Labour legal threat against black author of THEIR OWN racism inquiry?

Right, so the Forde Report, the KC led inquiry into the findings of a leaked report on bullying, harassment, and racism in the Labour Party did not deliver the results Keir Starmer and his team desired. The leaking of the report commissioned under Corbyn’s leadership by then General Secretary Jennie Formby blew open a litany of racism and abuse and whilst Starmer has spent the last several years fixated on who leaked that report, which he had demanded by shelved, only in the last few weeks finally giving up after blowing more than £2.4m in Labour Party funding, membership dues wasted, when the bigger point to anyone not a complete sociopath, should have been the contents of that 860 page report showing systemic issues with Labour’s factionalism and control freak right wing. Regardless of Starmer’s preferred fixation though, the report contents demanded an investigation and he was forced to commission what became known as the Forde Report, a KC led inquiry into the harassment and racism exposed in the earlier report and upon the findings of that report not being what Starmer wanted to hear either, that was shelved and allegedly not acted upon. Well now it turns out that ignoring the report was one thing, but Labour’s ongoing treatment of Martin Forde, the author of the report bearing his name, has been the subject of legal threats over his findings and being black himself, it seems his report has only been proven all the more true when it comes to Labour’s hierarchy of racism.
Right, so the Forde Report is back in the news and this is never a good thing for Keir Starmer. Forde’s inquiry, a thorough and comprehensive investigation off the back of previously made allegations of racism, misogyny, bullying, intimidation and harassment, detailing who conducted themselves in such an appalling manner, right down to WhatsApps from the period coming to light against various individuals, perhaps the best known being Diane Abbott and who behind the scenes of the Labour Party machine was making them, staff members and people in positions of influence.
Keir Starmer was forced into commissioning this report, after the initial expose, the Labour Leaks report commissioned by former General Secretary Jennie Formby as it was after that was leaked, shortly after Starmer became Labour leader. People demanded an explanation and Starmer really hoped that the Forde Report would exonerate his faction and place the blame where he wanted it, on the rotten lefties he had pretended to be one of, to get into the position he conned his way into as hindsight and 10 abandoned leadership pledges has demonstrated.
The Forde Report didn’t do that though. 165 recommendations for the Labour Party, changes that it needed to make were outlined, to end what the report called a hierarchy of racism, including use of blind CV’s when it came to recruitment, so discrimination based on race might not happen – an example of one recommendation Labour admits to not having implemented, though has claimed to have implemented 154 of those 165 recommendations.
It's treatment of Forde himself though means taking Labour’s word for this is challenging and I certainly don’t buy it.
The report was not received favourably. The media also completely ignored Forde when his report came out in 2022, after several delays and once it did come out it wasn’t hard to see why that was.
Starmer allegedly banned his MPs from being able to speak to Forde, requests to meet with Forde by members of Labour’s National Executive Committee were blocked as this excerpt from the Independent interviewing NEC member Mish Rahman talking about a letter Forde was sent, which I’ll come on to in a moment, explains:
‘Mish Rahman, a member of Labour’s national executive committee (NEC), told The Independent he was disappointed by the letter to Mr Forde.
“This legal threat from the Labour Party to Mr Forde is consistent with the behaviour of Starmer’s Labour Party, which is intent on cracking down on any dissent or criticism rather than the actual perpetrators of racism,” said Mr Rahman.
“We also saw this in the party’s pursuit of those it believed had leaked evidence of racism, and its defence of those who had made racist and bigoted comments.”
Mr Rahman claimed that Mr Forde had been invited to attend NEC meetings on several occasions, but that Sir Keir and his general secretary had refused to allow it.
He said: “As a member, I received countless correspondence from members about the delayed Forde report into racism in the party. It is now clear as day that Forde was suppressed by Labour’s leadership, and that they have attempted to cover up the report’s disgraceful findings by stopping Forde from meeting the NEC.
