The Labour Party outsources its duty of care to betting billionaires — with help from Capita!
It was 11.10pm when I got the call. The voice on the other end of the line was a trained counsellor called Emma.
I quickly assured her that I did not have — and had not had — any suicidal thoughts. But I was very distressed.
Emma was responding to a telephone call I had made a few hours earlier to a call-handler, who took down my brief details: I told him I was a Labour Party member who had been suspended for 16 months, because of a still-unspecified allegation by a still-unnamed complainant; I was getting increasingly angry about the actions — inactions! — of Labour Party apparatchiks
The call-handler promised someone would be in touch.
In my ongoing Kafka-esque nightmare, the final straw had come when I was accused — libellously, erroneously, even accidentally — of being an anti-semite, by Euan Philipps, the chair of Tonbridge and Malling Constituency Labour Party who masquerades behind a number of online personae and is spokesperson for the self-styled Labour Against Anti-Semitism (LAAS, @LabourAgainstAS).
The libellous tweet was quickly deleted, but not before it unleashed a torrent of abuse from Mr Philipps and his “dog-piling” vigilantes, many of whom I learned later were not even members of the Labour Party and many, insofar as it is relevant, were not Jewish. One leading member of the Jewish Labour Movement, using a fake identity on Facebook, threatened to “get” me and give me “a taste of your own medicine”.
I was more angry than worried. In a Fleet Street career, I have been quizzed by masked IRA men at a funeral on the Ardoyne estate in north Belfast, held by armed soldiers when working undercover in Nigeria, and exposed various violent criminals, including the records of fascist National Front candidates at local elections in the 1990s.
I have nothing to fear from anonymous cowards who hide in the shadows and shallows of social media, no matter how malevolent and malicious they dare to be. From afar, and anonymously. Of course!
All of the above abuse coincided precisely with the shocking news that Carl Sargeant, the former Welsh cabinet minister, had been found dead, within days of being suspended by the Labour Party following unspecified allegations by unnamed complainants about his personal conduct.
It was swiftly followed by a successful attempt to steal thousands of pounds from my bank account by fraudsters who then went on to “blag” bank staff into replacing my mobile telephone number with their own. As a result, when my bank’s fraud investigators tried to get in touch with me, they were telephoning the culprits.
A coincidence, I’m sure. I try to convince myself. I do not want to fuel further abuse from diehard anti-Corbyn activists who cry “conspiracy theory” in response to anyone trying to explain how they have been chewed up in the Labour Party machine.
Let me also be clear: I did not — and do not — want sympathy. There are far more vulnerable people than me out there who have had their lives turned upside down by the Labour Party’s arcane, long-broken disciplinary processes. There are people who have tried to kill themselves, lost their jobs, lost their faith.
What I — and countless others — want is justice: independent, transparent, speedy, and natural. Pretty much like the Chakrabarti Report recommended in June 2016, four months before I was suspended.
So what was I to do?
I complained about Mr Philipps to the secretary of Tonbridge and Malling CLP and copied-in Amy Fode, the Labour Party’s regional director, who said she could do nothing, because I had complained the local party. (In fact, the CLP secretary said my initial email had lain unseen in her junk mail folder; after retrieving it, she subsequently said she could not entertain a complaint from a member of another CLP; she said she was acting after taking advice...from Ms Fode.)
When I threatened to sue, Mr Philipps — who has since admitted he is behind LAAS — accused me of harassment and said the lawyer he had on tap was the renowned Mark Lewis — he of anti-Murdoch phone-hacking fame.
Mr Lewis (@MLewisLawyer), of Seddon Solicitors — a fierce Zionist who has just helped re-launch Herut UK, the political Zionist party affiliated to World Herut in Israel — told me he was working on “a no-win, no-fee” basis, with the warning that he would seek a “success fee” from me if any libel case by me failed. Nice!
With Christmas approaching, I wrote to Ms Fode, after she had failed to reply to my telephone messages:
“Shortly after some of those involved in the libellous abuse threatened to “give me a taste of my own medicine”, my bank account was compromised and more than £2,000 fraudulently removed. The bank’s fraud department and the police are now involved.
“Even though this may turn out to be unconnected to the abusers, you can only imagine how this has added to my distress at this difficult time for me.”
This is what Ms Fode said, in her three-paragraph reply:
“With regards to your distress we have a confidential support number available to you. The helpline (08000 30 51 82) is available 24 hours a day and can offer you confidential counselling and support. This services is provided by an external organisation and not run by Labour Party staff.”
And that’s why Emma called me at 11.10pm one night in November last year.
Because the Labour Party has outsourced its duty of care to an external organisation!
Emma was a trained counsellor. She listened sympathetically; in a gentle and caring conversation, she agreed my situation would be eased if the Ms Fode did her job, if the Labour Party machine did not grind so slowly, if Iain McNicol resigned.
Well, that’s what I took away from the conversation!
Emma said the call would be logged as relating to the Labour Party and reported as an anonymous statistic in a six-monthly report to the party. No specific action would be taken. By anybody. But please, she said, call back if my distress increased.
But what was this external organisation?
Emma told me she worked for Health Assured, a “workplace health and wellbeing provider: www.healthassured.org.
A quick Google search revealed Health Assured had acquired an employee assistance business — formerly known as First Assist, in 2015. From Capita!
That’s right, from Capita — not a company known for sharing Labour values. To say the least.
And who owns Health Assured? Peter Done, one of two billionaire brothers; his sibling is Fred Done, owner of BetFred, one of the most famous gambling companies in the United Kingdom.
Peter Done was a director of BetFred for three years to March 2006, when he pursued his other business interests. (A quick thought: I wonder how many Labour Party staff or members have been directed to Health Assured because of gambling difficulties.)
Meanwhile, what of Mr Philipps?
He is a senior marketing manager with an energy company in London. How does he have time, you may ask — given he seems to spend almost all day every day cultivating one of at least eight different online personae, spreading abuse and unsubstantiated smears that serve only to bring the Labour Party into disrepute and disrupting the lives of ordinary party members whose only crime is often to support Palestine and criticise Israel. Or know somebody who does.
What I haven’t mentioned is that several people who “follow” me on Twitter also got caught in the crossfire of the “dogpilers” — helped by those who “like” and retweet” their poisonous nonsense.
In my own city, Councillor Julie Cattell (@cooljool80), a Labour councillor representing a ward adjacent to mine, is a fervent “liker” and “retweeter” of Mr Philipps and his gang. (Please note: in common with my other worst critics, even she has never, to my knowledge, called me an antisemite!)
One of those who got a taste of this poison was Chris Williamson, Labour MP for Derby North, the guest at tonight’s Momentum Brighton & Hove meeting. It will be good to meet him for the first time, since he publicly praised my “important” blogpost exposing Mr Philipps and his fellow dogpilers. He paid a price, but he is used to that. Like me, he won’t be deterred.
So what is to be done? And how many more lives have to be ruined by Mr Philipps and his ilk?
Should I ask Ms Fode? Or Emma?
No, the answer is that all of us — unafraid, unbowed, unceasing, and with the support of our comrades — should continue to campaign against the suspension and expulsion of party members for political reasons, and for the full implementation of the Chakrabarti Report.
