{"id":212032,"date":"2020-08-16T07:25:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T07:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212032"},"modified":"2020-08-17T06:03:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T06:03:16","slug":"how-the-guardian-betrayed-not-only-corbyn-but-the-last-vestiges-of-british-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212032","title":{"rendered":"How the Guardian Betrayed Not Only Corbyn But the Last Vestiges of British Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Jonathan Cook \u2013 The Unz Review Aug 10, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-212033\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"438\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed1.png 520w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed1-300x253.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It is simply astonishing that the first attempt by the Guardian \u2013 the only major British newspaper styling itself as on the liberal-left \u2013 to properly<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong> <a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2020\/aug\/07\/jeremy-corbyn-accuses-labour-officials-of-sabotaging-election-campaign\">examine<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the contents of a devastating internal Labour party report leaked in April is taking place nearly four months <em>after<\/em> the 860-page report first came to light.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If you are a Labour party member, the Guardian is the only \u201cserious\u201d, big-circulation paper claiming to represent your values and concerns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">One might therefore have assumed that anything that touches deeply on Labour party affairs \u2013 on issues of transparency and probity, on the subversion of the party\u2019s democratic structures, on abuses or fraud by its officials \u2013 would be of endless interest to the paper. One might have assumed it would wish both to dedicate significant resources to investigating such matters for itself and to air all sides of the ensuing debate to weigh their respective merits.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: Labour&#39;s explosive leaked report, showing how party officials plotted to destroy Corbyn, including by weaponising antisemitism, is being quietly swept under the carpet by the media and Labour&#39;s new leader Keir Starmer <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1m7WfRobhn\">https:\/\/t.co\/1m7WfRobhn<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1250712305677078529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 16, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Not a bit of it. For months, the leaked report and its implications have barely registered in the Guardian\u2019s pages. When they have, the <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2020\/apr\/12\/hostility-to-corbyn-curbed-labour-efforts-to-tackle-antisemitism-says-leaked-report\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>coverage<\/strong><\/span><\/a> has been superficial and largely one-sided \u2013 the side that is deeply hostile to its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That very much fits a pattern of coverage of the Corbyn years by the paper, as I have tried to <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/tag\/guardian\/\">document<\/a>. It echoes the paper\u2019s treatment of an earlier scandal, back in early 2017, when an undercover Al-Jazeera reporter filmed pro-Israel Labour activists working with the Israeli embassy to damage Corbyn from within. A series of shocking reports by Al-Jazeera merited minimal coverage from the Guardian at the time they were aired and then immediately sank without trace, as though they were of no relevance to later developments \u2013 most especially, of course, the claims by these same groups of a supposed \u201cantisemitism crisis\u201d in Labour.<\/span><\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ceCOhdgRBoc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8212;<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Sadly, the latest reports by the Guardian on the leaked report \u2013presented as an \u201cexclusive\u201d \u2013 do not fundamentally change its long-running approach.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Kicked into the long grass<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In fact, what the paper means by an \u201cexclusive\u201d is that it has seen documents responding to the leaked report that were submitted by Corbyn and his team to the Forde inquiry \u2013 Labour\u2019s official investigation into that report and the circumstances of its leaking. The deadline for submissions to Martin Forde QC arrived last week.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Setting up the Forde inquiry was the method by which Corbyn\u2019s successor, Keir Starmer, hoped to kick the leaked report into the long grass till next year. Doubtless Starmer believes that by then the report will be stale news and that he will have had time to purge from the party, or at least intimidate into silence, the most outspoken remnants of Corbyn\u2019s supporters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Corbyn\u2019s submission on the leaked report is an \u201cexclusive\u201d for the Guardian only because no one in the corporate media bothered till now to cover the debates raging in Labour since the leak four months ago. The arguments made by Corbyn and his supporters, so prominent on social media, have been entirely absent from the so-called \u201cmainstream\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">When Corbyn finally got a chance to air the issues raised by the leaked report in a series of articles on the Middle East Eye website, its <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/killing-jeremy-corbyn\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>coverage<\/strong><\/span><\/a> went viral, underscoring how much interest there is in this matter among Labour members.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Nonetheless, despite desperately needing clicks and revenue in this especially difficult time for the corporate media, the Guardian is still spurning revelatory accounts of Corbyn\u2019s time in office by his former team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">One published last week \u2013 disclosing that, after winning the leadership election, Corbyn arrived to find the leader\u2019s offices gutted, that Labour HQ staff refused to approve the hiring of even basic staff for him, and that disinformation was constantly leaked to the media \u2013 was relegated to the OpenDemocracy website.