Thread by @alexnunns

The real story of what happened with @JessicaLBarnard yesterday is incredible.

The party said she was sent a notice of investigation “in error”. That was mocked—how do you investigate someone & send them an intimidating letter at 1 am by mistake? But it was actually true. >

True in the sense that it was done completely outside the official processes in what must count as the definition of bringing the party into disrepute.

First, the context: Young Labour is a thorn in the side of the leadership, a left-wing outpost in the party. The leaderhship's plan is to revive Labour Students (traditionally a right-wing part of the party) to displace Young Labour.

There’s a concerted campaign against Young Labour and its chair Jess originating from within the party, It's the usual recipe: bureaucratic obstruction with coordinated attacks from the media and smears (alleging they want a second Holocaust—can’t get more grotesque than that).

Labour’s bureaucracy has been sabotaging Young Labour’s program for conference. Jess exposed it on Twitter. That didn’t go down well. Someone at a senior level in the party wanted to punish her for her insubordination and stop her speaking at conference.

That’s why she was sent a notice of investigation. But something was amiss. The notice was emailed at 1 am. The charges were not only baseless, they were ridiculous—under investigation for opposing transphobic abuse.

It made the party look bigoted and sent a message to trans people that they can’t be defended or protected in the Labour Party. It was a disgrace. When it was exposed the party quickly rescinded the investigation and apologised to Jess. It was highly embarrassing for them.

So what happened? From talking to several people in Labour I have a good idea. First, this wasn’t done by the disciplinary team, the Governance and Legal Unit. Any investigation would have to be carried out and signed off by GLU. This one wasn’t. It didn’t actually exist.

There was no investigation. Someone recycled an old vexatious complaint that GLU had previously dismissed. Jess was sent essentially a fake notice of investigation that bypassed the system—except it was sent from the official address in the standard format on headed paper.

Reportedly it was sent by one of the insecure & inexperienced agency staff brought in to work on complaints while the party was making permanent staff redundant—a great advert for hiring cheap labour from the party of labour.

But an agency worker didn’t spontaneously decide to do such a weird thing at 1 am. They were directed to do it. Who by?

It wasn’t David Evans. He demanded to know why a notice had been sent at 1 am. It wasn’t GLU.

It was someone else senior enough to be able to get agency staff to do their bidding in the middle of the night. Someone who has got it in for Jess. Someone with an interest in disrupting Jess’ and Young Labour’s conference. People within the organisation will know who it was.

The trouble is, they did such a shoddy job. Fine if it stays secret—Labour tells people under investigation they can’t speak about it. But once Owen Jones tweeted an email leaked from the NEC and questions were asked, Labour couldn’t answer—cos it wasn’t a real investigation.

They also had to respond to a furious letter from Jess’ very committed lawyer. So the thing fell apart immediately and they unreservedly apologised, rightly.

This all made Labour’s disciplinary system look like an amateur, shoddy, factional, petty, chaotic mess. You might say that’s what it is. But the managers of GLU must be furious.

The EHRC report last year said complaints must not only be “handled in a fair, impartial and transparent way” but must be “perceived to be” handled as such. What happened to Jess blows that apart. It showed the complaints system to be polluted.

The director of GLU and the executive director who oversees it, if they have any professionalism, will be demanding an investigation and consequences for the person who made them look so corrupted.

Someone at the top of Labour was willing to bring the whole weight of the party’s machinery down on a young, working class woman. There’s a word for that: bullying.

But what about a bureaucracy where this can happen & where no one will likely be held to account? It’s rotten.