Thursday, July 23, 2020
Civil war?
Just when Labour thought it had started to put its anti-Semitism problem behind it, Jeremy Corbyn pops up and throws a spanner in the works.
The Guardian says that Labour’s decision to pay a six-figure libel settlement to ex-staffers who claimed the party was failing to deal with antisemitism has plunged the party back into civil war, with Jeremy Corbyn publicly condemning his successor’s decision to settle the case:
Corbyn’s statement caused astonishment among the litigants in the libel action, with the Panorama journalist John Ware confirming to the Guardian that he was “consulting his lawyers” and raising the prospect of another costly court battle over Labour and antisemitism.
Corbyn said he was disappointed by the settlement brokered under Keir Starmer, calling it a “political decision” against legal advice, and said the decision “risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle antisemitism in the Labour party in recent years.”
The former leader, who is believed to have considered a court challenge to the settlement along with senior allies, said the party had received legal advice that it would win the libel case brought by the seven ex-staffers and the journalist who made the BBC Panorama programme on which they appeared.
The ex-staff members alleged senior figures in the party minimised and interfered with attempts to deal with antisemitism complaints about party members. They sued the party for defamation after Labour spokespeople described them as having “political axes to grind,” suggesting they had acted in bad faith, and said Ware had conducted “deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public”.
Is this civil war? I would suggest it is a skirmish at best, but unless Starmer is going to throw Corbyn out of the party altogether then he may have many more such confrontations to come.
The Guardian says that Labour’s decision to pay a six-figure libel settlement to ex-staffers who claimed the party was failing to deal with antisemitism has plunged the party back into civil war, with Jeremy Corbyn publicly condemning his successor’s decision to settle the case:
Corbyn’s statement caused astonishment among the litigants in the libel action, with the Panorama journalist John Ware confirming to the Guardian that he was “consulting his lawyers” and raising the prospect of another costly court battle over Labour and antisemitism.
Corbyn said he was disappointed by the settlement brokered under Keir Starmer, calling it a “political decision” against legal advice, and said the decision “risks giving credibility to misleading and inaccurate allegations about action taken to tackle antisemitism in the Labour party in recent years.”
The former leader, who is believed to have considered a court challenge to the settlement along with senior allies, said the party had received legal advice that it would win the libel case brought by the seven ex-staffers and the journalist who made the BBC Panorama programme on which they appeared.
The ex-staff members alleged senior figures in the party minimised and interfered with attempts to deal with antisemitism complaints about party members. They sued the party for defamation after Labour spokespeople described them as having “political axes to grind,” suggesting they had acted in bad faith, and said Ware had conducted “deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public”.
Is this civil war? I would suggest it is a skirmish at best, but unless Starmer is going to throw Corbyn out of the party altogether then he may have many more such confrontations to come.
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A split in Labour may be inevitable but it will leave 2 parties on the left which splits the vote and weakens the opposition to Tories in the next election.
In the meantime we are involved in an election of our own that could obliterate our own personality of a party that stands seperate from the other 2. We must ensure we can come thru the middle or build an alliance with others.
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In the meantime we are involved in an election of our own that could obliterate our own personality of a party that stands seperate from the other 2. We must ensure we can come thru the middle or build an alliance with others.
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