Exclusive: Labour lawyers decide an 860-page dossier on failures to handle AS complaints, compiled in last months of Corbyn's leadership, should not be sent to the EHRC.
Some close to Mr. Corbyn are furious, with one saying: "the truth must come out"
news.sky.com/story/labour-a…
Some close to Mr. Corbyn are furious, with one saying: "the truth must come out"
news.sky.com/story/labour-a…
The vast document, which pulls togther 10k internal staff emails & thousands of leaked staff whatsapp messages, concludes factional hostility towards Corbyn amongst former senior officials contributed to “a litany of mistakes” that hindered effective handling of AS complaints 
The whatsapp messages, which the report claims were leaked to the investigation by one of the group's members, show the private conversations of senior party managers & staff in Labour's Southside HQ during the time of Lord McNicol's tenure as general secretary - they reveal:
The report criticises a large number of former senior officials & claims their actions reflected animosity towards Corbyn. These include Iain McNicol himself as well as fmr head of disputes Sam Matthews - both of whom gave testimony to last year's highly-critical Panorama on AS
A Labour party spokesperson confirmed the document had not been sent to the equalities watchdog. It's understood it was considered out of the scope of the EHRC investigation into institutional racism and should instead be used to enhance the party's own understanding
However, those familiar with the commissioning & drafting of the report insist it was always intended as an 'appendix' submission to provide context to the EHRC given the factional backdrop at the top of the party before Jennie Formby became General Secretary in feb 2018.
Indeed, the report specifically urges the EHRC to “question the validity of the personal testimonies” of former members of staff and to “focus instead on the documentary, primary-source evidence that the Party has made available”
A source who worked in a senior position in Jeremy Corbyn's office told me the report indicated the leadership had been "sabotaged"
In response to the allegations made in the report, Lord McNicol said it was "telling that the Party's own lawyers appear to have ruled that this information was unsuitable for submission to the the EHRC's ongoing investigation"
In response to the allegations made against him, Sam Matthews said the report was "an effort by a disgruntled faction who are floundering in their attempts to blame others in order to distract from matters that will be investigated by the EHRC":
For clarity, in case people misreading this - the Labour Party has made a number of submissions to the EHRC investigation into institutional racism, it’s just that this particular document won’t be one of them (despite the intentions of its authors that it would be)
For the few people I see claiming this report backs up any suggestion there was a ‘witch hunt’, I’ll point you to this bit of the dossier - “the report’s findings prove the scale of the problem, and could help end the denialism amongst some part of the Party membership”
