I'm told Keir Starmer's Political Secretary Jenny Chapman told concerned MPs that this quote was taken from a legal letter and was not issued as a Labour comment. This is untrue. It was sent to us by Labour's Press office, not by the Party's lawyers. 1/4
The email referenced the lawyers as a third party, making it even clearer that the email was not from lawyers. I'm told that when Starmer's office was challenged on this, they changed their defence to say the email was specifically about 1 staff member, not a general comment. 2/4
Our questions were about one staff member, but the Party replied with a general comment about the WhatsApp groups. There was nothing to suggest it was anything other than official statement made on behalf of the party on the content of the WhatsApp groups as a whole. 3/4
If Starmer did want to make clear this statement does not reflect his or the party's position, he might have issued a public aplology, retraction and proper explanation as to how it was presented as such, instead of apparently misleading MPs as to the nature of the statement 4/4
