London: Labour leader Keir Starmer and his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn are on course for an ugly public showdown following an unprecedented admission that the party had defamed a prominent BBC journalist and seven staffers who blew the whistle on anti-Semitism.
Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions who took over after the opposition’s thumping 2019 election defeat, on Wednesday declared Labour was “under new management” amid the escalating clash with Corbyn and his hard-Left supporters.
Earlier, Labour revealed it would pay damages to seven former staffers who broke non-disclosure agreements to appear on the BBC’s Panorama program to raise serious concerns over how the party handled complaints about anti-Semitic conduct.
Labour released a statement before the episode went to air in mid-2019 labelling the whistleblowers “disaffected former staff” with “personal and political axes to grind”.
Labour also attacked Panorama journalist John Ware before and after the episode, accusing the journalist of “deliberate and malicious misrepresentations designed to mislead the public”.
The party on Wednesday said it would pay damages and court costs – estimated to total more than £600,000 ($1 million) – to Ware and the former staffers of Labour’s governance and legal unit who had all launched legal action.
Labour agreed each claimant had been defamed in the Corbyn-era attempt to discredit them and minimise the impact of the Panorama expose. It also read out a lengthy statement to the High Court apologising for the affair.
Read the article in The Sydney Morning Herald.