Labour whistleblower settlement in High Court today

The Labour Party today agreed to pay ‘substantial damages’ to seven whistleblowers over ‘defamatory and false allegations’ made after a BBC probe into anti-Semitism.  

The move by Sir Keir Starmer’s party, which also apologised to the seven, is part of a settlement aimed at drawing a line under allegations made during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership that the party had allowed the overt hatred of Jewish people to fester.

The whistleblowers sued the party for defamation after a bombshell BBC Panorama investigation last year – and this was settled in the High Court this morning.

It comes nine days after Labour received a copy of a long-awaited report into whether it victimised Jews during the Corbyn years.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s draft conclusions have not yet been made public, but insiders expect them to be ‘damning’.

The watchdog said when it launched its official inquiry last May that it ‘suspected’ that Labour had committed ‘unlawful acts’ in its handling of its anti-Semitism crisis.

The BBC Panorama investigation, ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’ was screened in July last year and made a number of serious claims about the party’s internal culture for dealing with complaints of anti-Semitism.

In a statement when the programme was broadcast, a Labour spokesman – acting for Mr Corbyn – called the whistleblowers ‘disaffected former officials’ and said they had ‘worked actively to undermine’ the leader and had ‘both personal and political axes to grind’.

Both Mr Corbyn and the Momentum founder, Jon Lansman, also suggested in statements following the programme that it had a pre-determined outcome.

Following those statements, seven of the eight whistleblowers, who are all former Labour staffers, instructed the prominent media lawyer Mark Lewis to take action against the party.

They claimed senior figures had issued statements attacking their reputations and suggesting they had ulterior political and personal motives to undermine the party.

Among the former Labour staffers taking action were the former head of disputes Sam Matthews; the former head of compliance Mike Creighton; Dan Hogan, a former disputes team investigator; and Louise Withers Green, a former disputes officer.

Iain McNicol, the former general secretary who was the eighth interviewee on the programme, was not involved in the action.

Labour is expected to settle a separate case with the veteran journalist John Ware, who led the Panorama investigation and who sued over a statement by Labour that the BBC had engaged in ‘deliberate and malicious representations designed to mislead the public’ in its broadcast.

Ofcom rejected 28 complaints against the programme for alleged bias, concluding that the programme was ‘duly impartial’ and included the Labour party’s response prominently throughout.

Last month Sir Keir told his hard-left former leadership rival Rebecca Long-Bailey to resign after she retweeted an online interview which contained an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

There was fury over a passage in Maxine Peake’s offending article where the actress said the US police had learned the tactics that killed George Floyd from the Israel secret services.

A BBC spokesman said today: ‘The BBC will always support fair and impartial reporting, exposing wrongdoing and holding power to account. The Panorama programme did precisely that, but was subject to an extraordinary and vitriolic attack by the Labour Party.

‘We welcome today’s long overdue apology to John Ware and the seven Panorama whistleblowers, who have been subjected to painful and damaging personal attacks on their integrity and character.

‘We applaud their strength to take this case forward and are pleased it has been recognised in court that these extremely serious and damaging allegations against them were false and have been unreservedly withdrawn. ‘John Ware is a reporter with an extraordinary record of excellence at Panorama for investigative journalism in the public interest.’