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Corbyn&#39;s team arrived to find the leadership&#39;s offices gutted, Labour HQ refused to approve the hiring of even basic staff, and disinformation was constantly leaked to the media.<\/p>\n<p>An insider recounts how the Blairites waged war on Corbyn from day one  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KCROnquXto\">https:\/\/t.co\/KCROnquXto<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1291758642476261382?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 7, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">That Joe Ryle, a Corbyn team insider, either could not find a home for his insights in the Guardian or didn\u2019t even try says it all \u2013 because much of the disinformation he laments being peddled to the media ended up in the Guardian, which was only too happy to amplify it as long as it was harming Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>A political coup<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Meanwhile, everything in the Guardian\u2019s latest \u201cexclusive\u201d confirms what has long been in the public realm, via the leaked report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Through its extensive documentation of WhatsApp messages and emails, the report shows conclusively that senior Labour officials who had dominated the party machine since the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown eras \u2013 and were still loyal to the party\u2019s centre-right incarnation as New Labour \u2013 worked at every turn to oust Corbyn from the leadership. They even tried to invent ways to bar him from standing in a rerun leadership election a year later, in 2016, after Owen Smith, the Labour right\u2019s preferred candidate, challenged him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Corbyn and his supporters were viewed as dangerous \u201cTrots\u201d \u2013 to use a derisive term that dominates those exchanges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The messages show these same officials did their level best to sabotage Labour\u2019s 2017 general election campaign \u2013 an election that Corbyn was less than 3,000 votes from winning. Party officials starved marginal seats Corbyn hoped to win of money and instead focused resources on MPs hostile to Corbyn. It seems they preferred a Tory win if it gave momentum to their efforts to rid the party of Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Or, as the submission <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2020\/aug\/07\/jeremy-corbyn-accuses-labour-officials-of-sabotaging-election-campaign\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>notes<\/strong><\/span><\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s not impossible that Jeremy Corbyn might now be in his third year as a Labour prime minister were it not for the unauthorised, unilateral action taken by a handful of senior party officials.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The exchanges in the report also show that these officials on the party\u2019s right privately gave voice to <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/inews.co.uk\/opinion\/leaked-labour-report-reveals-shocking-racism-sexism-black-mps-419969\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>horrifying racism<\/strong><\/span><\/a> towards other party members, especially black members of the party loyal to Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And the leaked report confirms the long-running claims of Corbyn and his team that the impression of \u201cinstitutional antisemitism\u201d in Labour \u2013 a narrative promoted in the corporate media without any actual <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jadaliyya.com\/Details\/41536\/Quick-Thoughts-Jamie-Stern-Weiner-on-Anti-Semitism-and-the-British-Labour-Party\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>evidence<\/strong><\/span><\/a> beyond the anecdotal \u2013 had been stoked by the party\u2019s rightwing, Blairite officials.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They appear to have delayed and obstructed the handling of the small number of antisemitism complaints \u2013 usually found by trawling through old social media posts \u2013 to embarrass Corbyn and make the \u201cantisemitism crisis\u201d narrative appear more credible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Corbyn\u2019s team have pointed out that these officials \u2013 whose salaries were paid by the membership, which elected Corbyn as party leader \u2013 cheated those members of their dues and their rights, as well as, of course, subverting the entire democratic process. The submission rightly asks the inquiry to consider whether the money spent by Labour officials to undermine Corbyn \u201cconstituted fraudulent activity\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">One might go even further and argue that what they did amounted to a political coup.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>The bogus \u2018whistleblower\u2019 narrative<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Even now, as the Guardian reports on Corbyn\u2019s submission to the Forde inquiry, it has downplayed the evidence underpinning his case, especially on the antisemitism issue \u2013 which the Guardian played such a key role in weaponising in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The paper\u2019s latest coverage treats the Corbyn \u201cclaims\u201d sceptically, as though the leaked report exists in a political vacuum and there are no other yardsticks by which the truth of its evidence or the plausibility of its claims can be measured.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Let\u2019s start with one illustrative matter. The Guardian, as with the rest of the corporate media, even now avoids drawing the most obvious conclusion from the leaked report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Racism was endemic in the language and behaviours of Labour\u2019s senior, rightwing officials, as shown time and again in the WhatsApp messages and emails.