On April 12^th, a substantial report detailing internal sabotage from within the United Kingdom’s Labour party was leaked to Sky News. The conspirators’ actions play into a larger picture of mass media bias, smear campaigns and breaches of political protocol which have hobbled Labour campaigns for years.

Viewed as a whole, these events paint a grim portrait of how the British democratic process has been subverted to maintain a status quo of stark inequality.

The ‘Labour Leaks’ Report:

The report, which spans 860 pages, describes an “abnormal intensity of factional opposition” to party leader Jeremy Corbyn, which it says, “inhibited the proper functioning of the Labour party bureaucracy.” Evidence takes the form of caches of WhatsApp conversations from secret groups within the party as well as over 10,000 emails. The Labour Party has confirmed the document as genuine, although the full version remains unreleased. It is unclear who commissioned or compiled the document.

Unless otherwise attributed, the following quotations are lifted from the report – which several news agencies have seen in full.

The leaked communications reveal a widespread plot where senior Labour members used party resources “to undermine the party’s objectives.” Funds were strategically channeled to right-wing candidates, specifically those in key seats, to counter the party’s leftward shift. Information was deliberately withheld from key party members, including details of budgets to avoid revealing the scale of tactically misspent funds.

One exchange reads: “We need to stop digital campaign budgets going to [left-wing senior staff member] for approval, he can’t see what we are doing with digital spend.” Even when not engaged in active sabotage, members gloat about “coming into the office and doing nothing for a few months.”

Members of the WhatsApp groups engaged in “bashing trots,” a process where left-wing members of the party were identified and excluded from information and processes.

Further disturbing revelations include slews of derogatory sexist comments made by senior members towards female staff, as well as death wishes aimed at a young Labour activist. Also detailed are ‘jokes’ about “hanging and burning” Corbyn and declarations that a staff member cheering his speech “should be shot.”

In 2017, when the exit poll showed a Labour majority, one senior member complained it was the “opposite to what I had been working towards for the last couple of years.”

Labour won 40% of the popular vote in 2017, which left them less than 2,500 votes short of forming a government. This slim margin highlights exactly how dramatic the results of this sabotage may have been.

John Taylor, a member of the left-wing national coordinating group Momentum, mourned how “a Labour government could have revived crucial public services […] and saved lives by giving our NHS the resources it needs.” This final point is especially poignant, considering the current struggles of the Conservative-neglected National Health Service (NHS) to deal with the U.K.’s coronavirus outbreak.

The leaked report alleges to have begun as an investigation into the claims of antisemitism which have plagued the party in recent years. However, it found “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion.”

Instead, the report claims a lack of “processes, systems, training, education and effective line management” as a result of the “hyper-factional atmosphere” led to insufficient “handling of disciplinary complaints.”

However, the positive potential of this verdict was undermined by the decision of party lawyers not to release the report to the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Labour MP Charlotte Nichols correctly called for transparency, stating: “Jewish members have a right to know what has happened and to see the evidence.”

A thorough investigation must now take place into all aspects of the allegations.

The Precedent of Media Bias:

It is difficult to ignore how neatly this internal sabotage fits into the unprecedented nexus of forces which acted to prevent the election of Corbyn’s Labour.

Accusations have been leveled at a staggering spread of British media outlets for their coverage of Labour in recent years. Those accused include organisations like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who are supposedly committed to objective and unbiased reporting.

Jewish academic Justin Schlosberg recently began crowdfunding for an investigation into Ofcom’s decision not to investigate complaints about the BBC’s Panorama program entitled Is Labour Antisemitic? The show received over 1,500 complaints across a two-week period, accusing it of bias attacks on Corbyn. It was the third edition of Panorama since 2015 wholly focused on criticism of Corbyn’s leadership. Schlosberg is keen to highlight what he sees as “gross breaches of the BBC’s legal commitment to due impartiality and due accuracy rules.”

There are many more examples of BBC bias accusations. In 2018, Jolyon Maugham – director of the Good Law Project and one of Britain’s leading barristers – claimed to have evidence that the BBC had used “coded negative imagery” in its representations of Corbyn since his election in 2015.

In 2017, the Independent reported on the precedent of high-ranking roles in the BBC being appointed by Conservative officials. The article also describes how right or centre-right political journalists on the BBC were subject to “a two-to-one bias” over left-wing representatives, in terms of air-time representation.

