Appendix

“I’ve been overwhelmed by a tsunami of support since my indefinite expulsion from the Labour Party on Friday, 25 April 2018. People are outraged by the injustice. Chris Williamson MP has described the punishment as a “perverse” and “predetermined decision”. Labour frontbencher Clive Lewis said widely available video evidence did not justify me being expelled. Both politicians were among the prominent people who provided witness statements in my defence. Yet these were ignored by the disciplinary panel. New party general secretary Jennie Formby has said the process used by the National Constitutional Committee to hear the case is not fit for purpose. These would appear to be solid grounds for a legal challenge, which is my last resort because Labour does not allow an appeal.”  —  Marc Wadsworth (28 April 2018)

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Marc Wadsworth on the Labour Party witch-hunt, Episode 606 of Going Underground with Afshin Rattansi.  (7 May 2018)

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“Marc Wadsworth himself is the object of a massive injustice, wrongly accused of a hate crime he did not commit, allegedly directed at a female Jewish MP. To compound the irony, the incident in question occurred at the launch in 2016 of a major report into racism in the Labour Party.”

“The response of Ruth Smeeth [you can hear it in the video] “How dare you. How absolutely dare you” brings to mind racist white southern US supremacists and their attitude towards Black people, similarly those that regard themselves as members of a superior ‘class’ talking down to working people. The video also shows that the media’s reporting of her leaving the meeting ‘in tears’ is a fabrication, it can be seen that she looks around to get the reaction of those around her, and only THEN stages her walk-out.”  —  Jan Brooker

“Even if we accept that what Mr Wadsworth said was an Anti-Semitic “trope” – and frankly, it’s a stretch – it’s self evidently only anti-Semitic if he knows the person he is talking about is Jewish, which Wadsworth clearly didn’t in that he had to ask the Telegraph journalist who she was. Let’s step back and look at what happens here. At a press conference to launch a report on racism a black person and a white person have an altercation. The white person then puts out a press release falsely accusing the black person of referring to a “media conspiracy” – words Wadsworth never used. Despite the fact the exchange is caught on camera, the vast bulk of the media unquestioningly report her version of events, many of them reporting Wadsworth’s “anti-Semitism” as fact rather than opinion. They dwell at great length on Smeeth supposedly being reduced to tears. By contrast, in much of the initial reporting Wadsworth wasn’t even given a name!!  For the sake of an easy life (presumably – it can’t possibly be based on the evidence) the Labour Party then finds the black person guilty of bringing the party into disrepute and expels him.  If we are in the business of digging out racism under every stone and behind every carelessly worded comment – might I suggest it’s staring us in the face here?!”  —  Richard Sanders

“I have a much more personal reason for being so dismayed, no, that’s not strong enough, distraught is the word that I think captures my feelings more. It’s simply unconscionable that people with whom I would once have happily identified have behaved in such a despicable way, fellow Jews misappropriating the word antisemitism, potentially debasing and devaluing valid accusations in cases where it does occur, emptying terms of all authentic signification.  I remain contentedly identified as Jewish, culturally, ethnically, if not religiously, but I couldn’t identify with a Jewish community that so allows its spokespersons to seemingly endorse the false claims of Israeli government mouthpieces that Israel somehow speaks and acts in the name of all Jews everywhere, not just Israeli Jews. That would be wrong in itself, but it goes deeper than that, because it’s very difficult to blame some people, who might not be all that well-informed about these issues, when they take an Israeli government at its word. How can we be surprised, must less indignant, when they falsely blame all Jews for Israel’s crimes?”   —  Brian Robinson

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Rumours that Ruth Smeeth was furious a black female MP had more abuse than her may not be so far fetched?

“Recent studies question whether attacks on Corbyn supporters were ever justified / Alan Maddison

In a recently published study by the Community Security Trust charity, it was revealed that for the whole UK, over a 12 month period (from October 2015 to October 2016), there were 2.7 million tweets concerning Jews, of which only 15,575 (0.6%) were considered to be antisemitic. The authors found this low proportion rather reassuring.

This CST study covered the period in which Ruth Smeeth MP claimed that, since the Chakrabarti press conference on 30th June 2016, she herself had received 25,000 abusive messages, mostly on twitter, with 20,000 of these sent over a single 12-hour period. Following this announcement Smeeth was quoted widely in the press as having said this abuse was being done in Corbyn’s name and that the Labour Party under Corbyn was no longer ‘a safe space for British Jews’.

The subsequent wide media coverage gives the clear impression that this abuse was mostly antisemitic, perpetrated by Corbyn supporters and that such behaviour had become ‘normal’ under Corbyn’s leadership.

The problem is that such a large number of antisemitic tweets, allegedly received by Smeeth, were not picked up in the CST survey which ran throughout that period. In fact the maximum peaks the CST team found were around 200 antisemitic tweets a day, and that was for the whole UK. This is a huge difference and needs to be investigated by the Labour Party.

While it is possible that not all of Smeeth’s tweets included the antisemitic key words used in the CST search, it seems unlikely that less than 1% of them did.

