The Labour Party’s talent for making a crisis into a no-holds-barred disaster manifested itself again last week, when an event designed to whitewash the party’s reputation for anti-Semitism instead intensified accusations against it.
The launch of Shami Chakrabarti’s report into Labour’s alleged culture of Jew-hatred was partly marred by Corbyn glibly equating the state of Israel with ISIS – but also by a distasteful tirade which reduced a Jewish Labour MP to tears.
At the centre of the crisis is journalist (for the Guardian, but still) Marc Wadsworth, who accused Ruth Smeeth of plotting against Corbyn with the Daily Telegraph.
During a rant delivered via microphone, Ms Smeeth broke down and walked out of the room in disgust.
Jeremy Corbyn was watching events unfold from his pedestal, but did nothing to intervene.
Footage unearthed by Guido Fawkes later shows Mr Corbyn joking with Wadsworth after the event ended.
He made clear the two are close – saying he sent Wadsworth texts earlier that day – and seems to listen eagerly to Wadsworth’s theory about Smeeth and the “Torygraph”.
Despite the fact that the party leader clearly had no problem with Wadsworth, he was kicked out of Labour later that day:
It has been widely reported that Wadsworth is a member of the Corbynite pressure group Momentum, who have been rallying around their leader and organising demonstrations to protect him from a coup by hostile MPs.
Specifically, he seems to belong to Momentum Black Connexions, a sub-group of the movement.
He is at least the second member of the group to be punished by Labour, after Marlene Ellis was suspended for embroiling herself in the Ken Livingstone anti-Semitism row. The group later compared her treatment to the Salem witch trials.
However, when we pressed Momentum on Wadsworth’s actions, the group immediately disowned him – while still claiming that he would be punished.
A statement given to Heat Street said: “Momentum is aware of an incident that occurred at this morning’s launch event for the Chakrabarti Report into antisemitism and racism within the Labour Party.
“Following complaints, Momentum is investigating an individual, who is not a Momentum member, for possible breaches of our Momentum Code of Ethics.”
Wadsworth, then, appears to occupy a Momentum hinterland, where he is linked to them but provides plausible deniability when doing anything particularly unpleasant.
Smacking of the same treatment Labour dealt alleged anti-Semites before – suspensions followed by soft punishments or absolution – the incident appears to be another instance of the party sweeping bad behaviour under the rug.