BBC coverage of the recent leaked Labour report continues this trend. Reports from the outlet downplay or outright omit the shocking details of misogyny, threats and misused funds – instead spinning the report as a distraction from antisemitic accusations.

When we leave the supposedly ‘unbiased’ territory of the BBC, things are even worse. A 2016 report by the Independent found that 75% of press coverage factually misrepresented Corbyn. Ridicule, speculation and character assassination were published in a way that made them seem like hard facts. Publications like The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express and The Sun associated Corbyn with terrorism in “between 15 and 20 per cent” of their articles. The image of Corbyn as a terrorist sympathizer was cultivated through sensationalism, selective reporting and uncontextualized quotations.

The Independent’s report also identified “popular mantras repeated over and over again” which would come to define the ex-Labour leader’s public perception. These were “that he is unelectable, that his ideas are unrealistic and loony, and that he is unpatriotic.” In hindsight, it is easy to see how public discourse around Corbyn mirrored these parroted talking points. It begs the question, if Corbyn were so “unelectable,” then why was the propaganda machine working so tirelessly to discredit him?

The picture becomes even more dismal in 2018, when leaked documents passed to the Sunday Mail revealed the Conservative government’s secret publicly funded smear campaign. The operation – ironically nicknamed the ‘Integrity Initiative’ – used £2,000,000 of tax-payer money to fund social media campaigns and attacks on Corbyn’s Labour. The secretive info-wars unit represented a serious breach of political protocol, misuse of public funds and a demonstration of Conservative willingness to use underhanded tactics to maintain power.

Overall, the majority of Britain’s press represents a right-wing propaganda machine. Ownership of outlets is concentrated in the hands of a small number of corporate billionaires. It is easy to see why these publications tried so hard to discredit Corbyn – their owners had a vested stake in protecting the status quo and preventing the progressive social equalization embodied by Corbyn.

The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times are all owned by Rupert Murdoch (net worth $15.9 billion USD), who also owned the American propaganda nightmare Fox News until 2019. Jonathon Harmsworth (net worth $1.1 billion USD) owns The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, The i and The Metro. The Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers (combined net worth $5.9 billion USD.) The list goes on.

These billionaire media barons were directly threatened by Corbyn’s plans to fund progressive social policies by increasing taxes on the ultra-rich and preventing tax avoidance. Their vast control of the British mediascape allowed them to exert massive political influence and monopolize voter opinions. A report by the Media Reform Coalition in 2019 showed how just three companies dominated “83% of the national newspaper market.” Until something is done about this concentration of power, the U.K.’s political landscape will continue to be undermined by propaganda, special interests and polarization.

Conclusion:

All of this is not to undermine the seriousness antisemitism allegations. Credence should be paid to accusations of any kind of discrimination by any political party. However, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson is on record as describing black people as “picaninnies” with “watermelon smiles,” Muslim women as “looking like letter boxes” and gay men as “tank-topped bum boys.”

Compare this to Corbyn, an international peace prize winner and documented anti-racist campaigner. The media raged ceaselessly about allegations of antisemitism, while his opposition shrugged off proven scandals of racism, Islamophobia and homophobia. That progressives were put off Labour while this information was freely available is a testament to Britain’s propaganda machine.

While this may simply seem like bitter idolization of a fallen political figurehead, it is not. It is a mourning of the hope Corbyn represented. U.K. politics has shifted dramatically to the right over the years. For many, Corbyn’s Labour represented the first trustworthy opportunity for a movement towards equality and fairness over austerity and neo-liberalism.

Labour’s 2019 manifesto committed itself to green environmental policies, rejuvenated public services and a commitment to tackling entrenched poverty and inequality. Over a decade of Conservative rule has left a legacy of childhood poverty at 34%, record levels of homelessness despite dramatic under-reporting and sky-rocketing food bank usage as more and more families fall through the cracks of increasingly cruel benefit system. Now the novel coronavirus has revealed the devastation dealt to the NHS at the hands of Conservative under-funding, wage-freezes and attempts to remove student bursary funding.

But even from a wholly objective viewpoint, in an apolitical vacuum, the findings of this report should be frightening. What does it mean for a functioning democracy when a party has to fight not only their opposition, but also the combined might of the mainstream media – including those institutions duty-bound to non-partisanship – as well as secret political projects funded with tax-paper money and deliberate sabotage from high within the ranks of their own party?

In 2017, despite these united forces, Corbyn’s Labour was less than 2,500 votes from forming a government. It is hard to imagine a Conservative victory, had there been anything that resembled a level playing field.