Labour Factions 'Weaponised' Anti-Semitism Claims in Battle Over Corbyn Leadership, Report Says

Barrister Martin Forde's report detailed factional infighting in Labour, with the right controlling Party HQ and the left the Leader of the Opposition's Office, blaming both sides for the the public view that the party did not take accusations of anti-Semitism against members seriously.

Factions on the right and left of the Labour Party have been accused of "weaponising" anti-Semitism against each other during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

Barrister Martin Forde QC's long-delayed report into the 2019 leak of a previous previous report into anti-Semitism in the main opposition party was finally published on Tuesday.

That leak of selected passages detailed how a group of party officials conspired with the aim of throwing the 2017 snap general election, which saw Labour make enough gains to wipe out Conservative leader Theresa May's majority.

It also included records of messages in a WhatsApp group where party apparatchiks abused MPs and other senior figures close to Corbyn.

Forde's report detailed factional infighting in Labour, with the right controlling Party HQ and the left the Leader of the Opposition's officer (LOTO). It blamed both sides for the public perception that the party made light of accusations against members of anti-Semitism.

"The factions ended up in a cycle of attack and counterattack, with each side assuming that the other was acting in bad faith (sometimes justifiably, sometimes not) and responding in kind," the report read.

"Some anti-Corbyn elements of the party seized on antisemitism as a way to attack Jeremy Corbyn, and his supporters saw it simply as an attack on the leader and his faction – with both ‘sides’ thus weaponising the issue and failing to recognise the seriousness of antisemitism, its effect on Jewish communities and on the moral and political standing of the party," it found.

The inquiry heard from party staff who described how left-wing Corbyn supporters — often referred to as Trotskyites or "Trots" were targeted for trawls of their social media accounts looking for pretexts to expel them. They describe the process as “hunting out thousands of trots”, “trot busting”, “trot spotting”, “trot hunting” and "bellringing".

"I was advised that the bellringing was conducted by the ‘compliance’ unit and represented the successful suspension or expulsion of a member – often surrounded by the description of such members as ‘trots’," one staffer said.

The report also found that the hostile WhatsApp messages between staff included "overt and underlying racism and sexism". But it concluded that messages about Corbyn's shadow home secretary Dian Abbott "crying in the loos" were "clearly not literal” and “do not relate to real sightings of Diane Abbott".

Both left and right factions also "weaponised" recruitment to stuff party posts with supporters, regardless of their qualifications, Forde found.

"Recruitment practices were weaponised by both HQ and Loto in the relevant period … The effect was to entrench and exacerbate the divisions between the two camps," he wrote. "It also meant that people deemed factionally appropriate were routinely hired or promoted (by both sides) to roles for which they were not an ideal fit."

And the barrister lamented that key figures on both sides had declined to co-operate with his inquiry.

"Regrettably, certain prominent members of the party – including those central to the factual matrix – either declined to meet with the panel or failed to respond to our requests for evidence," he wrote. "Most notably … Jeremy Corbyn did not engage in our requests to interview him".

The former leader, stripped of the party whip and suspended by Starmer over his response to the 2020 Equalities and Human Rights Commission report into anti-Semitism claims against Labour, responded in a statement on Tuesday.

"My election as leader in 2015 was a major shock in British politics," the Islington North MP wrote. "Powerful groups in the party found that change hard to come to terms with. This led to a conflict in Labour that created a toxic environment, which the Forde Report lays bare."

"In any party there are groups and factions, but the resistance we were faced with went far beyond that. It included the secret diversion of campaign funds by senior HQ staff in the 2017 election, which Forde rightly condemns as 'unequivocally wrong'," Corbyn charged. "Whether or not that prevented the election of a Labour government, it was dishonest."

"The appalling behaviour that Forde calls out, including the repulsive racism and sexism shown to Diane Abbott and others, should have no place in a progressive party," he added. "Toxic factionalism is far from over — nor are persistent problems of racism and sexism — and action must be taken, as Forde makes clear."