Labour is seeking to delay until after the general election a court case against five former staff alleging they leaked a report concerned with the party’s handling of antisemitism complaints, as its costs were said to have apparently soared to £1.4m.
The lawsuit concerns the 2020 leak of an 860-page document that claimed factional hostility towards Jeremy Corbyn contributed to the party’s ineffective handling of such complaints.
Proposing a trial date no earlier than 28 February 2025, almost five years after the leak, the party has claimed it would be “unfair and inappropriate” to have to go to trial while it runs a general election campaign.
But the alleged leakers, who deny responsibility, have suggested Labour wants the delay to avoid “embarrassing or uncomfortable” publicity during the election period. In their skeleton argument, for a hearing that took place on Tuesday, they said Labour had already spent £1.397m on the case and is proposing to spend a further £868,000.
The report, which leaked days after Keir Starmer became leader, was compiled in connection with an investigation by the equalities watchdog into allegations of antisemitism within Labour.
It included details of staffers’ private conversations expressing antagonism towards Corbyn and his allies and bemoaning Labour’s better than expected performance in the 2017 general election, and racist and sexist WhatsApp messages.
Nine people who were identified in the report as having made complaints about antisemitism began legal action against Labour for failure to protect their data and invasion of privacy. Labour then brought a case against the five alleged leakers – Corbyn’s former chief of staff Karie Murphy, his former director of communications Seumas Milne, Georgie Robertson, Laura Murray and Harry Hayball.
Three independent investigations – one by the Information Commissioner’s Office and two commissioned by Labour – were unable to establish the source of the leak.
The nine claimants recently discontinued legal proceedings against Labour but the party is maintaining its action against the alleged leakers, while requesting a delayed timetable.
In written arguments, Anya Proops KC, acting for the party, said: “It would be unfair and inappropriate to contrive matters in this litigation so that in effect [Labour] was having to contend with preparing for/running a trial at the same time as it was running a general election campaign.”
The five former staff oppose Labour’s proposed timetable and say it was previously agreed that the nine-day trial would take place either towards the end of summer next year or at the beginning of autumn.
Their lawyer, Jacob Dean, said in written arguments that they “have a justifiable and well-grounded concern that [Labour’s] wish to postpone the claim until after the election is in fact heavily influenced by a desire to avoid, during an election period, litigation which will bring the Labour party into the public eye in ways it might find embarrassing or uncomfortable, but which it has chosen to bring.”
To illustrate the effects of such a delay he read extracts from witness statements provided by Robertson and Hayball.
Robertson said: “Having the false allegations that the party makes in this claim hanging over me is taking a significant toll. My priority now is to see these proceedings through to their conclusion so that my reputation can be restored, and I can move on with my life.”
Hayball said the suggestion by Labour that he and the other alleged leakers would not suffer prejudice from the proposed delay “beggars belief, and betrays a remarkable lack of empathy or understanding on the part of the party for the toll which this matter is taking on me”.