“Under Keir’s leadership, the party operates a hierarchy of racism, where it doesn't take anti-Black racism and Islamophobia seriously, and instead punishes those like Martin Forde KC and Faiza Shaheen, who bring evidence of racism to light.
“The irony and double standards are astoundingly laid bare.”’
Legal threats Damo? What’s gone on here? Well following the mainstream media completely ignoring this hierarchy of racism that a respected King’s Counsel had exposed within the Labour Party, Al Jazeera Investigations added an extra episode to their well respected and in fact award winning docu-series The Labour Files, where they sat down with Martin Forde and he was finally able to give his opinion on his own report and he spoke of being blocked and the lack of engagement with him and his recommendations his report, barring actual debate at Labour’s top table on what are incredibly serious matters but which Labour largely disputed. Of particular note was Forde’s criticism of Labour’s handling of antisemitism, the epitome of that hierarchy of racism, since Labour put allegations of antisemitism before other forms of racism, and Forde himself described the antisemitism training provided by Labour, via their chosen faction, the Jewish Labour Movement, calling the training they provided ‘largely didactic, top-down and one-dimensional.’
It was following this program, that it has now emerged Labour made legal threats to Forde for going public and talking about the hierarchy of racism he found in the Labour Party and where it came from. Wll Labour weren’t talking to him and if this is a party that wants to take power and run the country, if it has inherent issues with racism, with weaponising it, with not treating all forms of racism as equally awful, then we the voting public, need to know that.
Instead, following that Al Jazeera Investigations episode being broadcast in March 2023, Labour sent Forde a legal letter, basically accusing him of having acted against the party’s interests and that they were considering all legal options. Lawyers apparently accused Forde of having made ‘extensive negative and highly prejudicial comments,’ because overseeing a hierarchy of racism isn’t prejudiced at all then I suppose? After ignoring Forde, it seemed like they were considering suing him for finding uncomfortable facts about them out! Nothing quite screams we’re implementing recommendations like sending out legal letters against the bloke who happened to point them out and when you refused to engage with him or discuss these matters, when he takes up an offer from a foreign based media outlet to talk about it, you can’t whinge about it later! You had your chance to engage with him and instead chose to ignore him! Here’s what he told the Independent:
‘Speaking to The Independent this week, the respected barrister said: “I don’t know if it was an attempt to silence me. I mean, they’ve couched it carefully along the lines of ‘We’re reminding you of your professional duties,’ which I found mildly irritating because I am a regulatory lawyer, and I don’t like my professionalism or ethics being questioned ... but I felt it was more.
He continued: “I’m a private individual; they can’t silence me. I fundamentally object to people saying to me, ‘You don’t know how to behave as a professional.’ I’m afraid that Black professionals get it all the time.”’
The hierarchy of racism experienced in his professional life as a black barrister, a KC, I’d say equal to Starmer but frankly he’s better than that by a long shot in my view, not a high bar though I realise. But he’d know it when he saw arguably as well as anyone possibly could. Instead of taking him up on his report and his recommendations, Labour ignored him, only now as recently as January just gone announcing they’d implemented recommendations, but I’d want another Forde Report frankly to believe that. But not only did Labour ignore him, but when a media outlet gave him their attention, that then invited potential legal action against him. If this is supposed to make us think that Labour is truly dealing with it’s hierarchy of racism, threatening legal action against a black lawyer who carried out a report that they commissioned, that they didn’t like the findings of, just tells me it’s very much still going on.
Arguably no finer example of that continuing to this day has been the purging of so many ethnic minority Labour parliamentary candidates and the desertion of so many Muslim voters, Faiza Shaheen, the failed attempt to get rid of Diane Abbott, the excusing of conduct of right wing MPs from Steve Reed to Barry Sheerman, but Lisa Nandy had a go at Jewish Green Party candidate for Birkenhead, Jo Bird this week over alleged Green party antisemitism, because it’s being tried on with that party now too, weaponised once more, but attempting to goysplain antisemitism to a Jewish person ,when you aren’t Jewish yourself was not a good look for Nandy as this video recommendation will tell you all about and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.