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And yet it is these very same officials \u2013 those who oversaw the complaints procedure as well as the organisation of party headquarters \u2013 who, according to the corporate media narrative, were so troubled by one specific kind of racism, antisemitism, that they turned it into the biggest, most enduring crisis facing Corbyn during his five-year tenure as leader.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">To accept the corporate media narrative on this supposed \u201cantisemitism crisis\u201d, we must ignore several things:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk\/article\/smoke-without-fire-the-myth-of-a-labour-antisemitism-crisis\/\">lack of any statistical evidence<\/a><\/strong><\/span> of a specific antisemitism problem in Labour;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">the vehement racism expressed by Labour officials, as well as their overt and abiding hostility to Corbyn;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">moves by party officials forcing Corbyn to accept a new <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.holocaustremembrance.com\/working-definition-antisemitism\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>definition of antisemitism<\/strong><\/span><\/a> that shifted the focus from a hatred of Jews to criticism of Israel;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">and the fact that the handling of antisemitism complaints <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk\/article\/antisemitism-no-justification-for-singling-out-labour\/\">dramatically improved<\/a><\/strong><\/span> once these rightwing officials were removed from their positions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">And yet in its latest reporting, as with its earlier coverage, the Guardian simply ignores all this confirmatory evidence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">There are several reasons for this, as I have documented before, but one very obvious one is this: the Guardian, like the rest of the British media, had worked hard to <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2019\/jul\/11\/labour-whistleblower-in-30-years-ill-be-very-proud-of-myself\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>present<\/strong><\/span><\/a> former officials on the right of the party as brave \u201cwhistleblowers\u201d long before they were exposed by the leaked report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-212037\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"460\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed2.jpg 520w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed2-300x265.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Like the BBC\u2019s <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/panoramas-hatchet-job-labour-antisemitism-bbc-has-become-pro-tory-media\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>much-criticised<\/strong><\/span><\/a> Panorama \u201cinvestigation\u201d last year into Labour\u2019s alleged \u201cantisemitism crisis\u201d, the Guardian took the claims of these former staff \u2013 of their supposed selfless sacrifice to save the party from anti-Jewish bigots \u2013 at face value.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: With last night&#39;s Panorama programme on supposed &#39;institutional anti-semitism&#39; in Labour, the BBC     demonstrated that it has become a media attack dog in the hands of the ruling Conservative party <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dSDaaLBY0S\">https:\/\/t.co\/dSDaaLBY0S<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1149367009219620865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 11, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In fact, it was likely even worse than that. The Guardian and BBC weren\u2019t just passive, neutral recipients of the disinformation offered by these supposed \u201cwhistleblowers\u201d. They shared the Labour right\u2019s deep antipathy to Corbyn and everything he stood for, and as a result almost certainly served as willing, even enthusiastic channels for that disinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Guardian hardly bothers to conceal where its sympathies lie. It continues to laud Blair from beyond the political grave and, while Corbyn was leader, gave him slots in its pages to regularly<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong> <a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2019\/dec\/18\/tony-blair-urges-labour-to-ditch-jeremy-corbyn-misguided-ideology\">lambast<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Corbyn and scaremonger about Labour\u2019s \u201ctakeover\u201d by the supposedly \u201cextreme\u201d and \u201chard\u201d left. The paper did so despite the fact that Blair had grown ever more discredited as evidence amassed that his actions in invading Iraq in 2003 were crimes against humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-212034\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"457\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed3.png 520w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Corbyn-betrayed3-300x264.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Were the Guardian to now question the narrative it promoted about Corbyn \u2013 a narrative demolished by the leaked report \u2013 the paper would have to admit several uncomfortable things:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">that for years it was either gulled by, or cooperated with, the Blairites\u2019 campaign of disinformation;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">that it took no serious steps to investigate the Labour right\u2019s claims or to find out for itself what was really going on in Labour HQ;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">that it avoided cultivating a relationship with Corbyn\u2019s team while he was in office that would have helped it to ascertain more effectively what was happening inside the party;<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">or that, if it did cultivate such a relationship (and, after all, Seumas Milne took up his post as Corbyn\u2019s chief adviser immediately after leaving the Guardian), it consistently and intentionally excluded the Corbyn team\u2019s account of events in its reporting.