In one respect, the BBC Panorama’s biased programme ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’ actually did a very good job: It vividly exposed how politically biased those employed to implement the disciplinary process in the Labour Party have been when making their decisions.
Most of the ex-staffers interviewed by the programme were hired by former general secretary and virulent anti-Corbyn right-winger Iain McNicol, who himself was given the job by Tony Blair. Dan Hogan for example was employed by McNicol in 2016, at the height of the first coup against Corbyn. He acted as ‘investigating officer’ on many cases that led to good comrades being expelled from the party. He now says in an interview with the ‘i’ newspaper: “Yes, I have a political axe to grind in that I don’t want the Labour Party to be run by anti-Semites.”
The Labour Party press office is of course spot on when it describes Hogan and others as “disaffected former officials” and “who have always opposed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, worked to actively undermine it and have both personal and political axes to grind. This throws into doubt their credibility as sources.”
But it does much more than that: it puts into doubt every single disciplinary case that was prepared by these Blairites. These include the high-profile cases of Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Marc Wadsworth (and many hundreds more). These comrades are clearly victims of the anti-Corbyn witch-hunt and were expelled on the weakest of evidence, in a highly politicised and biased disciplinary process lacking any kind of natural justice.
We demand that all cases processed and prepared by staffers employed under Iain McNicol are reopened and that the comrades in question are immediately reinstated!
Please also check out the excellent statement by our comrades of Jewish Voice for Labour: https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/statement/bbc-panoramas-is-labour-antisemitic/
