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The Owen Jones Podcast

Damning Truth About Labour Revealed By Martin Forde KC

The Owen Jones Podcast

Owen Jones

Politics, Government, News & Politics, News

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2023

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After the leaked Labour report revealed damning truths about the behaviour of the party's Right, Keir Starmer commissioned leading barrister Martin Forde to conduct a report. Some - myself included - feared a whitewash: but the conclusions were damning, including on factionalism and perceptions of a hierarchy of racism. But Labour have almost entirely failed to engage with Forde over his report - and now he's broken his silence.


We speak to Richard Sanders - one of the makers of Al Jazeera's 'Labour Files' - and award winning investigative journalist Peter Oborne.


Please read alongside this episode:


In July 2020, the Labour party apologised 'unreservedly' and paid a six figure sum to 7 former Labour employees and the BBC journalist who made the 2019 Panorama programme 'Is Labour Anti-Semitic'.


Labour said: 'The Labour party is here today to publicly set the record straight, and to apologise to the claimants for the distress and embarrassment it has caused them.'


To the BBC journalist: 'The defendant is here to set the record straight and to apologise unreservedly to Mr Ware.'


Al-Jazeera was also told: 'The BBC told us it stands by its reporting. John Ware said that he did not recognise Mr Forde's characterisation of his communications. He described Mr Forde's criticisms of Panorama as misleading and inaccurate. Mr Ware also said that Ben Westerman claimed that the 'are you from Israel' comment was made at the end of his meeting with Rica Bird and was not therefore recorded.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The Ford Report is a damning set of conclusions

0:03.5

by a very, very prominent barrister,

0:05.9

a leading barrister, Martin Ford KC.

0:08.9

He was commissioned by Keir Starmer,

0:11.0

not long after it became leader of the Labour Party in 2020,

0:14.2

over a report, a leaked report,

0:17.8

which was compiled by Labour staffers

0:19.8

based on what sat's messages of senior Labour Party officials,

0:24.0

which revealed a very damning culture within the Labour Party.

0:27.6

Now, the Ford Report hasn't had the scrutiny,

0:31.4

the media coverage that it deserves.

0:33.3

There has been an exception to that.

0:34.7

Al Jazeera commissioned a brilliant investigative series,

0:38.1

called The Labour Files,

0:39.4

which investigated what those files uncovered.

0:43.0

Now, Martin Ford has broken his silence over that.

0:46.6

He's given it an interview to Al Jazeera about the report,

0:51.6

and about the failure of the Labour Party

0:53.9

to engage with the findings of his very, very damning report.

0:58.7

Now, I think this has big, big, wider questions,

1:02.5

which need answering, not just about the internal culture of the Labour Party,

1:05.0

but there's a lot about our democracy.

...

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