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">To now question the narrative it invested so much energy in crafting would risk Guardian readers drawing the most plausible conclusion for their paper\u2019s consistent reporting failures: that the Guardian was profoundly opposed to Corbyn becoming prime minister and allowed itself, along with the rest of the corporate media, to be used as channel for the Labour right\u2019s disinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Stabbed in the back<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">None of that has changed in the latest coverage of Corbyn\u2019s submission to Forde concerning the leaked report.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Guardian could not realistically ignore that submission by the party\u2019s former leader and his team. But the paper could \u2013 and does \u2013 strip out the context on which the submission was based so as not to undermine or discredit its previous reporting against Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Its main article on the Corbyn team\u2019s submission becomes a claim and counter-claim story, with an emphasis on an unnamed former official arguing that criticism of him and other former staff at Labour HQ is nothing more than a \u201cmythical \u2018stab in the back\u2019 conspiracy theory\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The problem is that there are acres of evidence in the leaked report that these officials <em>did<\/em> stab Corbyn and his team in the back \u2013 and, helpfully for the rest of us, recorded some of their subversive, anti-democratic activities in private internal correspondence between themselves. Anyone examining those message chains would find it hard not to conclude that these officials were actively plotting against Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">To discredit the Corbyn team\u2019s submission, the Labour right would need to show that these messages were invented. They don\u2019t try to do that because those messages are very obviously only too real.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Instead they have tried two different, inconsistent strategies. First, they have argued that their messages were presented in a way that was misleading or misrepresented what they said. This claim does not hold water, given that the leaked report includes very lengthy, back-and-forth exchanges between senior staff. The context of those exchanges is included \u2013 context the officials themselves provided in their messages to each other.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Second, the self-styled \u201cwhistleblowers\u201d now claim that publication of their messages \u2013 documenting efforts to undermine Corbyn \u2013 violates their right to privacy and breaches data protection laws. They can apparently see no public interest in publishing information that exposes their attempts to subvert the party\u2019s internal democratic processes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It seems that these \u201cwhistleblowers\u201d are more committed to data concealment than exposure \u2013 despite the title they have bestowed on themselves. This is a strange breed of whistleblower indeed, one that seeks to prevent transparency and accountability.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In a telling move, despite claiming that their messages have been misrepresented, these former officials want the Forde inquiry to be shut down rather than given the chance to investigate their claims and, assuming they are right, exonerate them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Further, they are trying to intimidate the party into abandoning the investigation by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2020\/aug\/06\/labour-report-misused-private-messages-portray-members-racist\">threatening to bankrupt<\/a><\/strong><\/span> it through legal actions for breaching their privacy. The last thing they appear to want is openness and a proper accounting of the Corbyn era.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Shrugging its shoulders<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In its latest reporting, the Guardian frames the leaked report as \u201cclearly intended to present a pro-Corbyn narrative for posterity\u201d \u2013 as though the antisemitism narrative the Guardian and the rest of the corporate media spent nearly five years crafting and promoting was not clearly intended to do the precise opposite: to present an anti-Corbyn narrative for posterity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Peter Walker, the paper\u2019s political correspondent,<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong> <a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2020\/aug\/07\/where-the-battle-lines-are-being-drawn-over-leaked-labour-report\">describes<\/a><\/strong><\/span> the messages of former, rightwing Labour officials as \u201cstraying\u201d into \u201capparent\u201d racism and misogyny, as though the relentless efforts revealed in these exchanges to damage and undermine prominent black MPs like Diane Abbott are open to a different interpretation.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Officials at the very top of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UKLabour?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@UKLabour<\/a> said stuff like \u201cAbbott is truly repulsive\u201d \u201cAbbott literally makes me sick\u201d and conspired with media against me. Now claiming remarks taken out of context. So let\u2019s have full publication of all communications <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LabourLeaks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LabourLeaks<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HackneyAbbott\/status\/1291637714132099072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 7, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">According to Walker, the report\u2019s evidence of election-scuppering in 2017 is \u201ccircumstantial\u201d and \u201cthere is seemingly no proof of active obstruction\u201d. Even assuming that were true, such a deficiency could easily be remedied had the Guardian, with all its staff and resources, made even the most cursory effort to investigate the leaked report\u2019s claims since April \u2013 or in the years before, when the Corbyn team were trying to counter the disinformation spread by the Labour right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Guardian largely shrugs its shoulders, repeatedly insinuating that all this constitutes little more than Labour playground bickering. Starmer is presented as school principal \u2013 the one responsible adult in the party \u2013 who, we are told, is \u201cno stranger to managing Labour factions\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Guardian ignores the enormous stakes in play both for Labour members who expected to be able to shape the party\u2019s future using its supposedly democratic processes and for the very functioning of British democracy itself. Because if the leaked report is right, the British political system looks deeply rigged: there to ensure that only the establishment-loving right and centre-right ever get to hold power.