This CST survey is not the only prospective study into on-line abuse that raises questions about Smeeth’s previous claim about abuse becoming ‘normalised’ in Labour under Corbyn’s leadership. There are two more.

In one of these prospective surveys, by Liam Mcloughlin and Stephen Ward of Salford University, on-line abuse was tracked in 573 MPs, for over 10 weeks from 14th November 2016 to 28th January 2017. Their results showed that MPs received a total of 4761 abusive tweets and that of the top 50, Corbyn and his supporting MPs had received more abuse than Labour MPs who had opposed him. In addition, those MPs who did not appear in the list of the top 50, including Smeeth, would have therefore received less than 50 abusive tweets over the whole 10 week period.

In a second prospective study published by Azmina Dhrodia for Amnesty, on-line abuse was tracked for 177 female MPs over the 6 month period from 1st January to 1st June 2017. Of the total of 900223 tweets received in total, 25658 (2.85%) were judged abusive.

Below are the top five women MPs receiving the most on-line abuse. Over the 6 months period there were two Corbyn-supporting MP victims in this top 5 group, with Diane Abbott getting around 8 times more abuse than the other four as illustrated below.

Once more Ruth Smeeth did not appear in the top group for abuse, which in this study would mean she had received fewer than 5 abusive tweets on average each day over this 6 months period.

Yet again, in this study Corbyn supporters received far more abuse than others, both over the full 6 months period, and in the last 8 weeks run-up to the General Election, when Jess Phillips dropped out of the top 5 to be replaced by another Corbyn supporter Angela Rayner.

Diane Abbott, who had never previously complained to the media much about her abuse and death threats, received 8,121 abusive tweets over this full 6-month period – almost eight times more than any other female MP. Yet this exceptional number was still well below the 20,000 claimed by Smeeth over a period of just 12 hours.

The serious discrepancy between Ruth Smeeth’s allegations, and the findings of these three prospective studies, does raise very important questions for the Labour Party, given the obvious damage caused to its reputation.

With the national media coverage obtained, Smeeth’s repeated criticism of Corbyn, and his supporters, backed up by these on-line abuse allegations, has clearly contributed to tarnishing the image of the Labour Party, its leader and its members. In one survey on voting intentions, one in three people questioned said they would hesitate to vote Labour because of its perceived problem with antisemitism. So Labour’s electoral chances also seemed to have been damaged by such allegations of antisemitism coming from Smeeth – and a number of others. This despite the fact that the Home Affairs Select Committee, in their report into antisemitism (October 2016), stated that they could find no convincing evidence that antisemitism was more prevalent in the Labour Party than in other political parties.

Smeeth is reported to have spoken at a Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) meeting at the Labour Party Conference in September 2017, about the need to ‘break and destroy’ the leaders of this alleged Labour Party antisemitism. Rather than improving, the atmosphere generated seems to be even more toxic and divisive than in 2016. Such words as ‘break and destroy’ could be taken as an incitement to violence against fellow Labour members. At the very best it is loose language that should be strongly discouraged. This would not be the first time though. Ella Rose, the Director of the JLM, was filmed threatening to physically attack the anti-racist supporter of Palestinian human rights, Jacqueline Walker. These threats from a member of the JLM, an affiliate to the Labour Party, are obviously unacceptable and should not be ignored.

Sadly some abusive behaviour, including that motivated by antisemitism, exists across society and all political parties. It is offensive and intimidating and it needs to be tackled in an intelligent manner. But there is no justification for allegations that abusive behaviour, or antisemitism, being more prevalent amongst Corbyn supporters than other Labour members, or indeed the general population. The allegation that most of Smeeth’s abusive messages were sent by Corbyn supporters is very serious and needs to be investigated.

Implementing wide-ranging anti-racist training sessions, which would include antisemitism, could clearly provide a constructive approach. But equally clearly, the politicised sessions – currently proposed and run by the JLM – are not appropriate.

Such education should not be limited to Labour Party members, as there is no convincing evidence to support Smeeth’s implications that they have a “particular” problem with antisemitism or racism, nor that Corbyn’s Labour is “not a safe space for British Jews”. In fact, Corbyn-supporting MPs received more abuse than MPs opposed to him in both studies, which suggest more abuse is coming from groups other than Corbyn supporters, who indeed, based on these studies, have been unfairly demonised.

Given the serious electoral and reputational consequences for the Labour Party, its leader, and indeed the possible impact on millions of Labour voters too, it is important that the Labour Party undertake a full and urgent investigation into the 25000 abusive messages that Ruth Smeeth reported, and her related criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.” (28 February 2018)

“Ruth Smeeth has lied about the number and originators of abusive tweets she received and has intentionally damaged the party’s electorion chances and reputation.”  —  Miriam Yagud

Marc Wadsworth had been volunteering as Momentum Black Connexions‘s media officer and handing out their press release.

The ‘Labour Antisemitism Crisis’ revisited: Ruth Smeeth and Marc Wadsworth #ItWasAScam / Simon Maginn (16 March 2023)