minister.”
The movie also demonstrated how “citizenship organisations were suspended and candidates for crucial political positions were banned as the party’s central office moved to dominate the elected leadership.”
Prior to his election as party leader in September 2015, riding a wave of public dissatisfaction against the political establishment, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s leader from 2015 to 2020, was a relatively obscure figure in British politics.
The movie reveals, however, that the Labour Party was experiencing internal bureaucracy-related unrest, which sparked conflicts about who would rule the party going forward: the left-wing “Corbynites” or the pre-2015 centrists.
Iain McNicol, the party’s general secretary since 2011, was in charge of that bureaucracy at the time. The documentary demonstrates how the party resisted following Mr. Corbyn’s political agenda before he was replaced by Jennie Formby in 2018.
According to the documents Al Jazeera was able to collect, Mr. Corbyn’s followers were falsely accused of engaging in abusive behaviour and reported to the Governance and Legal Unit (GLU), which is in charge of the party’s disciplinary procedure. The accusations alleged anti-Semitism and homophobia, and they attempted to have them removed from the celebration.
Numerous times, Constituency Labour Parties (CLP), the party’s local affiliates, were suspended, prohibiting local members from having Labour Party meetings. In other instances, certain members of the party were suspended or expelled on disputed reasons.
Following the party’s defeat in the general election in December of that year, Mr. Corbyn resigned as leader. Keir Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions in Britain, took over as leader in April of the following year.
Soon after, Ms. Formby left her position as general secretary as well. David Evans took her place. According to Al Jazeera, the stolen documents show that he “has maintained the McNicol-era antagonism against left-wing members of the party.”
Officials from the Labour Party who spoke with Al Jazeera claimed that they had always followed the law, party regulations, their job descriptions, and appropriate criteria of proportionality.
The outlet also stated that its investigation unit would be releasing a number of reports on the leaked files over the course of the upcoming week.
According to the Qatari-owned channel, its newest movie investigates internal paperwork, emails, and social media posts that show “how top officials in one of the two government parties in the UK attempted a coup by stealth against the elected leader of the party.”
This included how “candidates for key political roles were blocked and constituency groups suspended as the party’s central office sought to control the elected leadership,” it said, adding that the program “showed how officials set about silencing, excluding and expelling its own members in a ruthless campaign to destroy the chances of Jeremy Corbyn becoming Britain’s prime minister.”
The video contains what appears to be an effort to smear Ella Rose, a former president of the Union of Jewish Students who also served as director of the Jewish Labour Movement from 2016 to 2018 and one of several prominent figures under Mr. Corbyn who denounced anti-Semitism. She appears to be joking in the videos that Jackie Walker, a pro-Corbyn MP, might “take” her since “she’s just 5’2′ and little.”
She continues by saying that a vague “they” “can go die in a hole.”
Then it is revealed that Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a freshly elected NEC member who has subsequently been expelled from the party for appearing at an event hosted by a banned organisation, called Ms. Rose’s remarks “smug.”
Another witness who claims he was falsely accused of antisemitism is Damian McCarthy, a former social media officer for Labour’s Hove seat.
The movie also shows footage of Pamela Fitzpatrick, a councillor for Harrow, disputing accusations of anti-Semitism after she came under fire for spreading social media messages that refuted Mr. Corbyn’s leadership was plagued by anti-Semitism.
The movie also shows footage of Pamela Fitzpatrick, a councillor for Harrow, disputing accusations of anti-Semitism after she came under fire for spreading social media messages that refuted Mr. Corbyn’s leadership was plagued by anti-Semitism.
A state-funded mouthpiece from Qatar employing significant resources to spread Corbynista misinformation while also charging Israel with meddling in UK politics, according to freelance investigative journalist David Collier, is a true irony.
Al-Jazeera “cherry-picks” material that is only partially accessible in order to foster a sense of secret conspiracies and establishment power, which they then use to support well-known antisemitic stereotypes, feeding the very antisemitism they claim to be against.
“The only outcome of this propaganda effort will be a rise in hatred directed at the exact individuals who were Jeremy Corbyn’s actual victims during his tenure in office. Jews and those who supported them. However, it’s possible that this is their final resort.
An ex-employee of the Israeli embassy and other UK Zionist activists filed complaints with Ofcom in 2017 about the Al Jazeera documentary “The Lobby,” which focused on alleged Israeli influence in UK politics. They said the movie was antisemitic and had problems with editing, prejudice, and invasions of privacy. The media watchdog, nevertheless, dismissed the accusations.