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Guardian\u2019s approach suggests that the paper has abdicated all responsibility for either doing real journalism on its Westminster doorstep or for acting as a watchdog on the British political system.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Guardian hypocrisy<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Typifying the hypocrisy of the Guardian and its continuing efforts to present itself a hapless bystander rather than <em>active<\/em> participant in efforts to disrupt the Labour party\u2019s internal democratic processes and sabotage the 2017 and 2019 elections is its lead columnist Jonathan Freedland.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Outside of the Guardian\u2019s editorials, Freedland\u2019s columns represent the closest we have to a window on the ideological soul of the paper. He is a barometer of the political mood there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Freedland was among the loudest and most hostile opponents of Corbyn throughout his time as leader. Freedland was also one of the chief purveyors and justifiers of the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/theguardian.fivefilters.org\/antisemitism\/\">fabled antisemitism narrative<\/a><\/strong><\/span> against Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">He, and the rightwing Jewish Chronicle he also writes for, gave these claims an official Jewish seal of approval. They trumpeted the narrow, self-serving perspective of Jewish organisations like the Board of Deputies, whose leaders are nowadays closely allied with the Conservative party.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">They amplified the bogus claims of the Jewish Labour Movement, a tiny, pro-Israel organisation inside Labour that was <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/electronicintifada.net\/blogs\/asa-winstanley\/jewish-labour-movement-was-refounded-fight-corbyn\">exposed<\/a> \u2013 though the Guardian, of course, never mentions it \u2013 as effectively an entryist group, and one working closely with the Israeli embassy, in that detailed undercover investigation filmed by Al-Jazeera.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Freedland and the Chronicle endlessly <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Freedland\/status\/1176236087649476608\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>derided<\/strong><\/span><\/a> Jewish groups that supported Corbyn, such as Jewish Voice for Labour, Just Jews and Jewdas, with antisemitic insinuations that they were the \u201cwrong kind of Jews\u201d. Freedland <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/2017-10-05\/labour-machover-expelled-anti-semitism\/\">argued<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that strenuous criticism of Israel was antisemitic <em>by definition<\/em> because Israel lay at the heart of any proper Jew\u2019s identity.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">New video from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/JustJews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#JustJews<\/a>: Jews have never spoken with just one voice. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BoardofDeputies?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BoardofDeputies<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/ManyJewishVoices?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#ManyJewishVoices<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KSpyy8Sqcw\">pic.twitter.com\/KSpyy8Sqcw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Just Jews (@JustJewsUK) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JustJewsUK\/status\/1291286040574074880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 6, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">It did not therefore matter whether critics could show that Israel was constitutionally racist \u2013 a state similar to apartheid South Africa \u2013 as many scholars have done. Freedland argued that Jews and Israel were all but indistinguishable, and to call Israel racist was to malign Jews who identified with it. (Apparently unaware of the Pandora\u2019s box such a conflation opened up, he rightly \u2013 if inconsistently \u2013 claimed that it was antisemitic for anyone to make the same argument in reverse: blaming Jews for Israel\u2019s actions.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Freedland <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2018\/jul\/27\/jewish-anger-labour-listen-antisemitism-opinion\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>pushed hard<\/strong><\/span><\/a> for Labour to be forced to adopt that new, troubling definition of antisemitism, produced by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, that shifted the focus away from hatred of Jews to criticism of Israel. Under this new definition, claims that Israel was \u201ca racist endeavour\u201d \u2013 a view <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/081223927X\/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0\">shared<\/a><\/strong><\/span> by some prominent Israeli scholars \u2013 was treated as definitive proof of antisemitism.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>One-party politics<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">If anyone gave the weaponisation of antisemitism against Corbyn an air of bipartisan respectability it was Freedland and his newspaper, the Guardian. They made sure Corbyn was hounded by the antisemitism claims while he was Labour leader, overshadowing everything else he did. That confected narrative neutralised his lifelong activism as an anti-racist, it polluted his claims to be a principled politician fighting for the underdog.