Starmer changes course on leaked Labour party report

New Labour party leader, Keir Starmer, has sent out conflicting messages on a leaked report which documents internal party plotting against former party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

On the one hand Starmer has called for an enquiry into the contents of the leaked report, but on the other he appears overly keen to protect Labour elements identified in the report as complicit in wide-ranging schemes and plots against former leader Corbyn.

The 860-page report was essentially a review into the Labour party’s governance and legal unit from 2014 to 2019.

The report was intended as an annex to Labour’s contribution to an inquiry by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s human rights watchdog, into the party’s handling of anti-Semitism complaints.

The production of the report was overseen by the Labour party’s General Secretary, the veteran trade unionist, Jennie Formby.

The report was leaked to the media after party lawyers tried to prevent it from being forwarded to the EHRC arguing it was inconsistent with the latter’s investigatory terms and references.

Divisions and factionalism   

Whilst the report documents extensive division and factionalism within Labour, the most important revelation centers on a plot by anti-corbyn party officials to deliberately mismanage the anti-Semitism complaints process with a view to derailing Corbyn’s leadership.

The leaked report appears to confirm in painstaking detail that suspected cases of anti-Semitism were exploited by Labour head office staff to try to undermine Corbyn’s leadership and by extension to create the conditions for his ouster.

To give an idea of the deep research that went into the report, writers were given access to approximately 100,000 emails of Labour HQ staff in addition to copious amounts of WhatsApp conversation histories.

Explosive contents 

The contents make for interesting reading, as senior Labour staffers were not only subverting the anti-Semitism complaints process but more broadly they appeared to be plotting to sabotage their own party’s prospects in the June 2017 general election.  

Starmer initially ordered an enquiry into the contents of the leaked report on the grounds that the revelations “raised serious concerns”.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is a leaked report into what was apparently happening before I became leader. I was shocked by what I saw and the circumstance in which it all came about”.

“That’s why I have ordered an inquiry, which I want to be professionally done, independently done and quickly done”, Starmer added.

Starmer U-turn 

But Starmer appears to have changed course very quickly as his latest stance on the leaked report is suggestive of a cover-up, or failing that a desire to sweep the whole episode under the carpet, as opposed to properly investigating the report’s findings.

In a joint statement, Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, claimed they had asked for “immediate sight” of any “legal advice” the Labour party has received about the leaked report.

“In the meantime, we ask everyone concerned to refrain from drawing conclusions before the investigation is complete and we will be asking the general secretary to put measures in place to protect the welfare of party members and party staff who are concerned or affected by this report", Starmer and Rayner added.

The “affected” party members are presumably the same ones that the report had identified as plotting and scheming against their former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

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