Two JVL members to be sued for defamation by journalist John Ware in connection with Panorama expose of Labour antisemitism
John Ware, the maker of the BBC Panorama documentary “Is Labour Antisemitic”, is reportedly commencing legal proceedings against two members of the antisemitism-denial group and sham Jewish representative organisation, Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL).
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, one of the group’s founders, and web officer Richard Kuper, will join Jeremy Corbyn as defendants in separate libel actions by Mr Ware.
It is understood that the libel action concerns comments made by Ms Wimbourne-Idrissi on the radio, in which she claimed that Mr Ware allegedly had a “terrible record of Islamophobia, far-right politics” and that the BBC had in the past had to “apologise” for his journalism and discipline him. The claims were then repeated on the JVL website. Mr Ware denies the claims.
JVL confirmed they it was “defending” a libel action against two of its officers.
The programme, which was televised in July 2019, showed former Labour Party employees speaking out publicly to reveal Mr Corbyn’s personal meddling in disciplinary cases relating to antisemitism. The programme explained how senior Labour Party staffers, some of whom Campaign Against Antisemitism has known for years, used to run Labour’s disciplinary process independently, but soon after Mr Corbyn’s election as Party leader found themselves contending with his most senior aides, who were brazen in their efforts to subvert due process.
During the programme Labour’s press team made claims that the staffers featured had political axes to grind and lacked credibility, and the whistleblowers and Mr Ware commenced libel proceedings against the Labour Party.
Recently, the Labour Party reached a settlement with Mr Ware and the whistleblowers featured in the programme over alleged libels made by the Party during the show that questioned the motives of the claimants.
Mr Ware’s cases have been brought by Mark Lewis, a highly esteemed media lawyer who is also an honorary patron of Campaign Against Antisemitism.
On 28th May 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission launched a full statutory investigation into antisemitism in the Labour Party following a formal referral and detailed legal representations from Campaign Against Antisemitism, which is the complainant.
In the first release of its Antisemitism in Political Parties research, Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that Labour Party candidates for Parliament in the 2019 general election accounted for 82 percent of all incidents of antisemitic discourse by parliamentary candidates.
Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2019 showed that antisemitism on the far-left of British politics has surpassed that of the far-right.
Campaign Against Antisemitism advocates for zero tolerance of antisemitism in public life. To that end we monitor all political parties and strive to ensure that any cases of concern are properly addressed.