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Freedland and the Guardian not only helped to breathe life into the antisemitism allegations but they made them sound credible to large sections of the Labour membership too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The rightwing media presented the Corbyn project as a traitorous, hard-left move, in cahoots with Putin\u2019s Russia, to undermine Britain. Meanwhile, Freedland and the Guardian destroyed Corbyn from his liberal-left flank by portraying him and his supporters as a mob of leftwing Nazis-in-waiting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Corbynism, in Freedland\u2019s telling, became a \u201csect\u201d, a cult of dangerous leftists divorced from political realities. And then, with astonishing chutzpah, Freedland blamed Corbyn\u2019s failure at the ballot box \u2013 a failure Freedland and the Guardian had helped to engineer \u2013 as a betrayal of the poor and the vulnerable.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This isn\u2019t just a defeat, it\u2019s a repudiation of Corbynism. Now Labour needs to ditch the politics of the sect. My column  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cV3LlRMyED\">https:\/\/t.co\/cV3LlRMyED<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Freedland\/status\/1205540540802097152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 13, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Remember, Corbyn lost by less than 3,000 votes in a handful of Labour marginals in 2017. Despite all this, Freedland and the Guardian now pretend that they played no role in destroying Corbyn, they behave as if their hands are clean.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">But Freedland\u2019s actions, like those of his newspaper, had one inevitable outcome. They ushered in the only alternative to Corbyn: a government of the hard right led by Boris Johnson.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Freedland\u2019s <em>choice<\/em> to assist Johnson by undermining Corbyn \u2013 and, worse, to do so on the basis of a disinformation campaign \u2013 makes him culpable, as it does the Guardian, in everything that flowed from his decision. But Freedland, like the Guardian, still pontificates on the horrors of the Johnson government, as if they share no blame for helping Johnson win power.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed4.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-212035\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed4.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"520\" height=\"330\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed4.png 520w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/corbyn-betrayed4-300x190.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 520px) 100vw, 520px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">In his latest column, Freedland <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #ccffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/aug\/07\/its-taken-just-12-months-for-boris-johnson-to-create-a-government-of-sleaze\">writes<\/a><\/strong><\/span>: \u201cThe guiding principle [of the Johnson government] seems to be brazen cronyism, coupled with the arrogance of those who believe they are untouchable and that rules are for little people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Why should the Tories under Johnson be so \u201carrogant\u201d, so sure they are \u201cuntouchable\u201d, that \u201crules are for little people\u201d, and that there is no political price to be paid for \u201ccronyism\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Might it not have much to do with seeing Freedland and the Guardian assist so willingly in the corporate media\u2019s efforts to destroy the only political alternative to \u201crule by the rich\u201d Toryism? Might the Johnson government have grown more confident knowing that the ostensibly liberal-left media were just as determined as the rightwing media to undermine the only politician on offer who stood for precisely the opposite political values they did?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Might it not reflect an understanding by Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, that Freedland and the Guardian have played a hugely significant part in ensuring that Britain effectively has a one-party state \u2013 and that when it returns to being a formal two-party state, as it seems to be doing once again now that Starmer is running the Labour party, both those parties will offer the same establishment-worshipping agenda, even if in two mildly different flavours?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Guardian, like the rest of the corporate media, has derided and vilified as \u201cpopulism\u201d the emergence of any real political alternative.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The leaked report offered a brief peek behind the curtain at how politics in Britain \u2013 and elsewhere \u2013 really works. It showed that, during Corbyn\u2019s time as leader, the political battle lines became intensely real. They were no longer the charade of a phoney fight between left and right, between Labour and Conservative.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Instead, the battle shifted to where it mattered, to where it might finally make change possible: for control of the Labour party so that it might really represent the poor and vulnerable against rule by the rich. Labour became the battleground, and the Guardian made all too clear where its true loyalties lie.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-175417\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2002\/10\/donate-pp.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"80\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unz.com\/jcook\/how-the-guardian-betrayed-not-only-corbyn-but-the-last-vestiges-of-british-democracy\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the liberal\/left media, in particular the Guardian and the BBC, was instrumental in ousting Jeremy Corbyn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies","category-The_Media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=212032"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212039,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212032\/revisions\/212039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}